Texas trip

My sister Dawn and I flew to Texas last week to visit relatives. This was just the start of a great trip.

The first day, we visited Texas Tulips, a tulip farm in north Dallas.

Pictures don't do justice to the rows and rows of beautiful tulips. 

This is a bouquet we picked for our next stop - - cousin Judy's.

That evening we had dinner with cousins Judy and Susan. Son Gabe, also a Dallas area resident, and his girlfriend Brooke joined us for the evening.

The next day was a cousins trip to Waco to visit the home of Fixer Upper, Magnolia. Here we are outside of Magnolia Table where we put our name on a 3 hour waiting list and then went shopping.

This is the waiting line for the bakery. It looks like a long wait but really was not. These folks do a great job of crowd management and the cupcakes were worth the wait. Notice the silos in the background. There is actually nothing for the public in the silos.

Here's a sample of the great crowd control. Waiting and it's rainy? Grab an umbrella. We were fortunate to be there on a sunny day.

I'm sure, because of the tourism Magnolia brings to town, there are lots of other great shops. We enjoyed shopping at the Findery.

We drove by Clint Harps workshop and then stopped at Jimmy Don's workshop. For those of you not familiar with the HGTV show Fixer Upper, these guys are the carpenter and iron artist featured on the show. Jimmy Don pulled up while we were there and worked the crowd a bit. Here he is with cousin Judy.

The next day, on our way back to Dallas, we stopped at this gas station in West, TX, known for their kolaches.

And we stopped at Homestead Heritage to tour, shop and have lunch. If you look closely, you will see a road runner we spotted cutting across the lawn.
Homestead Heritage is an agrarian- and craft-based intentional Christian community. Its literature stresses simplicity, sustainability, self-sufficiency, cooperation, service and quality craftsmanship.

Our last day, we spent some quality family time with Gabe and Brooke. It was a great trip. I thank my sister for being a great travel companion, our Dallas family for being such gracious hostesses and the shop gals for covering things back home.