The University of North Texas is a lot of fun in that it likes to get the whole family involved in the UNT experience. In the fall it holds a “Family Weekend” filled with a variety of activities for the entire family – namely the parents. In the spring, they have Siblings Day that is geared toward the siblings of all their UNT students.
Yesterday was the day.
It was a beautiful day for said event. It is beautiful weather.
We drove up from Tomball on Friday afternoon and spent sometime looking around Rockwall, TX our soon to be stomping grounds. I wish I had more pictures to show you of some of those activities, but I do not.
The drive up was pretty uneventful.
Of course there is the required stop at Buc-ees. You cannot drive through Madisonville without taking a potty stop in Madisonville at Buc-ees.
Lance insisted on hugging the Buc-ee Beaver statue outside the gas station.
Kyle insisted on taking a picture with his head inside the mouth of Buc-ee Beaver’s mouth.
You know you have arrived if you have found the Buc-ees sign. At least you have arrived at a great location to get out and stretch your legs, clean bathrooms (and plenty of them), and lots of good snacks (and real food).
Buc-ees is more than just a gas station…
I liked this one…
And this one…
And this one… (too bad the picture was not great).
There might have been a turquoise theme there…Shrug…
It is still quite the drive to the Dallas area after you have pulled out of the Buc-ees parking lot. Madisonville is only about an hour and half drive outside of Tomball. It is a 4 hour drive give or take to Dallas. So you are not quite to the half way mark once you have made it to Buc-ees. I have to say that it is a very welcome sight on the road when you see that sign pop up on the horizon when you are making the return drive back to Tomball.
It was a delightful drive because the Texas Bluebonnets are starting to make their appearance on the sides of the highway. There were not many yet, but there were a few spots where you were definitely aware of their presence. The same to be said of the rest of the Texas Wildflowers that will be sticking up their showy heads this spring. I cannot wait to make that drive again in another week and half because those flowers are sure to be really showing then.
A lot of people love those changing colors in the fall. Not me. I LOVE the changing colors in the spring with everything wakes up and those Texas Wildflowers come alive and kiss the roadsides.
We were reminded on our drive that while nature is beautiful and peaceful, she has an ugly wrathful side. See I had a few moments to remember those brush fires along I-45 and while you can still see where they were in certain places, it is getting harder and harder to find the location that was most prominent. Nature is filling in those area nicely with new growth.
However, as we were driving along I-30 into the Garland/Rowlett area, heading toward the hotel where we would be staying, I was reminded of a much more recent natural disaster. I hear Lance proclaim from the back seat, “Wow! What happened here?!.” I look over to the side of the road to see a half demolished apartment complex. My initial “thought” was that it was construction and they were tearing it down. Fortunately, my memory helped me recover much more quickly that. I was able to remember what had happened just a short while ago and explain, “That is what happens when a tornado touches down and tears over the top of a building. Do you remember hearing about that big tornado in this area on the news? It touched down right here in this area and went across the highway here.” He was not 100% convinced from the look on his face in the rear view mirror, as I heard in response, “but that sign is still standing perfectly straight.” There was a billboard sign perfectly untouched in front of it.
Fortunately, we were able to show him varying degrees of tornado damage as we encountered it driving around the area over the next couple of days. I think this was a wake-up or reality check for him. It was certainly a “wake up” call for me. They had a “tornado drill” at school on Thursday before we left. It made his headache really bad. At first I had not paid attention to him when he told me what kind of drill it was. He is on the list of kids that are supposed to be out of the school before they begin the “fire drills” so that the flashing lights from the alarms do not trigger his migraines. Their classes still practice the fire drills, they just practice without the flashing lights from the alarms and they are clear and outside of the building before the official “drill” alarms go off. They do this to help prevent seizure for some of the kids.
Unfortunately, there are no “lights” for the tornado drills. It is all really loud sounds and whatever else that they do. Unfortunately, this is also a trigger for him. We have to figure out how to make him safe at school during a tornado – drill or otherwise – and still keep him from getting a migraine. On drill days, he needs to stay migraine free so he can still function effectively the rest of the school day. On tornado days, he just needs to be safe. That is the reality of the situation we are moving into. We will figure this out. The fire drill situation is not perfect, but we figured out something that worked for him better than him staying in with both triggers.
That little drive down I-30 was a little shock for him.
However, he did spot the billboard for the “Beef Jerky Outlet” so all was pretty good for his little world after that. That is pretty much heaven for him right now. Beef Jerky is his latest kick.
Friday night we went out and explored Rockwall a little bit. The boys’ first exposure to their new little world. I cannot say that they were thrilled or underwhelmed. It was getting dark.
The discussion for dinner came down to…Five Guys Burgers OR Freebirds Burritos.
Ultimately, mom made the decision because I cannot eat the buns at Five Guys Burgers. There ware just too many sesame seeds on their buns. I LOVE Five Guys Burgers. Do not get me wrong. I just do not enjoy picking my buns apart to eat the burger. So we ate at Freebirds.
The good news is that there are plenty of “real world” options to eat at in this “little” place so they are happy. They did not seem to be disappointed with their options. Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad after all?
Then we went down to The Rockwall Harbor or the part we could find of it. We saw the portion with the Hilton Hotel in it. It is very similar to The Woodlands Waterway in my opinion. Maybe on a larger scale if you want to know the truth, but it was nice what we saw of it. We did not go into any of the shops as a large portion of them were closed due to the time. There is a huge fountain that was pretty. The splash pad was turned off. There was a place to go out on sailboat tours. Lots of eatery options. A movie theater. A nice variety.
After a not so comfortable sleep in the hotel, it was time to get up and drive from Garland to Denton.
Ben made this drive. We gave Andrew plenty of time on our “expected time of arrival” because Ben wanted to drive us past where his new office is located currently. That will eventually move to a different location, but he took us to the current location. It is quite the drive. We knew this going into this. It is a very nice drive, but traffic is not always going to be as light as what we experienced on Saturday morning. The drive was still very pretty.
Of course, not all drives can be as fun as the construction zones as you drive across Lake Lewisville going towards Denton. Those construction workers have a little too much time on their hands if you ask me. You can barely see it behind the construction cone…
That would be an elephant made out of old construction cones that have been torn up/demolished.
Lance likes UNT for one reason. It is really into the color green. Oh wait, maybe that is two reasons. It is really into the color green and his brother goes here.
Lance is happy, he got another green t-shirt to wear. It is a pretty cool t-shirt if you ask me.
I asked the million dollar question, “Does the UNT student t-shirt read GENIUS on the front?” It of course is identical to the other two boys. That was not so cute if you ask me. It would have been cuter if the actual student’s shirts said, “Genius” on the front. However, Andrew was wearing his “Class of 2019” t-shirt so it worked out. People knew he was the UNT student and they were the siblings.
I am pretty sure these two boys are telling the truth here?!. I love these boys.
So after I got them signed in, it was time to go upstairs for a picture booth experience – I thought it was going to be more than it was…like me paying for pictures of them together…
There always has to be at least one prankster in the group.
At least I was able to get a second picture of them being a little more serious. Really though, Kyle, you caught Andrew a little off guard there. Way to go!
They then made a cute little frame for their picture to go into. It will go on daddy’s desk at his new office.
After this, Ben and I were back on the road back to Rockwall, TX to meet with the real estate agent to do a bit of house hunting before we had to make the return trip to Denton to fetch the boys. They had a full day of fun but so did we – if that is what you wanted to call it.
We got to Rockwall with plenty of time to spare so we drove around a little bit.
We found the County Courthouse. This could be important at any point in the future. You never know when you might need the county courthouse, especially living in a smaller town.
We drove right up past the front doors. It is a beautiful building, by the way.
You cannot see it real good in this picture, but I assure you the words, “IN GOD WE TRUST” are engraved in the stone above the words “ROCKWALL COUNTY COURTHOUSE.” I think we’re going to like it here. Yep. We’re going to be just fine here in this little part of the world.
So supposedly there is the county library around that building or in that building as well. I couldn’t figure out where as the signs said “county courthouse” and “library” on the same sign. There were not many buildings in there area that were not accounted for so I am not sure where the library is.
This is one beautiful building that is fairly easy to see from various places in town.
So our house hunting adventures were okay. We looked at several.
One was an automatic removal because it had a cat.
One was a “we are leaving now, we are done here” because it had large amounts of mold in the bathroom along with other problems.
One was just not a good fit.
There was one that I liked.
There were 2 maybes but they both had 1 bedroom in them that was way too small for what we really needed it for so a very low maybe in the end.
After all that we decided that Ben really wants his 3 car garage and since that is available even if it is a fewer and further between thing, we will keep looking. The first house we looked at – we both liked the best and it met the 3 car garage specification.
Me. I want gas in the kitchen. It is actually rare up there. It is even more rare in the laundry room. If I have to choose, however, I choose gas in the kitchen. It means that I will have to buy a new dryer as I have a gas dryer, but…sigh…
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