Friends and the Stockyards

My dear friends James and Angy are back in the states for a few weeks while they visit colleges for their oldest son, Caleb, who by the way has facial hair and I personally feel like should still be in the 5th grade. But apparently kids grow up and wow, time flies!

Anyway, we were special enough to make the "must see while in America" list (they live in Germany) so yesterday Nick took off work and we spent the afternoon with the Hughes family. It was awesome to be with old friends again and they were super excited to meet Kate.  When they arrived at the house it was lunch time and our bellies were all growling, so I asked what they wanted and BBQ was the first genre mentioned.  Where else do you go for BBQ in Fort Worth but the Stockyards? So off to Cooper's Old Time BBQ we went.  It's fabulous, if you've never been.

After filling our bellies with brisket, sirloin, chicken, pork tenderloin, baked potatoes, beans, and a little cobbler we decided to walk over to the Stockyards since they had never been and check it out. It's really an interesting place if you've never seen it, kind of touristy, but still neat.  

We shopped and chatted and laughed...we just picked up where we left off. That's so much easier with the internet these days I guess, since I speak to them often on Facebook. It's still nice to spend face to face time with someone though. I was thankful for that.

We made sure to stay long enough to see the 4 pm cattle drive. It's fairly anti-climatic, in all honesty, but there is something pretty cool about a small heard of huge longhorn parading down the street literally a few feet from you. 

Caleb and Jared also went through the Stockyards maze. You have to punch your maze card so you have to find the four stations hidden throughout. Caleb did it in 7 minutes and Caleb took 9. The adults just watched from the observation deck and helped them where we could.  Pretty cool...and for you fun fact people, this maze was featured on the Amazing Race, Season 5.

I wish our time together hadn't been so short, but I'll take what I can get. I really wish I could hop on a plane and fly to Germany to visit them.  We will see, maybe someday.