AT home

I am on vacation this week, but we did not go anywhere. It is just too hot and Larry didn't want to take time right now. He is saving it until it is cooler. We did go to Ivie Lake a couple of weeks ago with Shell and Jerome and had such a good time that we are going again this weekend and Rick and Vicki are joining us. We are looking forward to sitting in the lake and drinking the beverage of our choice. Here at home I did some yard work (in the mornings while it was still a little cool) and then I tried to figure out how to tape onto DVDs with the new DVD/VCR we bought. I guess I need to wait for one of the girls to come home and show me what to do (how sad is that?). I did take one day and go to S.A. to return a dress I bought and tried on about 15 other dresses before I found one that I think will work. Needless to say it is a good thing that Larry was not along, although I could have dropped him off at the Bass Pro Shop and he would never have noticed how long I was gone. Then of course I had to stop at Target and wander around for a while and things just kept jumping into my cart. I hate when that happens. I would have put some pics of Lake Ivie on here, but I am on dial up here at home and I do have to go to sleep sometime. Back to work next week, but on to Lake Ivie first.

Moose and the creek

Well the moose made it, by 18 wheeler no less, but he is now residing in Rheingold. The crate was pretty big as you can see.

Here he is without his antlers. Looks kinda naked.
Here he is all decked out.
Then we had to have a little fun with him.
He lived on my utility room floor from Friday until Sunday.

He is now living on the wall in the "old kitchen" looming over our roll top desk.

When I look up from doing paper work this is what I see. Kinda scary. Hope he doesn't fall on me. I think it would hurt a little bit.

We then had a great day at the creek on Sat. We stayed until 10:00. Looks like we are having a terrible time doesn't it?

Colten caught a big catfish later in the evening and he was so excited that he fished until we left hoping to catch another one.

Abiline and the grandkids

What a hot trip that was. We got to the park on Sat. and had a little lunch and then drove around to see the park and found the playground and let the kids play and then found out that the pool is only open from Thur. - Sun. so we let them go swimming Sat. afternoon, Sun. morning (Larry and I got in, too) and Sun. afternoon. The kids played with a neighbor girl a lot of the time. We took some walks, some bike rides and durning the heat of the day we watched movies in the camper. It is hard to do anything outside when it is 100 degrees.



Here the kids are at the campsite. There were lots of shade trees thank goodness. It make it pleasant to sit outside in the mornings and the late evenings.
Here the kids are playing with Alex (short for Alexandria). She is from Midland and they had lots of fun together.
Can't go camping without a campfire and marshmellow roasting. They sure are yummy. The kids enjoyed trying to get them just right.
And then or course there was fishing. Colten caught the biggest one (probably about 4" long), but it was also the only one. Oh well, they tried. We enjoyed spending time with them and I think they enyoyed it, too. Will have to see where they want to go next year.

Heading for an adventure

We are going to take the grandkids on a camping trip to Abilene State Park starting on Sat. There will be much swimming, bike riding, hiking, and fishing done, so Opie and I need to rest up so we can keep up with them (or maybe they need to rest up to keep up with us, ha ha). We are looking forward to spending some quality time with them with no computer games to distract them or us. I will send pics after we get back. One thing the state parks don't have is internet access for campers. Check in week after next and I'll see how fast I can get a few pics up for you all to see.

Sand Fest

We had a great time with Shell and Jerome at the Sand Fest in Port Aransas this past weekend. Larry and I took a walk Sat. morning on the beach and saw a Jack Ship which is a type of ship that Rena has been on. The three legs sit on the sea floor and anytime the waves get too big they just "jack" the ship up the legs and get the boat out of the water. Rena was out and I thought she might be on the one we saw but she was way out south of Mississippi on a barge. But, seeing the jack ship out there was pretty interesting.

Now on to the sand fest. The sculptures were fantastic and so detailed it was unbelivable. They start on Friday and have to be finished by Sunday noon. I wish I could send more pics, because I took a bunch, especially since we went there Fri., Sat., and Sun. so we saw the works in progress. Here are just a few. I will try to add some more so this may look really long, but I have a few close up ones where you can really see details.

Look at the details. You can see through the "rocks" that are stacked. Some of the scluptures are taller than the people doing the work. There were faces, mushrooms that grow on trees, owls, cats, squirrels. It was amazing.

Anyway, I have lots and lots more because I just could not get over how they do that. I would love to go again. Each year they have different sculptures and I don't know how they come up with the ideas, but they are incredible. Oh yeah, we also ate lots of good seafood and drank lots of cold beer. What a relaxing weekend.

Busy weekend

Wow, what a weekend!!! We had the open house at Rheingold on Saturday so I left the house at 8:15 to start setting up (of course Larry's sub needed off so he was not there until later). We were really surprised at how many people came. We had almost 100 visitors. Some former students came and visited with the members who were also former students. I would bet there were lots of stories told about the things they used to do back then. We were supposed to be open from 10-4, but people were still coming in until 5 and then Larry said we needed to be in Stonewall at 6:30 for casino night at the chamber building. He had bought tickets and I didn't know it until then. So we loaded up two vehicles and hauled it back home and unloaded some of it and got ready and went again. The casino night was fun, but we didn't win any prizes at the end of the evening. Then we got up early on Sunday because Larry had to fix 50 lbs of beans for the Friends BBQ. We left there at 1:00 and went home and crashed and burned. Then we unloaded everything else and cleaned up the mess from the beans and rested some more. Anyway, it was all fun and worth it, but very tiring. This weekend we don't have anything planned until Sunday when Tyler gets confirmed so hopefully we can get some things done at home...hummm home...where is that? Oh yeah it's that place where we sleep and change clothes, as least that is all we are doing there now.

We are going to Mason Thursday evening to watch Colten play baseball so that will be fun. That's all for now. I tired again just thinking about what we did.

Galveston, Galveston

We finally got to go to Galveston this past weekend to see Serena. D'Lynn and the kids went down on Friday and Larry and I went on Sat. We even saw some neighbors when we were down there. The Mohrs from down the road were there with their family.

The kids had a great time at the beach even though it was a little windy and cool. Kids do not care.




Here are Larry and I with our babies.


This is one of the homes Larry and Rena and I toured on Sunday afternoon. They have some really nice Victorian homes there and then we drove around and looked at more and then took a walk that evening around where Rena lives and looked at the outside of a bunch of them. Also had some excitement while we were down there. A riot broke out on the seawall where they were having a concert and 12 people got arrested and the sirens went on and on. Rena lives within walking distance of the wall and we were able to see all kinds of cop cars come and go and try to get cars directed out of the area. It was crazy. First time Larry and I have ever been in a town while a riot was going on. Needless to say Serena was glad we were there and we were glad we were with her, too. This is her first spring break in Galveston and I think she is just going to hunker down for the rest of the week. We did eat at some really good restraunts and enjoyed our visit very much. Now we just need to see when we can go again when there are not so many people there.

We also finally stopped at Bucee's on the way back from Galveston. Man that place has just about anything you want even though it is just a convenience store.