Blizzard 2009

Well, it really was true. I listened to Gary, I listened to Mike and I listened to Rick. They all said we were going to have a White Christmas with massive amounts of snow. Being a true Okie, I didn't believe a word they said. I figured that they would be wrong as they most generally are. After all, it is a bit hard to believe a guy who is shouting "Val, Val, what you got Val?". BUT, for once in their lives, they were not only right, they were 100% right. 11 inches of snow in Northwest OKC, with 14 officially at the airport. The 13th official White Christmas since who knows when. Christmas Eve was the worst day. Everyone said to stay in, don't get on the roads, so what do Bob and I do? We get on the road, at dusk, to go pick up Stephanie and her dogs for Christmas. What is Christmas without family? I will be the first to admit that when Bob's tires were spinning in the driveway, I was ready to come back in the house, but Bob was sure that if he could get out of the drive, we would be fine. We ventured to the gas station to fill up the Suburban and while it was interesting, it was not too bad, so we ventured onward. The Hefner Parkway was closed, so we simply got on it (with several other dummies) and headed south. I was amazed at the number of cars just parked on the Parkway. Where did all the people go?? We exited at 63rd and headed to May Ave. The situation was much worse on May. Cars were stopped and/or stuck all over the place. People were walking from car to car. The lights were out at 50th. We got to Stephanies and loaded everything up and headed home. Bob decided to forgo the Parkway and go west on 50th to McArthur. Sounded like a plan. A couple of blocks east of the bridge going over the Parkway on 50th, traffic just stopped. People were stuck on the bridge. We inched forward and finally got to the bridge. Bob had to go into the oncoming lane of traffic and then weave across to pass the stalled cars. The true Oklahoma spirit was showing as people were out of cars helping to push, dig or pull people out of the street. Once we got past the bridge and past Portland, it was smooth sailing. Slow, but smooth. We arrived home approximately 2 1/2 hours later. The trip usually takes 30-45 minutes. Christmas morning, Bob and Stephanie ventured out again to get our Aunt and Uncle so they could spend Christmas with us. They left me home cooking. (No, I did not burn anything.) After lunch they had to repeat the whole thing to take them home. Bob got bogged down at Uncles home and Stephanie had to use the shovel to move some snow in order for him to get traction. That was the one and only time Bob had problems on the street. He must have lived in Alaska in a former life. We have been out today (12/26) and have had no trouble at all getting around.

Below is a picture of our reindeer in the front yard. Look closely and you can see the blue "water" lights peeking through the snow.


This is the bushes in front of our dining room door. The lights look so pretty.

This is another view of the bushes in the front.

Here is a view from a bit of a distance

This is a front porch view.

While I am glad to have had a White Christmas, I have had enough snow for a while. I am hoping for a warm New Years Eve. Stay safe and warm guys.

Mannheim Steamroller

We went to see Mannheim Steamroller. I am unsure what I was expecting, but it was totally different from what I thought. The music was great, but the show part was a bit weird. The main core of guys were in the middle of the stage with the other band members surrounding them on the sides. They had video screens on the back wall of the stage and had videos running that were to depict parts of the music. Maybe my ears are wired differently, but my mental visual of the songs did not match the videos they showed. It was like reading a book, over and over and then suddenly seeing the movie and finding out the main character is short, old and one legged instead of tall, dark and handsome. Very odd. After the show, the main core group sat at a table in the lobby and signed autographs. I thought that was pretty cool.

This is the table with the band signing autographs. It is hard to see, but the line is pretty long.

Eishens and Christmas Lights

Eishens and Christmas Lights. What a perfect evening.
We began at Eishen's for some wonderful Fried Chicken, Okra, Nacho's, onions and pickles and Margarita's in a bottle. Left there and headed down the road to Kingfisher to go thru their Christmas Light Park. We tuned the radio to their Christmas Music station and began our journey thru the Winter Wonderland of Colors, sights and sounds. Below is the picture of the lighted bridge. I know I am not a photographer and the photo does not do justice to any of these light displays. I am so sorry that you can not experience the wonder of these.
This is just a scene. I thought it was fairly representative of the light there.
This is the best display, in my opinion, in the whole park. This is a tree with angels flying towards heaven. There is one angel for each person killed in the Murrah Bombing. The tree is dark and then the angels light up, row by row, and fly upwards. Beautiful
We left Kingfisher and headed toward the Chesapeake Energy compound at N.W. 63rd and N. Western. They have completely redone the light display this year and are using all LCD lights. It really takes your breath away when you top the hill and see the rows upon rows of trees. The colors are brilliant. I thought this was pretty cool, as I got the reflection on the pond too.





This is along the street. I tried to capture the long view of trees. You really need to go by and have a look at these.


After leaving Chesapeake, we began wandering through Nichols Hills. I thought this was a pretty house.

We arrived back at home, came in, opened a bottle of Cranberry wine and enjoyed a glass with good friends. A wonderful night was had by all. I am ready to do the whole evening over.

Trace Adkins/Martina McBride Concert

Stephanie and I recently attended the Trace Adkins/Martina McBride concert at the Ford Center.

I bought the tickets to see Trace. I really didn't care who was with him, but I was pleased that it was Martina.

Trace is a good ole boy from the country. He sang a wide range of songs from Honky Tonk to Gospel. He made jokes and was just delightful.

Martina is a wonderful entertainer. She sat on a moon swing and flew right over our heads. It was great.

These two people compliment each other so well. Those of you who did not attend, really missed out. Next time they come to OKC, get tickets and go for a good time.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra Concert Review

Tonight was the TSO Concert at the Ford Center. Linda and I attended.


Trans-Siberian Orchestra Information:

Trans-Siberian Orchestra is a rock orchestra founded by Paul O'Neill, Robert Kinkel, and Jon Oliva in 1996. The band's musical style is often described in different terms, it incorporates progressive rock, symphonic metal, power metal and heavy metal, and influenced by the classical music. Trans-Siberian Orchestra is best known for its remakes of classical Christmas songs.

The above is a quick guide to who and what this band is. Bear in mind that some of the band members played with such groups as Queen, Metalica and Def Leppard. Real hard rockers.

It was awesome. The concert is basically a hard Rock Christmas concert. Our seats were on the floor and we experienced several firsts.
1) We got snowed on, inside during the concert. In fact, for a short period of time, we were the only ones being snowed on. OK, I know the snow was soap bubbles, but the song said Snow and it snowed.
2)We were so close to the "fire" on the floor, behind us that is was hot where we were sitting.
3)This is the first time that I have been at a concert and the fire alarm for the facility went off and the concert ended early. The finale was full of fireworks, pyrotechnics and fire. All of it overwhelmed the Ford Center and set off the fire alarms. The PA kept saying "please exit the building in an orderly fashion, do not use the elevators." I thought it was part of the show, but the usher told us that it was a real false alarm. There was no danger, but it was a real first.

Ate dinner at Deep Fork afterwards. Wonderful evening.

Little House on the Prarie...Review

Stephanie and I went to the Saturday evening performance of "Little House on the Prarie". Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura during the TV series was the "star". I was expecting a Broadway show based on the TV show. Boy, was I wrong. While the characters names were the same, the storyline was so loosly based on the TV or the books that I was left wondering if I had dropped down a rabbit hole. Almonzo was an underage boy who lied to get his land grant. Laura never followed rules and was more interested in doing things with and like Pa than anything else. Mary was a goody two shoes who was constantly telling everyone that as the oldest sister, she should be able to make Laura behave. Laura became a teacher for the sole purpose of earning money for Mary to go to blind school. If all of that weren't bad enough, Ma (Melissa Gilbert) can't dance, sing or really act for that matter. Interestingly enough, while the Civic Center was packed for the first act of the show, there were quite a few seats open for the second half. The highlight of the show was the performance by Nelly Olson ( Kate Loprest) . She was so animated and funny. She received the loudest ovation at the end of the show. While I am always thrilled to see a live show, I am glad that this was just part of my season tickets and I did not pay extra for them. I won't go out of my way to see this one again. Hopefully, the rest of the season will be better than the start of the season.

The Great State Fair of Oklahoma

This past Saturday we went to the Great State Fair of Oklahoma. It started out to be a group of about 10, but by the time it came to go to the fair, it was a group of 3. D.J., Bob and myself. I don't know what the deal was, but everything was perfect and we had the best time that I can remember.

We arrived at the fair at 10 a.m. and we found a parking spot really close to the gate. There was hardly any crowd and we zipped right in. Bob and I had not had breakfast, so we grabbed a brat. It was wonderful. Bob thought it had too much kraut and when he went to dump off the kraut, the brat slipped out of the bun into the trash. All he was holding was an empty bun. He bought a gyro and the next thing we know he had gyro all over him. The darn thing just exploded. We went into the old bubble building (which did not have the wine) and then ventured into the next building. We found the wine and spent a long time tasting each and every Oklahoma wine available. The tastes were a dollar, but they sold wine icees for $5. They were wonderful. After we decided which wines we were going to buy, we left there and went to another building.





This is what the midway looked like. Can you believe there were such few people?
After we finished the next building, we went down the midway. D.J. and I played the goblet game. Here is a picture of us playing. We had so much fun and made so much noise that we had a crowd gathered. Who know you could get so excited about winning a tiny banana? The operator gave us extra balls to stay there because he went from the 2 of us playing to no space at all.
Here we are with our winnings. I thought the hat was really cute.
We then went back to the Wine building and for the life of us, could not remember what wines we had chosen. What to do??? Begin the testing all over again. We threw ourselves into the effort with all the energy we could muster. While we were sitting there enjoying an icee, some of Bob's ex-football players came up. Bob had a great time talking about the days at good old Southeast.

The Best Carpet Cleaners in the World!!

OK, I know this is a weird post, but I wanted to tell all of you about the carpet cleaners that we just used. I promise I am not getting paid a dime nor getting a discount for passing along this information.

As all of you know, we have 2 dogs. We also have 2 granddogs that stay with us quite a bit. None of our dogs understand that they are dogs and are in the house most of the time. We force them outside for potty breaks, but one of our dogs is older and has some problems (if you know what I mean).

Our carpets were dirty, smelly and had some stains (food and other). One of Bob's ex-students has a brand new carpet cleaning business, so we hired them to clean our carpets.

OH MY GOSH!!!

Our carpets look brand new. They are spotless ... odorless ... stainless.

Our daughter hired them to clean her carpets and she is over the moon at how great her carpets look. She was thinking about buying new carpet, hers were that bad. The guy that works for us hired them to clean his carpets and he and his wife are thrilled.

Here is the info. Tell them Cindy and Bob sent you. That won't get either of us a discount, but I told Tim I was going to tell everyone I know about his company.

Triple CCC Carpet Cleaning LLC. 24 hour Water Restoration --Cleaning and Repair
405-501-8236
Robert Austin and Tim Cates Owners.

Sorry guys

I know it has been a long time since I have blogged anything. I am so sorry, but my summer has been incredible busy. Here is a listing of the highlights from Cindy's Summer.

June: School let out, Day trip to the Lavender Farm, got new glasses, Aunt had eye surgery, DJ's Birthday party, work 1 day.

July: Aunt follow up eye appointment., Uncle hospitalized, Uncle released to go to his own home which means we began taking food to him, filling his med minder, doing his laundry, mammogram, Cindy Bone scan, Uncle doctor appointment. (2), PARIS and LONDON trip, came home with no voice. Aug: Cindy follow up doctor. appointment (yeah, everything OK) Aunt final eye follow up (which wasn't final, as she has some sort of problem), got carpets cleaned.

August (so far): Bob work's alum dinner, Back to work, Bob summer conference, Bob/DJ/me go to summer conference info meeting where Bob won the door prize which brings us up to today.

I try to get all my routine doctor appointments done during the summer. I hate to take off work for something ordinary like a blood test. Because of that, I am in and out of doctor. offices all summer long. The good thing is that when I go back to work, I am sure I am healthy.

My uncle has been in poor health as long as I can remember. When my mom died, the care of my uncle, who has never married, and my aunt, married 3 times but no kids, fell to Bob and I. We have been gliding along and my uncle has been hospitalized a couple of times for med mess ups and pneumonia. This last time, he was in pretty bad shape. He was dehydrated, lost a lot of weight,and med issues. He has had several small strokes which effects his speech and his walking, but his mind is very clear. My aunt wanted to ship him off to a nursing home, but Uncle wants to go home. The doctor agreed as Uncle is of sound mind, but we were told he was going to need a lot of help. We have been fixing meals, putting them in foil pans and taking them to him so he can pop them in the oven. We also have been buying other types of food to tempt him to eat. He is doing well and is even gaining some weight.

My aunt had cataract surgery which meant that I got to drive her to all of her appointments and the surgery. I also had to go to her house 3 times a day for several days to help her put eye drops in. Can you believe she is in her late 60's and had never put eye drops in by herself? The last appointment was to be the last, but she has some swelling deep in her eye that is a concern to the doctor. New eye drops and we get to go back to doctor. on Sept. 1.

I have a new boss, which is going to work out great. The first week of work has been rough as I have had to explain everything to him as he is new to our district. Once he learns the ropes, I think he will be good.

I am going to write a long posting about my European Adventure and the door prize win, so keep tuned.

I promise to do better about updating the blog.

Happy Birthday America

Happy Birthday America. This post is cut and pasted from the following website. If you click on the website, you will be able to hear Red Skelton recite the essay. It is time for all of us to remember how lucky we are to live in the United States.

http://www.poofcat.com/july.html



The following words were spoken by the late Red Skelton on his television program as he related the story of his teacher, Mr. Laswell, who felt his students had come to think of the Pledge of Allegiance as merely something to recite in class each day.

Now, more than ever, listen to the meaning of these words.

"I've been listening to you boys and girls recite the Pledge of Allegiance all semester

and it seems as though it is becoming monotonous to you.

If I may, may I recite it and try to explain to you the meaning of each word?"

II

I, me, an individual, a committee of one.

PledgePledgePledge

Pledge, dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without self pity.

AllegiancA

Allegiance, my love and my devotion.

To the flag

to the flag, our standard, Old Glory, a symbol of freedom. Wherever

she waves, there's respect because your loyalty has given

her a dignity that shouts freedom is everybody's job!

United

United, that means that we have all come together.

States

States, individual communities that have united into 48 great states.

Forty-eight individual communities with pride and dignity and

purpose; all divided with imaginary boundaries, yet united to

a common purpose, and that's love for country.

And to the republic

and to the republic, a state in which sovereign power is

invested in representatives chosen by the

people to govern. And government is the people

and it's from the people to the leaders, not from

the leaders to the people.

For which it stands, one nation

for which it stands, one nation, one nation, meaning "so

blessed by God"

Indivisible

Indivisible, incapable of being divided.

With liberty

with Liberty, which is freedom -- the right of power to live one's

own life without threats, fear or some sort of

retaliation.

And Justice

and Justice, the principle or quality of dealing fairly with others.

For all

for all, which means, boys and girls, it's as much your

country as it is mine.

***~~**~~***

Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country

and two words have been added to the pledge of Allegiance...

UNDER GOD

Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said

that is a prayer

and that would be eliminated from schools too?


God Bless America!

Lavender Farm

This past Saturday, Bob and I took a day trip. We went to the Country Cottage Primitives Lavender Farm in Shawnee, Oklahoma. While it is not what I expected, it was worth the trip. For $5.00 you get to pick a bundle of fresh lavender. I have a beautiful bundle in our bedroom. The smell is unbelievable. Before we went picking, we had a glass of lavender lemonade. Strange taste. Glad I tried it, but don't need to try it again.



This is a row of the purple lavender. The garden is arranged by varieties. While I don't know the names, the colors are light purple, dark purple and white. The bees are flying all over the place. The lady told me they were making lavender honey.


This is a view of the gardens from where Bob was sitting under a huge shade tree. I love the Angel of the Garden. The whole place is so serene and quiet.


I don't know what the deal is, but we keep running into lizards on our day trips. There were lots of lizards running around the garden. You really had to watch were you were stepping. They were so hard to see when they were just laying there.

Here is the link to their website.

http://www.countrycottagelavender.com/

There is another lavender farm outside of Tulsa that has a winery attached to it. We are going to go to it later on.


We ate lunch at the Original Vans Pig stand. Good Bar-B-Que. When we got back into the car, the smell of Lavender was amazing.

Our rating for this trip is a great big:

June 16. Happy Anniversery Bob

Happy Anniversary Bob.

37 years. Can you believe that?!

What is even scarier is that I met Bob when I was 9 or 10 and we began dating when I was 15.

My parents ran a softball stadium for the Oklahoma City Parks and Recreation department. Dad was the umpire, Mom ran the concession stand and I sold tickets. Bob’s dad was the assistant director for the Parks department and was basically my boss. Bob was riding with the man that was picking up the ticket money for the nightly deposit. I did not know him from Adam and Bob came through the gate and would not stop to buy a ticket. I did what I was hired to do … I called the park policeman and told him to throw the bum out. The park policeman went and told mom, who promptly freaked out. I decided that I did not like Bob, and for the rest of the summer, he was a thorn in my side.

Every summer, he re-appeared. Just like a bad penny. Then the funniest thing happened during the summer of my Freshman year. He showed up with a friend of his, Roy. Roy asked me out and we doubled with Bob and his date, Lyn. Bob and I spent more time talking to each other than our dates. Bob began coming to the softball stadium to sit with me while I sold tickets. Our first date consisted of him taking me for a coke and then home after a nights work. We wound up driving completely around Lake Hefner. We have been together ever since.


Yup, that means we have been together a total of 42 years. 37 married and 5 dating.

We have had a lot of adventures and made a lot of memories. I hope our girls look back on their childhood and know that their parents loved them and tried their best to be good parents. We have bungled some things, but never meant to.

Yes, Bob and I have had our fights … OK, it is true that I threw his shoes and jeans out the front door into the yard … but the key is that we never gave up on each other and our marriage vows. At times, it would have been easy to just throw in the towel, but we both meant it when we said “till death do us part”. I promise, I have never kinked his hose long enough for him to lose consciousness, just long enough to get his attention.

Bottom line ... Bob I love you and thank you so much for loving me in return. You got the short end of the stick as far as wives go. I still can’t cook, but I can order in with ease. I know I drive you crazy with my constant putting stuff up in a different places in order to organize our lives better (wish I could remember where I put the razor blades, honey I promise I am still hunting for them). I have learned so much from you. You have always had faith in my ability to do whatever I wanted and have always been my number one cheerleader. Without you, I would not be the woman I am today.

Bob, I have tried to come up with the perfect Anniversary present for you and think I have found it. I will watch a Law and Order marathon with you. Now that is true love!

I love you forever,
Cindy

THE Tech. Conference

OK, So you guys have been hearing about THE Tech Conference forever. It has come and gone and I did not need to go to the hospital in between sessions. I promise you this will be the final discussion on the conference and I further promise Bob that he will not have to sit through one more rehearsal of either presentation. But first, here is a recap of my adventure.

For those of you who may have been in a cave the last few weeks, I was asked to present at the OKCPS Tech Conference. This all stemmed from my desire to become more of a Tech person and set up a blog, twitter and do Face Book. While I thought it was a joke, they were serious. There are lots of "older" folks who are not using the Internet and computer to make their lives easier and the thought was "if that old lady can do it, so can you."

Next thing I knew, my one session had been turned into two sessions. One was titled "Social Networking in the 21st Century for all ages". The other was "No matter your age, anyone can use Technology." I was so grateful that the titles did not say "Old lady can use the Internet".

Here is the sign that was hanging outside my door showing where people could find me. Pretty cool, I thought.


"No Matter your Age" was the first presentation. Basically this was a crash course in different applications that can and do make lives so much easier. Excel, downloading photos, Shutterfly and Photo Story were the ones that I went into in depth. I briefly touched on Ancestry.com, online banking and pharmacy websites. I set up blogs for each presentation so people could have some where to go for help. Here is the blog address for this session: http://nomatteryourage.blogspot.com/

Session two was Social Networking and I showed Face book, Twitter, Blip and Blogging.
Here is the blog address: http://aglesssocialnetworking.blogspot.com

I love this graphic. This could be Bob and I at his computer. Bob doesn't agree with me. He thinks that I would be reaching over him trying to get to the keyboard. [No comments from the peanut gallery accepted here :-)]

And here I am standing in front of the PowerPoint presentation.


This has got to be one of the highlights of my life. I learned so much during this process. I am not talking just about the technology that I learned, I learned a lot about myself. The only negative comment that I ever heard was from a person who questioned why someone like me would be allowed to present at this conference. I struggled with that and now know the answer. I may not have the initials behind my name that you do, but I am not a dummy and what I presented may have helped one person think outside the box that they have put themselves in. What better reason is there? Isn't that why most of you guys began teaching?

Thanks to all who helped me accomplish this feat.

The Prohibition Room

Linda and I went out to dinner last night (6/3). We went to the Prohibition Room located in the Gold Dome bank building at N.W. 23rd and Classen Blvd. We went on a Wednesday night and there were very few customers. In fact, there was one other group there. That made it very nice.

The ceiling is open which does not allow for any noise to be muffled. As most of you know, I have trouble hearing, and if there had been more people there, I would have not understood much of what Linda was saying. Keep that in mind if you go on a weekend.

They have unusual drinks that are reminiscent of the Prohibition era. Linda had a Dirty Martini while I had a Milk Punch and then a Lemon Drop. I had a friend tell me about both drinks and I simply could not choose, so I did both. The Milk Punch has milk, brandy, dark rum, sugar, vanilla and nutmeg. It was good, but I am so glad I had it first, because I will probably never order anything but the Lemon Drop again.

The Lemon Drop is Lemonade with vodka and grand mariner. The whole thing is served in a martini glass rimmed with sugar. OMG!!!! I wanted to order another, but thought 2 drinks would be enough.

For appetizers, we had Bruschetta. You get to choose 4 toppings and we decided to try some unusual toppings. White bean,Parmesan and Truffle oil: probably would not order again.
Roasted garlic and mozzarella: Good, probably would get again. Prosciutto and figs: Yummy, would get again. Brie and Fuji apple: OMG, this is a home run. I wanted to order it again for dessert. It is wonderful.

The main course consisted of Pork Loin with Habanero pepper sauce (the nightly special) and Filet Medallions. The pepper sauce was not too hot for me, just an after burn. Linda really like it though. The Filet was wonderful.

Of course we had to have dessert and opted for Banana's Foster. Wonderful (even though Linda intervened and wouldn't let me drink the sauce).

I was worried that we would be uncomfortable at the Prohibition Room as it appears to be a place for the younger crowd, but we felt right at home. In fact, we were there 4 hours!

I will definitely be dragging Bob there. This would be the perfect place for before a show, although I have a feeling that the weekends are jam packed.

Memorial Day Weekend Trip

We took off for Dallas on Friday as soon as we could get away from OKC. We didn't get to Dallas until late Friday night. Bob scored us rooms at the Galleria. I love that place. Saturday morning, we go up and went to the Corner Bakery in the Mall for breakfast. We got to watch an ice skating class of pre-schoolers. They are so cute.

We left there and began running around Dallas. We went to Frisco, Texas for the sole reason of visiting the Lego Store in the Frisco Mall as Brodie has discovered Legos and loves them. It has only been open for a couple of weeks. They are opening one in Penn Square sometime soon. (Trust me ... don't go even one time ... money flies out of your pocket). We were there early, but the crowd was already crazy. The guy who worked there said that the crowd was nothing. After calling Valerie 3 or 4 times, we settled on our purchases and left. Here is a picture of Bob in the mall after leaving the store. His only comment was that he felt like he was back in New York City after a trip to Canal Street.

People were stopping him to ask directions to the store. It was so funny. Here we are from Oklahoma and people think we know where the Lego store was. Oh right, Bob was loaded down with bright yellow Lego Bags.

We discovered that Texas has California Pizza Kitchens. When we are in Las Vegas, we always make a point of having a meal there and we eat their frozen pizza's all the time. We were in heaven. The Cobb salad is still to die for.

Driving down the road, we saw a toy store and Bob pulled in for me to see what they had. The sign below greeted me at the door. I had to take a picture of it. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen.

They had signs like this up all over the store. I felt like every move was being watched and even though there were a couple of items I would have bought, I just left them there. When I walked out, some sort of buzzer rang. The cashier shouted that I was OK and to come again. Sure thing, I really want to buy something from a big brother watching type atmosphere.

A friend of mine had been telling me about a restaurant he wanted us to try in Dallas. Celebrations is a family style restaurant featuring home cooked food. The cool thing, especially if you are really hungry, is that you are able to get seconds on most of the meals. I had the pot roast and it was awesome. Bob had the Chicken Fried Steak and Fried Chicken. He said the chicken was very moist and tender. The vegetables come family style and the bowls just kept being refilled. Very good place. It is on Lovers Lane. The next time you go to Dallas, it is worth the trip.



Bob said we didn't win the lottery and we had to come home on Monday. I delayed it as long as possible and we didn't get home until after 5. I have bought lottery tickets for this week. Hey, someone has to win it ... why not us????????????

Where in the world has Cindy been?

OK, I was thoroughly chastised by D.J. for not updating my blog, so here goes.

Sorry guys.

I have been covered up with end of year stuff at work and then getting my PowerPoints finished and setting up the two blogs that go with those. I am pleased with the way the presentations turned out. I just hope I don't keel over from fright and can get through them OK.

Bob went on his annual coaches fishing trip last weekend and had a wonderful time. As you can tell from the picture, they caught their limit.



Here is a picture of all of the guys who went. It turned out to be a pretty small group this year, but they had a great time.

While Bob was gone, I got the front flower bed planted, but discovered that I had not bought enough plants. I need to get it filled in so the flowers are even in growth, but haven't taken the time to go. I also got caught up on reading.

A friend loaned me the first book in the Twilight series. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I am hooked. I just finished the second book and can't wait to get my hands on the third book.

I'm sorry that this isn't more exciting, but my life is rather humdrum at the moment.
Hopefully, my life will be more interesting in the upcoming days and I can post my usual seepage.

Have a safe holiday and don't do anything I wouldn't do!!

Birthdays and Lion King

What a week. This is our Birthday week and we try hard to celebrate each day.

For my birthday, Bob gave me tickets to the touring Broadway show, The Lion King. The show he chose for me to attend was on his birthday.We met Sharon and Clark and Jeff and D.J. for dinner at
the Outback.

After a wonderful dinner, we had dessert.
The ice cream was on a rich, chocolate brownie. What a birthday cake for us!!

We had a great time and really enjoyed the time spent with good friends. Jeff took D.J. and I downtown to the show. We were worried about the parking due to the Yard dogz and Festival of the Arts. The tickets Bob got were on the very front row. It was awesome. We could reach out and touch the orchestra director. At one point in the show, the giraffe puppets bow to the audience. The face of one of them came down directly between Stephanie and I. It was so cool. If I had been faster, I would have touched it, but I was jumping out of the way. Oh well, Maybe another time.


I snapped the above picture of D.J. and I in the auditorium. The usher came unglued and told me to cease and desist. Pictures weren't allowed in the auditorium. Mind you, there were flashes all over the place. When I took my phone out to call Bob, Mr. User man was right there to tell me to stop taking pictures. I told him it was my phone. I guess he thought I was going to sit there and take pictures all night.

It was a great week, topped off by a wonderful night. It will be hard to top it next year. (But we will sure try)

3rd Monday in McKinney

Yesterday, Bob decided we were going to go on a Road trip. He wouldn't tell me where we were heading. I only had one guess and he would only give me one clue. He took me to McKinney, Texas for 3rd Monday Trading days. We love going to Canton for First Monday and were hopeful this would be as good. It is really small and we were able to do the whole thing in about 2 hours. I am glad we went as we had fun, but I doubt this will be a regular stop of ours.

Here is a picture showing down one of the rows. You can see the vendors on each side. They had things from handmade Cowhide purses to used books. It was fun to see all of the different things. We got a couple of things, but had a wonderful time just looking around.
This picture, below is from their version of Dog Alley. There are breeders with all kinds of puppies and cats for sale. At Canton, there is even a vet so you can have the animals checked out. It would be impossible to pass on one of these animals, if you were hunting for one. They are so darn cute. It is sad though, to think about the conditions that the animals may come from. As most of you know, our dogs are very spoiled and we were careful to check out the breeders they came from.


When we left there, Bob went to the "man store". I sat in the car and read the paper, played online Suduko and waited ... and waited ... and waited. He loves going here and can spend hour upon hour in there. Basically, it is just a big electronic/video/applicance/movie/cd store. They have things there that Bob has seen in magazines but not in real life.


I think it is hysterical that they have all the Longhorns looking at you from under their sign. This is what makes it a "True Man Store" I guess. Only in Texas.

From there, we tried a new place for dinner. Rafains Brazilian Churrascaria. We eat at Texas de Brazil a lot and wanted to try a different version of that. We are glad we tried it, but will stick to the original. Here is a picture of one side of the salad bar.


On the way home, we got caught in a lot of traffic turning into the Pizza Hut event Center. The neon sign said "Jimmy Buffet, here, tonight". The parking lot looked like an RV convention. I had heard that the Parrotheads party the whole weekend, but had never seen anything like it. Here are a couple of pictures that kinda show the crowd. We were going down the highway at 60MPH, so the picture quality isn't that great. Sorry.



Just as we were leaving Texas, there was a beutiful Rainbow. I thought Rainbows came at the end of rainstorms, but this one was before the storm. Still pretty.
We were on I35 between Purcell and Norman when we began getting rained on. There was a wall cloud west of us and another one east of us. All of a sudden we began getting pelted with hail. BIG hail. I was scared to death. Bob just kept going. The visibility was horrible, but we could see lots of red tail lights up ahead. Stupid people were pulling off under the underpass to protect their car. While that may be acceptable to do if you are in the outside lane, you should never do that in the inside lane. The car directly in front of us ... a new BMW with a paper tag ... just decideded to stop. Bob began honking to make them move. He was afraid someone would plow into one of the cars behind us and we would be rearended. Finally the car moved and we began going. We finally drove out of the hail. Here are a couple of shots from where we were stopped.

We had a great time, but I could have done without the last 90 minutes of the trip.