Bawling In The Bluebonnets

Today after church, I wanted to get some bluebonnet pics before they are gone for the year.  So, after church Autumn & I came home and changed clothes, grabbed some pretzels, I grabbed my camera, and we started off on our adventure.  Mom said she had seen some bluebonnets on the “sneaky mouse way” home from church, so we went by that place first.  There were some, but not very many, and they were in someone’s yard.  I didn’t feel like asking a stranger if we could take pics in their yard, so we kept going.

Next we went to the place near the lake where we took THESE bluebonnet pics back in 2011.  However, there weren’t very many this year AND they have a sign posted now that says no parking or standing.  UGH!  We drove a little ways further down to the lake to see if there were any along the way, but there weren’t.

We decided to drive across the 2 bridges and go to a little country town north of where we live to see if there were any along the sides of the road.  Surely we’d find some out in the country.  No such luck!  But, we had fun driving around and exploring roads we’d never been on before.

By this time, we had been driving around for an hour.  So, I decided to try the place by Nick’s work where I got these AMAZING pics last year.  I had driven past there 2 weeks ago and there were NO bluebonnets, which is surprising since the whole place was COVERED w/ them last year.  We got to the place and I was happy to see there were a few small patches of bluebonnets.

We went to the top of the hill and I loved the pretty yellow flowers and tall green grass.

I did not tell Autumn to pose like this.  She just sat down and put her hands like this.  We were trying to hurry b/c we had a little bit of cloud cover, but the sun was getting ready to shine and it’s so much better to get pics in diffused light.

I got some more pics, but then the some came out and Autumn was whining that the sun was in her eyes.  So, she got up and walked away to try to find some shade.

I think this is my “money shot” for this year.  The wind was blowing just enough to make the back of her dress big, but not enough to make her long locks blow in the wind.  Still a really pretty picture, I think.

More exploring in the bluebonnets.  I told her to be careful where she stepped so she didn’t crush any of them.

By this point, she was DONE taking pics.  She kept complaining that the sun was too bright, she was tired, and she wanted to go home.  She sat down in the bluebonnets to sulk and I just snapped away.

I really like this pic, too.  She looks so innocent and sweet and contemplative.

As you can tell in this pic, the sun was really bright and she had had enough.  She ran way from me and I guess a bug got on her foot, so she threw off her shoes and started screaming.  It went WAY downhill from there.  We were both yelling at each other and it was NOT pretty.

We went to Papa & Mimi’s house to have some dinner and just drove in silence the whole way.  She was in the back sniffling the whole time and when we got to Mom & Dad’s house I got out of the car, went over to her side, and just hugged her while she cried.  We both apologized for the things we had said and done.  I have been doing really well about not losing my temper and yelling at her.  It just wounds her sensitive little soul when I yell, so I need to continue being better at it.

We had a good rest of the afternoon and just spent time together as a family.