Wildflowers

Mom came to visit for her birthday, and we took advantage of the beautiful day we had last weekend to go for a drive out in the Hill Country to spot wildflowers.

Despite the protests from my THREE boys, we all had a great time. The hardest part of the drive was heading out of Austin along Highway 1431, towards Marble Falls. Both Ryan and Carl had fallen asleep, so Mom, Alex and I played "I Spy" for WAY too long. Eventually even Alex was bored with this game, and the drive, and began to moan, quite loudly, "When are we there? This is boring! How much longer until we're home?!" His moaning woke Carl up, and then the two of them were moaning together. I reminded Carl he was the grown-up, and we started to play spot-the- best-patch-of-bluebonnets so we can take a picture.

Carl quickly won - a ploy, perhaps, to get us to stop the car. Ryan woke up, but wasn't really in the mood for pictures.

We stopped several times for pictures, and Alex soon decided that he liked bluebonnet drives. I had to drag him back to the car several times. He even picked some flowers, but not the bluebonnets, as I had warned him by spreading the urban legend that it was illegal to pick them.

It wasn't that much further to Marble Falls, and we realized we were near Sweet Berry Farms, so it seemed like a crime NOT to stop and pick some new strawberries. They were sweet and messy, and we also bought some delicious Berry Berry Ice Cream.

We went around Lake Buchanan, and then to Inks Lake, before stopping in Burnet for some dinner and then completing the circle back home.

At the end of the day, Alex is getting ready for bed and tells me, in total honesty and sincerity, "I didn't think I was going to like taking bluebonnet pictures. But it was a lot of fun! I really liked it. Let's go do it again."

That's a deal, Alex.