My Brothers are OLD!

Joe came down to Houston this weekend to celebrate his 40th Birthday!

Dad made yummy cupcakes.When dad was not looking, Joe rearranged the letters.Wishful thinking! Only one Pasta child is enjoying her thirties!

Joe threatened bodily harm to any one who uttered these words:

But who could hurt this cute face.

Trip Across Texas!

Mom, dad and I went to visit Phil who was pig hunting north of Abilene. On the way we picked up Joe in Austin and hit some wildflower hot spots.

Poppies! The poppies when so bright it hurt your eyes to look at them. These are at the Wildseed Farms by Fredricksburg. A must stop in the spring. A hummingbird stood still to let me take its picture.More flowers at the farm.
Lots of Bluebonnets flowing over the roads as we headed north. It was hard to pick which spots to pull over and take photos. Of course it was mid-afternoon, so the bright sun drowns out the color in the photos. Wednesday, we picked up Phil at his pig hunting camp and headed to Post. We went through the Post museum which was interesting. Then, since I had never been to Lubbock and I wanted to see the caprock, we headed up 3,000 feet to visit the city and see the Buddy Holly Statue. We then headed back down to drop Phil off and headed back to Houston on Thursday. No photos of Phil, but here are some cool birds we saw in Lubbock!And a very interesting flower we saw near Lubbock. Still looking for the name of it. It was fun to see all the wildflowers in a different part of Texas. There were several different colors of Prarie Paintbrush which were close to the Indian Paintbrush. I didn't get any photos of those. =(
More than 1,000 miles in three days with the family. And we are all talking to each other. At least I think we are...mom? dad? Joe? Last we heard, Phil got a pig and two others had one also.

Texas Tradition

Every spring it is a Texas tradition to take a family photo in the wildflowers. They are spectacular this year due to a very cold and wet winter.

The Pasta kids headed towards Chappell Hill's Bluebonnet Festival on Sunday. Apparently everyone in Houston decided to go too. Near one fantastic field near Hempstead we sat in traffic on the highway for 20 minutes. (Ahhh reminders of evacuating!) I don't know if people were slowing down to look at the pretty fields of flowers or at the nearly 100 carloads of people who pulled over on the side to frolic through the fields.

Field of Bluebonnets from a moving car. (No, I wasn't driving.)Pasta II family in the flowers.FlowersDave and Joe at the festival. They often call each other to make sure they match.Sean saying, "Please Aunt Jo, I want some of your lemonade!"We didn't really stop to take pictures of the great fields, but look for more photos next weekend. If it doesn't rain, I plan on trekking the back roads of east Texas in search of the perfect field of flowers.

Easter Part II - The Browns

On Sunday, I headed over to Amy's house for another egg hunt and a yummy lunch.A Mexican tradition, therefore a Texas tradition, is bashing people with confetti stuffed eggs.
Who needs snow angels when you can make confetti angels
Battle of the paparazzi.
Classic family photo!

Peep Show!

I mean Easter Peeps of course! Dave sent us a cool link about people making dioramas using Peeps. Of course we had to get in on the action.

Sean's Porcupine
Dziadziu's ER horror show

Grandma's Circus

Dave's ???? (It's either a bunny massacre, cirque du soleil,
or what he and his coworkers look like doing P90X.)

My first one was Running with the Peeps
Barbara's Last Supper
And since we had 18 boxes of Peeps left, I did a second one. The Olympic torch run.
(We did stop the fire in time from burning the table after the bunny's ear went up in flames.It was a lot of fun and I think will become a tradition.

Easter Part I - Pasta Family

The Pasta family got together and had a egg hunt on Saturday.

Apparently 50 plus eggs are too many for a three year old. He got a little bored half way through.
Sean coloring eggs.
We also tried to play Colored Eggs, but Sean is just not quite old enough to understand. This was mine and I think one of Dave and Joe's favorite games. I can't wait until he is older and we can teach him the game we made up on Easter Eve about 30 years ago called Double E. It's fun!

Dad in bunny ears!