Visit to see the Texas Cronks

In August, I had a week of vacation that we were planning to use to go on our Disney Cruise to Alaska, but due to COVID, we ended up rescheduling it for the 3rd time.  With the extra time off work, we were able to visit the Cronks in Texas.

Trevor is my little cowboy and LOVED getting to help in the barn and feed and ride the horses.

Throwing hay from the loft into the stalls with PopPop.

Feeding the horses a peppermint treat.

My little messy boy who never cleans up at home had a blast mucking out the stalls!

Driving the tractor with Gramma.

And the big tractor mower in the pasture.

Duke, one of their Dalmatians, is typically slow to warm up to people, but he LOVED Sarah and was often snuggled up next to her.

Trevor was such a great helper in the barn that Gramma and PopPop stopped at Cavender's on the way to the Ratliffs to get him a real cowboy hat! I'm not sure he took it off for the rest of the week (except when forced to for bedtime or at the dinner table). 

We had fun cousin time at Auntie PiPi and Uncle Stephen's house.

Sarah and Presley were buddies.

And Brayson loved playing with Austin and Trevor. 

We celebrated Steve and Trevor's birthdays a bit early.

Presley was enthusiastic about the cupcake frosting!

The kids spent most days in the pool!

Steve has taken the Cronk family meringue recipe and experimented with lots of different flavors. Gramma wanted him to show her some new flavors, so they had some mother-son baking time!

Back to the barn...

Trevor got to ride Koda.

We had a fun dinner at Medieval Times!

We had the red knight this time.

Another day, their trainer came over and taught Trevor how to ride the horse on his own.

Some guys running cable underground in the neighborhood hit a water pipe and a geyser was shooting out of the ground in the neighbor's yard and then flowing into the Cronk's pasture. The drainage tank/pond in the center of the pasture filled up fast.  Gramma, PopPop, and the kids watched the water level rise quickly!

We visited the Allen Depot and Trevor thought it was really cool that there had been a train robbery there long ago...

A huge old steam train was there!

We also went to the dam they built to make a water reservoir to fill the train. Apparently, they had to stop every 7-10 miles to fill the train's water tanks!

Trevor had fun playing with Cubby's old LEGOs.  LEGOs are timeless.

And, of course, there was always more snuggling with the dogs.

It was a fun to get to see our Texas family again!

We'll try for the Alaska cruise again next year.