After a bit of a rocky start (Nan diagnosed with shingles not long after arriving) we have had a very restful and relaxing almost 3 weeks in Abilene Texas. Just as well as 13 days after arriving home we fly to South America as part of the MacWool

Wool growers tour to Chile and Argentina.  No time for jet lag as there are a couple trips in the car to far west in those 13 short days.

Back to the holiday, after things settle down with Nan, Mum Ian and Ian set of for a day in Fort Worth at the historic stockyard. Fort Worth is about 3 hours driving from Abilene so it was a pretty full day but we enjoy the history of this place.  Even the drive was good just to be on the road to somewhere.

Another highlight was a visit to Frontier Texas in Abilene, this was a very informative place and filled with loads of Texas history. Hard to believe that so many bison could be in one place and that man could almost wipe them out in such a short time. Although if the bison were still roaming in such numbers there would have been no grazing for cattle, can’t have everything

The weather in Texas had been so unseasonably warm for December we thought there was no hope of any of the white stuff, we were wrong.

Although not falling on Christmas Day it did snow a couple of days afterwards which was fun.  Two out our Three Christmas trips to Abilene there has been snow which is amazing as it doesn’t happen that often.

A little bit of the Marra in Texas

Christmas day was spent with family and the turkey was fantastic (Scott and Ian were in charge of the bird) while everyone else contributed to the rest of the great food we all got to share for Christmas dinner.

During our stay got to eat lots of BBQ (Sharon’s brisket is one of my favs) mexican this along with a fair few visits to Cracker Barrell we had our fill of delicious food. A highlight was BBQ at Hard 8 on our way to to the airport to fly home on New Years day.

A favourite of mine

With Leonie having a significant birthday between Christmas and New Year this was a perfect opportunity to have lunch as one of the best steakhouses in all of Texas (well my opinion anyway) – Perini Ranch (Grandma even got to meet founder Tom Perini whilst she was wandering the grounds)

It was wonderful that Leonie, Ian and their mum could be all in the same place for such celebration and given Nan is 88 now, not going to be too many more opportunities to have everyone at a significant family celebrations.

It was a great stay with family and worth it to see the snow and all

the effort that people go to to light up their homes, something is sometimes missing here.

The flight home was uneventful and a first for us we flew out of Dallas Love Field airport. This is a great little airport and we surprised as how good the facilities and service was, recommended.

Short post but as I mentioned the aim of the game was to catch up with family, rest and eat and we did all three very well.

Watch this space for the next installment – Chile here we come…