Life is so colorful!

I arrived in Grand Prairie, Texas just outside of Dallas a few days early in order to beat the storms that were being mentioned on the weather reports. I didn't like that I had to leave my friend Sheila's home a few days early because I was really enjoying the country life. 

Look at those colorful smiles from Sheila and her baby daughter Zoe, who made me a special watercolor painting of a blueberry, they are beautiful. 

Sheila and I went for a couple of walks down long, winding country roads and it was very peaceful and it made me feel rejuvenated afterwards. 

The critters we encountered were interesting and the signs scared me a little!

Sheila found the most beautiful Luna Moth I had ever seen!

Unfortunately I lost many of my last pictures from the camera card I had. I ended up buying new cards and hopefully this won't happen again. 

I arrived in Grand Prairie safely and was greeted by my cousin Jorge. He is my Mothers nephew and it had been years since I had seen him and his family. Jorge needed to go back to work and I went along with him. He works for a large contractor that is almost finished the construction of UT Southwestern New hospital. He showed me around the building and it's such an incredible new facility. 

He took me to the rooftop thirteen floors up in order to get a view of Dallas' skyline and the immense open space open around it. 

After getting Motel Miguel situated for the duration he started showing me the city and some of its attractions. 

The Dallas Cowboys Stadium where we got to go inside for a few minutes and I just had to do some silly stuff like slide down the staircase railing!

Then we moved on to the Rangers baseball team stadium where they were preparing for a game and let me step inside through a side door for a photo. A group of young men who are known as the cone crew jumped into my picture!

After this we went out front where more silliness continued and that's where the first photo of this post was taken on the giant baseballs. 

Family time has always been important in our family and on Saturday my cousins daughter had a birthday celebration in her honor. 

It's always fun observing children enjoying a cake and all the singing that comes along with a celebration. 

On Sunday my cousin and three of his children took me over to Ft Worth so that I could see part of the city. We didn't know that a large street art festival had been going on all weekend and we got there towards the very end. We walked around and enjoyed what was left of it. 

The of my four second cousins Ismael, Alejandra and Judith!

Some of the cars at the festival were amazing. 

Once again life has shown me how colorful it is and I just need to take the brush and paint it as bright as I want to!

Moving on is never easy....

Yesterday was Monday, April 6th. I had already made the decision that was going to be the day I would be moving on. I was to go up to Dallas but as it turned out my cousin was going to be a chaperone for one of his daughters school trips for the week. So instead I decided to head on over to Latexo, Texas and stay with my friend Sheila for a week. 

I always get excited about moving on to new experiences but this time it was very difficult for me. This time I was leaving my dear friends who I had spent the last three months with behind. I had seen how much they disliked the area of New Mexico that they lived in, it wasn't what they thought it was going to be when they moved their. Silver City has its beauty but the weather just wasn't for them, it was way to cold in the winter and way to windy the rest of the year to the point where they couldn't enjoy the outdoors. They tell me they are thankful that I helped them with the move from New Mexico to Texas but in reality they are the ones who have given me so much more by letting me their guest for the short time I got to spend with them. 

Hal's sister Ruth hosted a dinner to thank me with helping them with the move. It was so nice of her and her daughter Lisa and her fiancé Bill and his son Zack to have me over for this dinner and I thank them for it. 

I always try to take my picture with all my friends before I leave and these two show the humidity level I have come into here in Texas. It was still early in the morning but as you can see all I did was hook up Motel Miguel up and I was soaking. What a difference from California with out dry heat!

I got on the road to head on up to Sheila's home and see more of the great spaces of green that East Texas has. I always love taking pictures as I go along and only hope they turn out reasonably good to put on here. I travelled over two hundred miles and these are some of the scenes I encountered. 

Sometimes one is reminded of the great force of nature and this was one of those times. They had had wild fires here not long ago and the devastation was all around. All the trees were burnt and homes were destroyed. There were new homes being built and new growth in the forest. 

I met up with Sheila on the highway and followed her back home. This is Motel Miguel's view for this week. Not bad at all I would say!

As I mentioned before, sometimes you just have to stop everything and look around at all the beauty that surround us. We move on, it can be hard but you will never know if the grass is really greener on the other side of the fence if you don't go and look. For me it has been thus far!

Sometimes you have to smell the flowers!

Driving around South Texas I have been seeing the beautiful fields of wild flowers. A friend had mentioned that she had not seen me post pictures of Blue Bonnets being that I'm in Texas. She was right, so I mentioned to my friends that I'm staying with currently, that I needed to get some pictures of myself in a field of Blue Bonnets. 

We had no intentions of taking pictures in a field of flowers this morning. We were going to a company that sold mulch and it was about ten miles out of town. We found the business, which was actually a chicken ranch that sells mulch on the side. The employee told us we had to call the phone number and order the mulch through them. 

As we started to drive out we spotted a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher sitting on a fence by the roadside. This had to be the best surprise of my trip so far. I had been looking for this bird for several days and had not found it and lo and behold here it was in front of me. I started snapping pictures as fast as I could because this has to be one of the most beautiful birds I have seen so far on my trip. 

I must have taken close to one hundred pictures but wasn't able to get a good one showing the scissor tail open to show the shape. We decided to drive back home and on the way we found a couple of beautiful fields of flowers. Of course we had to stop and take pictures for my friends to see a glimps of the beauty I'm getting to see first hand. 

My dear friend Ann with some beautiful flowers. 

One of the country roads I was on today, so peaceful and serene!

I decided to drive back in the afternoon to see if I could find the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher again to get pictures of it flying. I looked for a couple of hours and just as I was about to give up there they were, across the major highway on the power lines. 

Even with my zoom lense I couldn't get better shots. I decided to go home with what I had. Once again, just as I had given up, I spotted two more on the power lines coming up and I slammed on my brakes. I got out of my car and this is what I was able to get. 

I hope this gives you a small glimpse into how incredible my life is at this moment. 

Remember to stop and smell the flowers every so often!