It is the Season!

No Black Friday for me - Christmas Shopping - Gifts to buy for Grandboys…Done! Jen and I went to the toy store - Toys R Us - the day before Thanksgiving and found great things for the grandboys! I am so happy to have that task behind me.

Now, for the Christmas tree - yikes! Ever since I can remember it has been my duty to decorate the Christmas tree in our home. Where did I go wrong? How is it that I hear these wonderful stories from friends and family about the decorating of the tree. And honestly, I do remember decking out the tree many years at Grandma Farnsley’s house. We traipsed out into the snow, cut down a ‘real’ Christmas tree made decorations from construction paper - beautiful paper chains, lovely ornaments, all from cheerfully colored paper held together with glue. What fun! (Note: yes, it is true...nearly every one of the gifts you see under that tree are for those two grandboys - but don't blame me for all of them...several are from their Aunt Jen!)

Christmas is a bit different with the air conditioner running - we did have snow on Christmas Eve 2004. It was beautiful! - a gift none of us will ever forget. Hmmm...Some gifts are worth repeating!

Random Stuff...

Oh, but it was so hard to go back to work after the Thanksgiving break. This is when I am quite certain that I will be ready for retirement before too much longer! I have no problem keeping busy outside of the office at all.
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It was great having the kiddos here for Thanksgiving...makes me look forward to future Thanksgivings :)
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Jen picked up a new sponsor this past weekend - Akuma Helmets. They have called her in to help them design a special helmet just for her. I am sure it will have butterflies on it. Wow...that's exciting! a signature helmet? We'll see - pictures coming soon, I hope!
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It has been cold here! COLD - I don't mind the cold so much as long as the sun shines. When it rains and is cold...Brrrrr! I'm a wimp...but, that's okay :)

NO DOGS ALLOWED!

NO MORE DOGS! NO MORE ANIMALS ALLOWED IN THIS HOUSE!!

Oh, but look at her - she is so cute :) When the boss got married he needed someone to watch his little lab mix named KT while he and his bride went on their honeymoon. KT was adorable, very friendly. She won me over the instant I went to pick her up. Erich opened the gate and out popped KT (bounce, bounce, bounce!) She bounced right past me and into the back seat, though the open car door.

"Let's Go!" she seemed to say.

Roger got home from work and after a few timid moments from KT, she was his best buddy. She soon learned that he was the bearer of treats and stuck close by his heals. I suppose the biggest disappointment for him was her slobbering - or lack of it! Grandpup Chance is a Champion Slobberer and blows wonderful drippy bubbles while waiting for his treats!

KT made herself completely at home on Roger's recliner!

In Celebration of Turkeys

Roger is always the designated turkey, stuffing and pie maker on Thanksgiving. This year I was mostly thankful that he did not have to leave the next day for a scheduled trip to California for work...Houston stepped up to save the day and the parts went there instead.

For the past couple of years at Thanksgiving, the Great Dane Grandpup Chance has assisted. He kept a watchful eye on his Papa during the turkey preparation. In our tiny little kitchen Chance and Roger are about all that will fit on any given day.

It never fails, no matter what the weather on Turkey Day, afterward we wander out into the front yard (why not the back yard? I don't know) and watch as the Grandboys pitch around some type of football, tackling each other furiously. They laugh, they cry, they compete - the competition if always fierce!




Although AJ is the big brother he is not always the winner...but usually! Later in the day AJ and Caden made movies with the video camera...oh my - what have I created???

~ Fall ~

I thought I saw it right after the power outage a couple of weeks ago; but it slipped away. I heard it was coming today...but it failed to arrive. Sure, it has been cooler. I don't believe it has been up to 90 degrees in awhile - hmmm...no, it was 93 the other day. It is November 6th and the furnace has not turned on yet. The air conditioner? You bet, every day and night.

What to do? How do we encourage the arrival of fall in South Texas?

Well, I suppose we will just continue to mow that yard! Grandboy Caden mows away with an 'old-timey' mower that his dad found at the hardware store.

Don't be fooled though...his big brother is using the self-propelled mower!

If I can just get those two grandboys to mow on a regular basis, I'll be pretty happy...even if fall never arrives :)

Ramdom Thoughts about Missing the Power

It was around 10:30 last night when I’d just finished reading my vampire book by a handcrank flashlight when I heard excited voices and other noises out in the back yard.

Then the lights flashed and I heard cheering outside. Our power had been off ALL day. The northern blew in at around 9 a.m. yesterday taking out a lot of power lines causing havoc in the schools and at homes all over Corpus Christi. At first it was kind of exciting – pulling out the candles before dark, making sure the flashlights were all loaded with fresh batteries, taking a bath by candlelight! (thanks to our gas water heater) But as time went on and I had to go to bed with wet hair which promised me an exciting hairdo this morning (and yes, it is as bad as I’d anticipated!) I no longer wanted to pretend to be camping!

It is only 46 degrees here this morning! The furnace is not on and do not expect it to come on. In fact the air conditioner will certainly be on later today. Perhaps I should try to do something with this hair before going to the office?

"Willie Nelson, Ladies and Gentlemen!"

I’d nearly forgotten that we had tickets to a Willie Nelson concert last night. Actually I did not forget, but had been dreading it for quite some time – not the listening to Willie, although at times it is nearly more than I can handle. It was the actual GOING to the concert, dealing with the crowd, and not knowing exactly where it was or what to expect when we arrived.

We survived the concert, but more importantly we survived 'Concrete Street', the outdoor venue where the concert was held. We didn’t get towed away, only had to walk a mile (on Roger’s bad knee, that was fun…both knees were hurting by the time we arrived at Concrete Street), and we only nearly got pitched in jail once…no, make that twice.

We had to stand in line to get frisked at the gate, stand in line to get a $3 bottle of water (they would not let me keep the bottle cap – I suppose it could be used as a weapon of sorts), stand in line to get to our seats only to be turned away because we’d not stood in line to get a wristband for our reserved seats (jail threat #1), stand in line to actually get our wristbands, stand in line again to get our seats, listen to 3 hours of very loud country rock and two other bands, sit behind a row of boisterous females, (the one in front of me with a large cowboy hat - thank goodness that group left after the first hour of Willie). Then on the way out they tried to take away what was left of our $3 bottle of water and Roger threw a fit (I thought we were going to the brink for certain when he grabbed the bottle back from the woman and said it was his, he’d paid for it and he was taking it with him!)

We made it the additional mile back to the car and found it still parked there – amazing since the tow trucks were cruising the area looking for suckers. Anyway, that is the last time we have to go to Concrete Street. There cannot be anything there again that will be important enough for us to see. It was like a big smelly, smoke-filled, drunken bar.

When Willie Nelson finally did arrive, the music calmed down to Willie style and my ears eventually stopped pulsating, however they are still ringing. The last hour of Willie was very good since many people had left and we could see well…not actually well, but nearly unobstructed. He closed out the show about 4 times before finally leaving, so Roger had a great time from 11:00 p.m. till midnight when the show finally really did end. I only slept through about an hour of the tortuous portions.

Willie Nelson…been there done that. Next time we will just buy the CD.