Ranching Heritage Center

 While we were in Lubbock during Thanksgiving week, my mom and I took the 4 kids to the Ranching Heritage Museum.  It is a really neat center with farm/ranch buildings from mid 1800s to the early 1900s that had once been on various ranches and farms throughout West Texas.  It is a great way to learn about life on the Plains and what it took for early settlers to make it on their own in pretty desolate country.  The kids had a great time and it was a beautiful day.  They had fun running from house to house and they obliged me for many pictures.

 My sweet boys.

 Luke, Jacob and Ryan - these 3 boys will grow up together and even graduate from high school and head to college at the same time - I hope they will always be great friends.

 The Ranching Center includes a train station from a nearby farm town complete with a train and cattle cars.  The kids had a great time playing on the caboose and climbing on the engine.  We also went into the train station's ticket office.  It is the same station that my Uncle Charlie played in when he was a little boy growing up on a nearby cotton farm.

 Texas Tech's campus is home to hundreds (at least) of Jackrabbits.  They have always been one of my favorite things to see around Lubbock growing up.  The Ranching Heritage Center had quite a few running around that day.  If you've never seen a Jackrabbit - they are huge and I love their big kangaroo-like ears.

 My beautiful niece, Olivia.  I can't believe she that she will be 10 in March.

West Texas lacks classical landscape beauty.  It is hard to beat seeing the snow-capped mountains and rolling foothills on my way to work every day.  But West Texas has its own unique beauty, as well.  I have always loved flying into the area - the cotton fields have always reminded me of a patchwork quilt.  The sky is huge and the view goes on forever.  I truly can't imagine living on the Plains during the Dust Bowl or even before air conditioning and running water - but I do love the area and what it has provided for my own family's history.