The Bishops

The Mother's Day Weekend continues....Fossil Rim

2009-05-25T15:29:00.000-07:00

Fossil Rim is a wildlife center that is approx 1700 acres of open spaces where deer, rhinos, giraffes and other wildlife roam. You drive your own vehicle through the 9 1⁄2 mile tour. It took us about 4 1/2 hrs to get through it, though we did have a "mishap" along our way.....read below for the rest of the story :)

We opened up the back hatch for the kids.

They sat back there and fed the animals as they came up to the car

The Emu was our first visitor

This was the view from my window

Robby(especially) and Katie were a little afraid of the emu's.

As you can see they jumped from the back to the middle :)

This is the story we'll never forget............

There all sorts of antelope along the way, as you can tell from the photos

At one point we stopped on the side of the road as a lot of cars do to fee them.

When we stopped there was 1 car in front of us and about 2-3 cars behind us.

We spent about 10 mins enjoying feeding them. When the car in front us took off, we decided to go as well. Well, load and behold, when Brad drove forward all we heard was a loud squeal....

Yes, brad ran over a baby antelope!!!! Our car immediately got surrounded by all sort of

antelope. Brad backed up, but it was to late, the baby antelope was hurt, he tried to get up but his back legs were injured. The antelope around our car started to make all sort of loud noises, needless to say the kids were scared. We called the front desk and they sent out a rescue crew. Brad had hit Bambi!! :) By that time, we had about 10 cars behind us. As they started to pass a little girl asked brad......."Did you hit the baby deer?" :( It was embarrassing. Luckily the baby antelope will be just fine. They were going to x-ray it for any broken bones.

Here's the baby that we hit(the one laying down)

The rescue crew.

The Giraffes were my favorite. It's unbelievable, how tall they are.

This a picture I took of the car in front of us

Picture perfect.....he looks like statute

This is the view just looking out our window!!
He's huge!

The zebra enjoyed the air condition.

And brad... :)

This is where we stopped to eat.

We sat out side and it over looked all the animals on the trail.

This is also where EVERYONE came upto us and asked if we were the ones that hit the

baby antelope! :)

They also had a petting zoo at the overlook.

I love this sign.......i think I might get one for me :)

Robby is as tall as an Emu

Katie is a little taller than a Zebra

Ralph and Venus

Mother's Day Weekend

2009-05-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

My Mother's Day gift was a road trip to Glenn Rose Texas to visit Fossil Rim Wildlife Center.

On our way there, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch.....it was yummy!

The kids enjoyed a game of checkers afterwards.

Katie busied herself by finger knitting, which by the way, she taught herself.

Brad and Robby reading a historical marker.

Once we got to the hotel, the kids went for a swim.

I happen to look out the window and to my surprise there was a family that was literally b-b-q in the hotel parking lot!! Who does that? Well, maybe my dad would :) The BBQ pit was lit, the little boy held a Ziplock bag with marinating meat and the dad was ready to BBQ.......only in TEXAS!

Since our plan was to go to Fossil Rim on Sunday, we picked up a couple of brochures of things to do in the area and we found that there was drive in theater nearby.

So we headed to Granbury....

Brazos Drive in theater.

The features for the night

Remember when there used to be a playground up at the front? Well there wasn't one there anymore but all kids were still enjoying playing in that areas....it sure brought back memories!

The concession stand was just like the one I remember going to.

According the owners, the drive in has been there for 50 years now. They replace the screen every year due to the effects from the weather.

Here we are with our concession stand food(mmm...mmmm) and ready for the movie.

Joseph and Stephanie's wedding

2009-05-11T17:51:00.001-07:00

Katie and her cousin Avery were the flower girls for Joseph(brad's cousin) and Stephanie's wedding.

Here's Katie getting her hair done.

And here's Avery

The beautiful outcome...

Don't they look so cute!

The girls waiting for the wedding to start

And what a wonderful job the did!

The happy Aunt.....Aunt Boo :)

The Proud Parents(Uncle Joe & Aunt Diana)

Mr. & Mrs. Hicks (Joseph & Stephanie)

The Happy Couple!

The bride and groom with their parents

The flower girls with the bride and the groom.

Blake, Avery, Katie and Robby

Robby, Avery, Blake, Katie and Reagan

Too Cute!

The Bishop girls

Katie and Reagan........how adorable is this picture!

My handsome Robby!

The Bishops...

Brad, Nikki, Robby & Katie

Mark, Michele, Reagan

James, Anne, Blake and Avery

Diana, Tom & Tommy

Randy & Joyce

6th Street

2009-04-19T18:08:00.000-07:00

We met some friends downtown Austin on 6th street Friday night. James had his annual fireman ball so he and Kristy met us downtown afterward. So did several of his co-works and a few friends of Julie and Ben.

Brad and me

Julie, Kristy and me

Julie and me

Brad and me again :)

James and me

Brad and Kristy

Julie and James

Stacy, Micheal and Julie

Michael and Stacy

Brad and Ben. After that night, Ben is now an honeree fireman ; )

The guys

James must of said something really funny....

And I guess Kristy and I also thought it was funnny :)

Julie and Micheal

Kristy and Me

Kristy and Julie

We had so much fun!

The gang!

We stayed at the Hyatt downtown.

Our view from our room was wonderful. It over looked downtown and town lake.

Brad and I tried to catch a cab, but it was just impossible after the bars close, so we decided to walk to the hotel. Here I am crossing the townlake bridge off of Congress. (if you look closely, you can see the capital in the background)

Visit to the Ramon's

2009-04-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

The Ramon's invited us over for dinner on Good Friday. Palmira(James' mom) made some great Catfish. I ate until I was stuffed!

The kids decorated some cupcakes and had fun with some "cascarones" (confetti eggs).

Then, the guys played a little Guitar Hero-World Tour

Little James and Robby

Here they are playing "Beat It". Yep, that's my husband! :)

Katie and Mariah are going to try out for the school talent show.

Wish them luck!

Here they are practicing their song - "Hoedown, Throwdown" by Miley Cyrus

Family Portraits

2009-04-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

This weekend, we suprised my mom for her 60th birthday. Part of the surprise included taking
family portraits. The biggest task was to get my dad there. Fortunately, we accomplished our task!

The Aguilars

Dad and Mom

Dad & Mom and the grandkids

The grandkids (Robby/Eva/Katie)

Robby and Katie

The Bishops

Brad and Nikki

Eva

The Aguilars

Gilbert & Julia

Gilbert/Mom/Eva

Prom Pictures

2009-03-31T16:52:00.000-07:00

During Brad's surprise party, one of our friends (Kristy) mentioned that she had never been to prom. So, someone then suggested to take "prom photos" ;)
Brad and Me

James and Kristy

Ben and Julie

David and Frances

Tom and Diana(Brad's sister)

Diana and Kathryn"Boo"(brad's aunt)

The Guys

The Girls

Brad's Kiss Birthday Party

2009-03-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

If you don't know, my husband is a HUGE Kiss fan. So, I thought I would surprise him with a Kiss party. I asked my cake lady if she could do a "Kiss" cake. She was excited and up for the challenge. I left it up to her as to what she designed and this is what she came up with.

"Gene Simmons"
It looked so real, the picture doesn't do it justice.

We placed all the "38" candles aroun Gene's hair.
It looked like his hair was on fire.

She did a fantastic job.

Monsters vs Aliens 3D

2009-03-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

We took the kids to watch Monsters vs Aliens in 3D at the Bob Bullock Museum/Imax Theater in Austin. It was opening weekend. Fortunately, I had purchased our tickets on line two days earlier, because the movie was sold out and then we had to wait in this line!

Believe it or not, there was probably about 60 more people behind us

Katie entertaining herself while we waited in line.

Robby enjoying the nice weather while we waited.

Robby, Katie and Mariah

Brad being Brad :) I had asked him to go check in the car because I thought I had left the camera..while he was looking in "Elie the Elephant" as I like to call my Element, I found the camera in my pursue, so this was his dramatic reaction when I told him I found it........Little did he know that this whole trip to Austin to do our "taxes, go to Costco, watch a movie" was all a diversion so our friends could prepare for his surprise b-day party at our house.

Turtle

2009-03-29T13:43:00.001-07:00

Our gardner came to mow our back yard that so needed it!
We hadn't seen him thru the winter season, so he had his work cut out for him.

The kids enjoying the newly mowed lawn, now we need
to work on getting it back to looking green and healthy.

Back porch.

While mowing, our gardner found a turtle.
Our little neighbor girl, Brenna, peeped over the fence and disovered our newly found friend too. She questioned if the turtle really belonged to us........she personally thought it came from their yard. :)

Robby with Mr. Turtle.

Mr. Turtle in the soccer goal.

Blaze vs LT99 Black

2009-03-26T16:47:00.001-07:00

The girls played against LT 99 Black and won like 6 to 3.
They also had a game the day before and won that too.

Katie throwing the ball in.

Several of the girls on the team have brothers that
particularly don't care to watch their sisters play, so they "hang out"
together while the game is going on.
Here's Robby, Ryker, Paul and Little James...I guess one of these days I'll need to stop calling him "little". I'm surprise he hasn't told me already since he's so independent and loves to play with the big boys. :)

Makayla's Party

2009-03-26T16:20:00.000-07:00

Makayla is Katie's friend. She lives in our neighborhood and plays soccer with Katie.
Saturday was her 10th birthday. She had her party at our neighboorhood park.

Makayla and what was left of Sponge Bob the Pinata.

Amy, Katie and Mariah

They played a few games, like.......

"Who knows Makayla best?" Which I thought
was a wonderful game. I personally learned a lot about
Makayla that I didn't know.

Water balloon toss...even little James join in on the fun.

How many men does it take to fill a Pinata?

(brad, russ, ben and david)

Spring Time

2009-03-21T16:12:00.000-07:00

Spring is here........and time to do some gardening. The weather around here goes from 40 one day to 80 the next. As you can see by the pictures I posted just recently where the girls were wearing long sleeves/hats and scarfs to this one of Katie in shorts. So, we took advantage of the 80 degree weather and started to work on our front lawn. This was just the start, we have a whole weekends worth of work to do.

Here's Katie and our little neighbor Aiden. She enlisted him to pull weeds with her. His sister Kaylee(who's Katie's age) didn't want any part of it....she decided to go ride her bike instead. :)

Brad hard at work in our flower bed.

And this was my masterpiece! I planted a few plants and placed our new door mat....hard work goes unappreciated some time :)

Pics of Kids

2009-03-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

We were just hanging out and I decided to take a few pictures of the kids.

My Handsome Robby(even though, I think he needs a haircut!)

Katie and her friend Mariah. They decided to dress alike but different.

After I took the picture, the girls immediately got on their phones and started texting...Thank goodness for unlimited text!

3rd Annual Andrew Pena Tounrament

2009-03-09T18:56:00.001-07:00

Katie's regular soccer team, Blaze, played at a pre-season 6v6 tournament this weekend in Boerne Texas which is about 30 miles west of San Antonio. This was their first 6v6 tournament, they normally play 8v8 during the regular season. Katie also plays with the Predators, a 3v3 team that consists of only Mariah, Summerlyn and Katie during the off seasons(winter and summer)....yes, she plays soccer year round but she loves it!

Since it was a 2 day tournament, we stayed at the Embassy suites in San Antonio. We went to this hole in the wall restaurant called Chacho's......boy did they have some great puffy tacos! The food was good, the price was great and the portions were extremely generous! Below is Katie with some of her soccer friends and little James (Mariah's brother) at Chacho's.

The girls went for a much needed swim.

--Katie and Mariah--

Frances and Little James . Little James is a constant entertainment for us. He went around on Saturday giving everyone "Superman" hugs....that boy is a hoot!

And in the end, after a long weekend and hard work..........Blaze won 1st place at the 3rd annual Andrew Pena Tournament!!!!! Way to start the season Blaze!

Blaze celebrating

Mariah, Katie and Bianca posing with their 1st place trophies.

Bishop's Guitar Jam

2009-03-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

I recorded these videos from my cell phone, so the clarity isn't great, but you get the idea. Robby made up this song. He taught it to Brad and Katie. Katie is playing drums, Brad is playing rythm and Robby was playing lead....Enjoy!

Johnny & Jessica's Wedding

2009-03-02T16:04:00.000-08:00

Brad and the kids went to Abilene this weekend for Brad's cousin, Johnny's wedding. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go because I had to work on Saturday. Here's a picture of Brad with the kids...........yes, that's Brad with a beard!

This is what happens when you get the Bishop boys together.

Katie fell in love with the chocolate fountain.

Brad just HAD to buy this shirt for Johnny.

Katie, Robby and their cousin Matthew.

The Bishops

New Blogger

2009-02-15T12:10:00.000-08:00

I recently visited my brother and sister in law's site and realized what a wonderful job my sister in law is doing in keeping up with their page. Because of it, we can see my little neice grow and feel part of their everyday lives. Which got me thinking, that as little Eva gets older and startes to really realizes that she has family in Texas, we too would like her to see pictures of us, especially her cousins who miss her. We want to make sure she and the rest of our family our part of our lives too. So, I figured I would start blogging too, but I'll be honest, I don't think I can keep up like Julia does, but everyone once in a while, I'll update it as I can. Wish me Luck!