Texas

On Sunday January 24^th my grandfather on my Dad’s side died from a heart attack.

So Tuesday the 26^th we flew to Amarillo, Texas for the funeral. They had it the next day. Almost all of our relatives on my Dad’s side were there except for my uncle and two of my cousin’s. We haven’t seen them in five years so it was a very bittersweet experience because we were happy to see everybody but not under the circumstances. We stayed in our grandmother’s house while we were there. I had a cold while we were there so I could not eat any sweets. My poor grandma.

Grandma Carolyn's dog, Dudley.

(Lol) I love the pig's eyes.

Face off. :D

Food?

At meal times he comes and begs for food. Grandma said that they did not teach him, that he did it when they first got him.

It started snowing Thursday. At first it was sleet, then it turned into snow.

Very long icicles.

When it stopped snowing there was ten inches of snow on the ground. The storm moved across the entire country to the east coast so a lot of people got snow. In the afternoon we went to my great-grandma’s house with our cousins and played in the snow. We had a snowball fight that was very fun. I threw a snowball so hard that I accidentally gave one of my cousins a big bruise (oops). Then we made a snowman.

My cousin Gracy.

"It's cold".

That's better.

The snowman that they built.

. My great-grandma likes to paint and do needle-point.

One needle-point.

One of the paintings.

From the left to right: my dad's sister April, my dad, and my dad's brother Jimmy (he wasn't there).

After that we went to my great-uncle’s house with my cousins.

My Great Aunt- Dana and my Great-Uncle Billy Krause. Uncle Billy has his own buisness. He does landscape installation(pools, trees) and landscape maintenance. He also LOVES the color red. Here is evidence.

The Krause family.

Back row left to right: Cousin Casey (wasn't there), Cousin William (he was there I just don't have any pictures of him for some reason), Uncle Billy, Aunt Dana, and Cousin Katherine. Cousin Katherine, William, and Casey are actually my dad's cousins because Uncle Billy is my dad's uncle. So I think that makes them my second cousin but I am not positively sure.

They have three yorkis total. This one is Kat's.

This is a scale of how big they are compared to my hand. 8-O

From left to right: Aunt April, Cousin Lesli, and Cousin Katherine (we call her Kat).

I love this picture :) .

Gracy (notice her improvised belt made out of ribbon).

Cousin Lesli is Aunt April's daughter, Gracy is Cousin Lesli's daughter. She was so sweet. She was shy the first night but after that she would always give you lots of hugs :) .

Anna and Thomas playing Mario Kart on the Krause's Wii.

If you noticed that little girl by Aunt Dana, she was her niece.

All of the us in red. Uncle Billy gave us all Krause hoodies. And he gave everybody red shoes. He has a TON of red shoes. If they see a pair of red shoes he buys them. He has such a big collection of red shoes that he has been in the newspaper before.

One day there was geese on a partially frozen pond that was close by. So we went and got some bread so we could feed them. Two came over, then the rest came but the first two were very fierce and chased them off. Here is a video.

We were supposed to fly out of Texas Friday but it kept getting delayed because of all the snow so we ended up flying out on Monday. But all of the activities that we were supposed to go to at home got canceled anyway. I was not upset when our flight got canceled because that meant we got to spend more time with our family. On Sunday we decided to go to a church that dad used to go to. It was really big. The sermon was good to hear after not going to church for awhile. Sunday night we went to eat dinner at the Big Texan home of the free 72oz steak. The catch is you have to eat it all in an hour. They had a store at the front with all sorts of stuff from cowboy hats to rattle snake wallets. In the back they had a live rattle snake with all sort of rattle snake accessories like pocket knife sheaths, wallets, belts, heads, and whole baby rattle snakes (dead).The pocket knife sheaths.Wallets (expensive 8-0 )
Key chain heads. If you look closely you can see the venom on their fangs (shudder, "creepy").The live one.They had all sorts of animals: moose, deer, and bears.

For dinner I ordered one of my favorite foods: ribs (yum yum:) ). They were very good, they were swimming in barbecue sauce which was not necessary because when you would pick one up your hand would get covered in sauce. After dinner we got in a giant chair that they had in the back.

Since our departure time kept getting delayed we said goodbye quite a few times thinking we were leaving the next day. But we finally flew out Monday. We flew from Amarillo to Dallas in a little under an hour. Then from Dallas to Norfolk in about four hours. But in took roughly an hour to drive from Norfolk to our house.

Here are some pictures of the clouds that I took when we were in the airplane. During take off and landings you are not allowed to use any electronics because the frequency messes up the navigational instruments. But you can use them ounce you are at cruising altitude so I took some pictures.

I think it is pretty cool because it was very dark and overcast below but when we got above the clouds it was sunny.Here is a picture that I took where I used the sunset mode that gives the picture warm colors.

Before we went home we picked up the dogs from the kennel.



--In memory of grandpa.

--Philip