Snow Day

The snow had almost melted by the time we got out there yesterday. And, yes, Laura is wearing cowgirl boots instead of snow boots.

Everyone safe and warm?

This cold front is yukky! I hope everyone is safe, warm, and dry.
Here, in beautiful NW Houston, it is 31 degrees, wind gusts about 27 mph, with the occasional flurry of sleet.

If it gets very wet tonight, all of my access to work will be covered in ice. We are under orders to only drive it is absolutely safe, and we know we can get home okay, since it is supposed to get worse tomorrow during the day.

Whatever you are doing, I hope you are safe!

Happy Birthday!

Happy 30th to my very mature sister!

Amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWjQCsI2BCE&eurl=

This is a friend of Jim's, from the SCA. He does amazing work, obviously - I cannot imagine doing this, from raising the silkworms to dyeing the thread to weaving...he is truly talented, and obviously dedicated! Apparently someone thought him good enough to put it on television. He won some awards at the State Fair this year as well, I think.

Anyway, enjoy.

I finially got my sn back

well i finially got my new sn and im back in businness on the blog!
thanks for the happy birthday wishes!
ill talk you yall later!


Love Courtney

Happy Birthday Courtney !!!!

Happy Birthday lil sweetie... I can't believe you're 14 !!! (as of Thursday!!) Hope your birthday was happy!!!

I love you baby girl !!!

Well, poo!

The trivia page is down.

Oh, and I upgraded to the new version of Blogger - it looks cool, but until the owner of this blog (not mentioning any names, Kim...) upgrades as well, we won't get to see the coolness that is the new version!

Poo. It's still down. :(

GO POKES!!!!

Even us OU fans root for OSU when they're not playing OU. Even tho Megan was an OSU cheerleader for Halloween, she didn't think "her" team won, but she knew her Daddy's team did. Max told Julie she needed to 'splain things a bit better to Megan.

Sorry the Aggies weren't able to hang on and win.

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas--today, tomorrow!

We've had a Christmas week--Ginny flew in on Monday last week and she's flying home today--about 6 p.m. tonight. We've had a good visit and done a little looking around at Arizona. Naturally, it was cool (too cold!) and dreary and even rained on us some. We saw snow at our feet (in Bisbee where we went to tour a mine) but none in the air, thank heavens.

Wish Steve could have come, too, but that wasn't to be.

Ellen, et al, survived the Blizzard of '06 okay. She was home grading papers (one of her TA jobs), Bob didn't go to work (in fact he ended up closing the restaurant) and the kids were healthy so that wasn't a worry. However, I think she was going stir-crazy yesterday! She did go out to the grocery store but not much was available. They're the hosts for the Schmidt Christmas dinner so she brainstormed with me (on the phone) over what she could produce in the way of a pie with two cups of sugar and two cans of sliced peaches. She's making a peach cobbler!

Harv and I will have a quiet day tomorrow and then start our latest project (kitchen cabinets) on Tuesday. He goes back to work on Wednesday but he's going to be "tele-commuting" quite a bit. Between computers and cell-phones he won't have to go in as often.

Hope everyone has a great holiday.

Love you all.

Update

Hey everybody!!! Its been a while so here's an update. I just finished my first semester at Midwestern State University and things couldn't have gone better. I have a 3.0 GPA, I'm on the Winter Guard and we are going to World Championships in Dayton, OH in April, I just got told today that I'm going to be an R.A. for next semester, and I'm the assistant Color Guard Director at a high school near Wichita Falls. So things are going really great! I hope things are going great for everyone else! Merry Christmas everybody!!!

we did it!!!!!!!!

Finally after a little bit of a wait for the "people" and I use the term people loosley. we got our house!!!!!!! now the fun part we move!!!

This is so fun to watch !!!

This one is even better than last year..Let the kids see it :)

Fun Lights

Merry Christmas

For Your Holiday Entertainment from:

Elf Laura

Elf Thomas

Elf Barbara

Elf Brian

More Thanksgiving Pics

NOW ou rules

The Big 12 anyway. Anyone want to come to the Fiesta Bowl??? Depending on where KSU goes (we're hoping Insight!) we may have to use a shoe horn but we can do it.

I'm just link crazy today!

This is very, very cool. Especially if you don't stop to think what it would feel like!
But seriously - this is some complicated programming, for sure.
And it's interesting to boot! (requires Flash, but you've probably got it!)

Check it out!

In honor of the cold weather

Vintage winter cartoons!

I had a blast watching these - I hope you do too!

Woody Woodpecker!

Snow Rabbits!

(1951) Suzy Snowflake!

(1945) Goofy Hockey!

And last, but not least, a 1934 classic...

Jack Frost!

33 Years! Happy Anniversary

Dotty and Tom are starting their 34th year together (for the most part). I hope Tom was home today to celebrate with her.

Wishing y'all at least 33 more!

Love you.

ps--it's still Dec. 1st where I am so I didn't miss it.

Snow!

(Ok, so it was mostly ice, but we got a little snow.)

We are buying a HOUSE!!!!!!

Hey everyone. Well Jennifer and I have been house hunting and we found one that met all our needs and then some for the right price!!! Well we put a contract on the new house last Saturday. I don't want to junks the deal so I wanted to wait until we got the financing figured out.

For the specifics it is a new home just outside the city limits of Magnolia TX, just NW of Houston. It splits the difference between were Jenny and I work about 45 minutes for Jenny an 50 for me. It is a 4-2.5, 2700 Sq Ft, granite in the kitchen, gas stove, Comes with 25cu ft fridge, Washer and Dryer. Some one else specked out the house and then their deal fell through. David Weekley is the builder and decided he needed to unload it before the beginning of the year. The asking price was 8000 under our self imposed limit, so Jenny and I had no problem jumping on the deal. We hope to close on the house on the 13th of Dec. After all that I think I got a great deal on my interest rate as well. Pretty soon the Murrell B & B will open for business.

More Pictures

I took most of these at Vicki's house while the kids were decorating the trees. I don't know why I didn't have the camera out at Barb's or Dotty's house, but I guess I just forgot about it till everyone else pulled out their cameras too!

Enjoy!









I took most of these at Vicki's house while the kids were decorating the trees. I don't know why I didn't have the camera out at Barb's or Dotty's house, but I guess I just forgot about it till everyone else pulled out their cameras too!

Enjoy!

Post-Thanksgiving Pictures

Here are a few pictures from the Post-Thanksgiving Gathering at my house:






We had lots of fun (and food), but we missed those of you who weren't here.

Turkey Day's over

but we'll still have lots of turkey to eat! We're going down to Tucson antiquing tomorrow with Harv's sister and brother-in-law. We're taking a picnic of turkey sandwiches--what else?

It was a good day--warm, sunny, plenty of good food, good company even though it was just four of us. We played cards, had a snack about 7:30, played some more and came home about 10 p.m. We're heading south about 8 a.m. and hoping everyone in Tucson is heading for the shopping malls--we aren't.

Hope everyone else had as good a day as we did.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving

and don't eat too much! For those of you traveling, be careful!

We're traveling about 3 miles, pies and twice backed potatoes stashed in the back, to have dinner with Harv's sister and brother-in-law. Last year I cooked for them as Donna was just out of the hospital after surgery.

Love you all.

Happy #37

Anyone remember where they were 37 years ago today? My guess is that for you older generation, you were at the Wesley Foundation in Norman. Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad. Here's hoping for many more! Love you!

Halloween & Stock Cars

This pic on the left was Halloween morning - before all the candy! Grant didn't care for the hood on his costume that had little cow ears. Oh well.

Our Halloween night was not one we will soon forget - Grant busted out a front tooth at Mom & Dad's house. He and Meg were "chasing" - not really running, but not walking either, through their kitchen and he had fists full of his loot, tripped and we think, sacrificed a tooth (and a large chip out of the other front one as well) rather than sacrificing the loot. Of course he didn't hit it hard enough to completely knock it out, so we had to PAY to have it pulled (that was fun, just ask Mark) and now we have a snagletoothed son who won't have a tooth in the front until he's 8 or so years old. Mark just thinks he looks "tough" and figures no one will mess with him now. However, he intends to tell Grant once he's old enough to listen that his mama got fed up with him and knocked it out. Nice, huh? : )

Oh and the pic on the right is Megan and Tony Stewart (her favorite driver) at Texas Motor Speedway last Saturday at the Busch race. (Tony's the one in the small orange car in the background!) Mark took her to her first stock car race. Oh and Mom went to her first one this past weekend too. I'm sure she'd LOVE to tell you all about it, right Mom?????

Blonde pinups

Grandpa took this at Ellen's on Oct. 23. We'd been to the park and they were waiting for Grandma to fix lunch. Liz wasn't as cooperative as Amanda and I think Rachael was contemplating escape. We had a good visit with them but were exhausted when we got home. But, they're worth it!

I finally changed it !!!!

I finally changed the trivia questions..sorry I have been remiss :)

Hi all Well I have some good news I passed my test on the first try!!!! For some guys that is not such a big deal but around my department it is HUGE!! the other guys took 4-5 trys to pass. So before the year is out I will be a Paramedic in the state of TX!!!!

Thanks for all you words of encorgement and prayers

Jason

Thanks Mom

Thanks mom for the prayer request. It worked!!!! I was not very nervouse about the written exam at all. The Skills portion was harder because I had to "preform" skills on a head, neck, lungs and stomach. For my IV skills I had an arm that was just laying on a table, I couldn't even get the arm to lay in the correct position to simulate a real arm attached to a preson. It is some what hard to take them seriously when they are so far form reality. At best they are Anotomicly correct. I feel the hardest thing to do is just pretend that this is a real situation. The scenarios they give us are a little goofy sometimes.

So thanks for all the prayers and just to let you know I passed all my skills the first time(most people fail at least one or more and have to test it a second time) and feel very confortable with my test on Friday. It will take 2-3 weeks to get that test result back though.

Jason

I hope everyone is doing well.

Some of you all may be aware that Jason finished up his paramedic course work and had the final last night. Now he has to take the national board exams on Friday and Saturday. He's a bit worried about them, because two of the guys who worked at College Station did not pass theirs and they were fired. So, my request is that you pray for him to have confidence in his ability , that he'll be calm, and do well on the exam.

Francie

Pics as Promised

The girls at Theta Pond in Stillwater. We went to Orange Peel and spent the day in Stillwater - Mark showed the girls all around campus. Megan kept asking where "college" was. She was looking for ONE building. We're really trying to groom Mary for wanting to go to OSU.

This was Grant one of the days that he was home sick - he had the hand, foot, mouth thing that is common with this age. He felt fine except for the blisters on his throat that made him not want to eat anything. It was a beautiful day and so we played outside - we just got him this chair - he kept wanting to get in Megan's pink one and so we opted for something more boyish. He thinks he is BIG stuff climbing into his own chair. After two days at home with him, I was glad to get back to work. : )

Hello, I'm still here!!!

Hi all!

Nothing much to report from OKC/Edmond area. Just hanging in there with the kiddos and hubby, business, ect. Megan is LOVING kindgergarten. She is also taking ballet and is a Daisy girl scout , too, (along with Amanda, I hear). Keeping us busy. Kindgergarten was at first an adjustment for her - she actually has to do work, try hard and concentrate. We had been pretty concerned about her being a "young one" since her birthday is literally ON the deadline for entering kindergarten, but she seems to have adjusted well. I'm getting good reports on her behavior at least and most all of her papers come home with smiley faces and "GOOD" written on them. She resisted re-learning to write her name, though. She apparently saw no good reason to learn the upper case and lower case letters to write her name properly. Why on earth do they ever teach preschoolers to write their names in all uppercase when in Kindergarten they are just going to have to re-learn it? Dumb. Anyway - when she pouted about it and whined, I just gave her the option of doing it her way but then she would have to leave kindergarten (big girl school) and go back to pre-school. Thank goodness she chose kindergarten, I don't have anywhere else I could take her! Phew - one more bluff called.

Grant is loving his Mom's Day Out. He loves playing with the other kids, although he is a sort of bully, I think. I see him pushing kids all the time - in fact Megan, too. One of these days Megan is going to GET him good and he'll get what he deserves and learn a good lesson, too. So much for me being worried that Megan would bully him! : ) He is starting to talk a little - a handful of words, "Nooooooo", "down", "Cracker", of course mama and dada. I think we've heard "dog" or some version of that in there, too and he loves to "sing" with Megan's CDs in the car.

We did just learn that Grant is lactose intolerant. He's always been gassy and had runny poops, but it just had gotten worse and worse. Don't know what make me finally think to try a dairy-free diet, but dang if it hasn't helped tremendously. He is a different child now - much less "screamy" at me all the time and he doesn't poop all the time now!! Woohoo - but now we have to figure out what to do about ice cream. I love the stuff and I can't imagine him growing up without being able to eat it once in awhile! Any suggestions from anyone who has this problem?

Well, just wanted to say hi and let you know what is going on with us. I will try to get some pictures posted of the kiddos soon.

Love to all!

Julie : )

Semi-Retired? or not

Back in June Harv was going to work full time for maybe two months. After two months (middle of August) it was going to be another two weeks and then another and another and now . . . . who knows? It's the end of Sept and he's just emailed that he's staying full time for "a while longer"! Ah well, he's enjoying it and he is being compensated for it.

Just so "they" remember we have vacation scheduled in two weeks and it's set in stone. We're babysitting. Can scarcely wait.

To every one of you...

edited to add: the text below is a link. click on it, and watch the movie. You'll enjoy it!

Consider yourself hugged.

Hard to believe but . . . .

Amanda is attending her first Daisy meeting today. For the uninitiated, that's the kindergarten version of Brownies/Girl Scouts.

Wasn't it just yesterday she started walking?

Thirty-two!!!

I see a couple beat us to the page to wish you Happy Birthday, Jason. My excuse--we're two behind them!

Hope you had a good day and got lots of goodies.

We love you much!

Happy Birthday, Jason!

I hope you are having a great day, sweetie.
Eat lots and lots of cake!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JASON !!!!!!

Happy Happy Birthday Jason !!! We love you very much !!!!

Goodbye to a legend...

Rest in Peace, Ann...you will be missed!

Happy Birthday, Kimmy!

I hope you have a great day!
Hard to believe, isn't it, the number of candles that should be on our cakes...wonder where all the time has gone?

Oh well, like you always say...you'll never be as old as I am, so you have nothing whatsoever to worry about. :)

Since we can't have a big party for you, here's a picture of one instead! Enjoy!

Recent Pictures

Laura before her first day of school on Tuesday. She was really excited to go back.

Thomas this evening. He is getting more and more "smiley" everyday.

Try this one

Ok I upped the ante!!! No more baby stuff :)

I've been remiss, I guess

I've not written anything in a while--someone even reminded me I hadn't emailed in a while. Pretty bad since I'm usually a "chattermouth". Mostly, though, it's because there's not been anything to write.

We've not taken any trips since mid-June, had no company, nor done anything very exciting. Harv painted the living room/dining room, moved some cabinets around in the kitchen and built (with stacked wall cabinets) a space-saving "pantry" in the kitchen. He's not done any more because we're "getting company" and we don't need a torn up kitchen when they're here. But, once they're gone, he'll begin some sheetrock work in there to further modify the look. Gotta have a "project", you know!

"Company" is Dotty and Tom. They're flying to Vegas early next week and will come down here for a long weekend--as everyone probably already knows! I'm really looking forward to seeing them--Harv is too. He'll even take a day off work.

He's been full time since the middle of June which is why we've not done much of anything. It'll run, probably, to the middle of September and then he'll go back to half time--I hope. He/We really miss those Friday's off! He may be working from home part of the time, too. That'd be nice--fewer miles to drive each week. We'll see, though. That may not materialize.

Come October we're heading for Colorado. Bob earned a bonus--a Caribbean cruise. A short one but that's good because it's right at Ellen's mid-terms! Anyway, we'll go up the weekend before the cruise and, hopefully, Rachael will be baptised that Sunday. Otherwise we'll have to make a second trip and it might be cold! Anyway, they leave on the 19th and return on the 23rd--Thursday to Monday. So, we might stay the remainder of the week they return or we might head back here--don't know yet. It's possible Harv's Florida sister, Linda, will fly to Denver as she's free the week of the 23rd and wants to "go to Fall". Denver will definitely be "Fall" in mid-late October!

Ginny was there in mid-August. She flew out and was there about 10 days. Envied her! She got all that time with the girls. She said she told Ellen that Liz was so much like her (Ellen) at that age (almost three)but that Ellen didn't like that too well. I told Gin that Amanda was very like her (Gin) at age five--right down to the sulks and pouts and Gin wasn't too happy to hear that, either. She said Rachael was sweet and pretty and easy (as she was in June) and that the only time R cried was when she was hungry, wet/dirty or tired. She is beginning her research for her thesis and plans to graduate in May--after that, who knows?

Amanda started kindergarten last Thursday (it's still Thursday here as I type). We haven't talked to her since but she was really, really excited, of course. I don't think Liz is going to "school" this year--their godmother has in-home daycare licensing and Liz and Rachael will stay with her when Ellen's at CU-Boulder. Liz is progressing with her potty training, though, and quite proud of herself. Rachael, last I knew, was sitting up (and getting on her bottom by herself) and beginning to crawl some. Heck, she'll probably be pulling up by the time we get there! She'll be 10 mos old--or almost.

Ellen is either teaching or proctoring a couple of classes/labs, I believe, and taking her course work She was officially admitted to the PhD program in linguistics during the summer. She has her built-in research projects at home--believe she's researching language development in toddlers.

Steve is happy with his new job (and so is Ginny) and I think it's probably making it much easier for him to manage his diabetes. He's back in the kitchen, too. He likes to cook (and Gin hates to cook) so that's even better.

Bob is doing well. His restaurant was remodeled and updated so it was closed for a time but he wasn't free. Despite being closed and losing sales, he won the cruise bonus and perhaps another one. Bonuses are based on sales increase over previous fiscal so, if that wasn't taken into account he was screwed!

Nothing much going on. Harv's sister, Donna, and her husband left for St. Louis in early August so we haven't been running around antiquing with them. They won't be home until early October--got a new granddaughter coming 18 September and they have to care for the older one who is three and a pistol. In addition, Donna's brother-in-law in Illinois is dying of ALS so they're making "running trips" from St. Louis to Rock Island every 10 days or so. It's tough--they are 73 and 77--the heat and humidity are hard for her and then the stress of his younger brother dying.

Enough!

Trivia is Here !!!!

Hi y'all

I created a trivia tournment for us to have a little fun with. There will be 10 questions every day. I will vary the category and the difficulty level. Accuracy and speed both count towards points.

I am posting the link here but you might want to save it to your desktop or something so you will remember to play every day. It's alot of fun...hope y'all enjoy it :)

click here>>>> Battle of the Ages

Cowboy Thomas

I can't resist playing dress-up.

Busy Busy Busy

Sorry We have not posted in a while. Nothing changed for the last four months and we have been kind of busy. But when they did change it was big. The Big news is Jennifer was offer a job with US customs and Border Protection as an AG Specialist. She accepted a position at IAH in Houston. When she gets back form her training in early November (she is leaving on Aug 28) We will start looking for a house down around the Montgomery area. That is close to where we lived when we got married. That will make my commute about 1hr or so, and there is a guy on my shift that lives in that area so I will try and get a car pool worked out with him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNIFER!!!!!!!!

Hope you have a great day. We're excited we'll see you all in a couple of days.

Love, Francie

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

Jennifer..CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!! I know you guys must be thrilled, excited , and a bit anxious about your good news. We're looking forward to seeing you all this coming weekend.

Love, Francie

Public Service Announcement

Well, I decided to quit being a hermit and re-activate all my online chat thingies. So, if you are so inclined, please add me to the various chat programs, and maybe we could um, chat sometime!

AIM - the1andonlygoo
Yahoo Messenger - karenelizabeth624
MSN - goo--@hotmail.com (this one is new...)
ICQ - 442061

I will *try* to remember to log in to these regularly, but for a while I can't promise that I will. I hate for them to do it automatically - drives me nuts, all those windows popping up.

But since I am accused, on a semiregular basis, of being a hermit type person, I am trying to be more social. So...let's chat!

Love you guys!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

You're still just as cute as ever!

Frisbee Fun

Brian and Courtney were practicing their fancy Frisbee moves this evening.

A Little Late

but Happy Birthday anyway, Karen. And it was the big Five-Oh we missed. Maybe you wanted us to? Anyway, I hope you had a good day and that the most important people remembered!

Love,
pat and harv

Six little cousins

Taken at Dotty's house a week ago. They were set to watch a "movie" (can you call a Care Bear video a movie?) but, in the end, only Amanda watched the thing. They are, l-r, Matt, Laura, Rachael (ignore her grandma), Liz, Amanda, Katie and friend. Unfortunately, we didn't have Megan and Grant in the line-up. It was quite an adventure having them all together a couple of weeks ago!

:::chirp:::

It sure is quiet in here, well, except for all the crickets! Oops - not those crickets!



:::chirp:::

:::chirp chirp:::





These crickets!

(Of course, I have nothing interesting to say, either.)

Hope everyone is staying cool, and having a good month, so far!

Five year olds are funny

I had a short conversation with Amanda last night. She'd been in bed almost an hour and SHOULD have been asleep.

Grandma: "Why aren't you asleep?"

Amanda: "It's too noisy in my room."

G: "Why is it too noisy?"

A: "Because I keep talking."

G: "Well, honey, maybe you'll go to sleep if you quit talking."

Then Ellen sent her back to bed.

VACATION!

We are heading east in a couple of days--all the way east to Oklahoma City. We'll take our time and antique a bit between here and there, arriving Friday. We're gonna crash with Francie and Max for bit, connect with friends in Norman (and I plan to hit the State Historical Library and Archives).

At the end of next week we'll head down to Ardmore and the Yeargan Reunion. From there we'll go visit Dotty's new house, Harv will go to Leddy's in Ft. Worth and get his feet remeasured and leave a pair of boots for resoling. I don't know what else we'll do there or how long we'll stay. We WILL be back home before 12 June, however.

Our trip east will be via Albuquerque/Amarillo, of course. Going west we'll probably take the "southern" route and go down to I-10. We'll wave as we go by Midland. I'm thinking we may try to make arrangements to meet Joyce and Rondal Phipps (Emma Nell Edgar's daughter) somewhere out there, too. Haven't discussed it with anyone.

I wish there was going to be time to get down to Houston but not this year. Of course, "Houston" could come out here, too. For that matter, so could the rest of "TX" and "OKC". We have as much room as Dotty now has (maybe more) and the beds always have clean sheets on them. Today wouldn't be bad--it's only 78 (!) at 2:15 p.m. but the down side is that the wind is blowing very hard and the air is full of dirt. By Wednesday or Thursday we'll be back 100+.

We're hoping Ellen and the girls will come down to the reunion. Things fouled up and Bob definitely can't make it. I think, but am not sure, that it's still "up in the air" for Ellen and the girls. Have to call tonight, I guess!

Harv spent the weekend finishing the latest "project". He removed the door between the living room and the Arizona Room and widened the opening. He then installed french doors--they're painted white, have a "custom built" oak threshold and make a world of difference in the living room. It's much more open and airy looking now! Once we get home we'll paint--living room, dining room, ceiling, trim--the whole ball of wax. And he has to clean the carpet after the painting is done. Slowly but surely, we're getting there. Like Betty said several years ago (probably after visiting in AL) "Patty and Harv have to have a 'project'".

And this afternoon's project is to finish cleaning out here!

Cleaning off the digital camera

For whatever reason, I tend to forget to copy pictures off my digital camera on to the computer. At least this time, it was a good thing, since my hard drive crashed and I lost so many pictures, these gems would have been lost too!

Both of these were taken at Christmas. I thought they were too cute not to share. Of course, Rachael and Courtney might not agree...but I am guessing y'all will be on my side here!

Courtney and Sassy look so sweet, and Rachael is giving us a perfect shot of what first semester college stress will do to a girl! Poor thing - I hope she has recovered now that she is finished with her first year. Rachael asked for her picture to be removed, and I don't blame her. I'm sorry I posted it, sweetie. I should have known better. Bad aunt, bad bad aunt.

Enjoy!

Happy Mother's Day

Hope y'all--Francie, Dotty, Betty, Kim, Julie, Ellen, Barb, and Vicki--have a good day. I plan to--we're going to lunch with Harv's sister and brother-in-law and then I'll "loaf" the rest of the day away. Not a bad way to spend a hot Sunday in May--supposed to be 102 tomorrow. Harv, however, will finish installing the new door between the living room and the Arizona Room.

Love to all.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Happy 60th, Dotty. Don't over do it with the moving stuff today--or tomorrow.

Love you!

Pat, Harv, all the girls and a couple of guys

Just a little something to make you laugh...

For those of you who love Alton Brown (like I do!), you might find this amusing. Personally, I found it hilarious!

Check it out.

Every cooking show should be as good as Good Eats!

WOW

I haven't posted here in a long time, but I've been really busy, with you know, finals and such. This year went by REALLY quickly!! I had a great first year of college and I can't believe its already over. In case you haven't heard, I am transferring to Midwestern State University, in Wichita Falls. I'm excited about that, but I am going to miss my friends, and especially my roommate, Megan! I'm so ready for the summer! So, whew, freshman year of college, DONE! It feels weird to be a college student on vacation. I've been studying like crazy for the past week and my brain has since turned to the consistency of a slushi. The drive home was pretty uneventful. I avoided the rain successfully. Thanks to everybody for your support this year and my birthday messages!! Hopefully I will post more this summer. I love y'all!!

Rachael

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHAEL !!!!!!

Happy Birthday Rachael !!! I'm sorry you have to take a final today :( Good luck on the rest of your tests!! We can't wait to see you Saturday !!

I love you baby girl !! xxxxxxoooooo

love

Mom

My contribution to the Grandma blogs

Ellen shot this on Easter Sunday before they headed south to Bob's parents' place. Lizzie (on the right) was NOT happy about having to sit for a picture, Amanda isn't hamming it up too much and Rachael--well, she's puzzled, I think.

I'm back!

Well, my computer has been down for several weeks, and I'm finally back up and running again. I lost my hard drive, and *everything* that was on the silly thing - email addresses, bookmarks, pictures, music, files, everything. I am not a happy camper.

Anyway, Kim was nice enough to send me my username (which I had totally forgotten) so I could get back here and catch up with everyone.

Happy birthday to everyone! Great pictures, guys. Thanks for posting them!

So anyway, I'm back now, and can keep up again. This is a very good thing!

Happy Birthday Grant

Grant enjoyed his cake, and yes, I did make another cake for the rest of us so that we didn't have to pick through this one!

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter. We sure did with these two!

Francie

Happy 3rd Birthday!

Laura is three today!

We want to wish everyone a Happy Easter!! We will be having lunch here with Marie and Julie and her family. The thought of trying to eat lunch out on Easter is a scary one! I hope you all will have quailty family time tomorrow as well. Hopefully we can send a picture of two later of the kiddos.

Francie

Cool!

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the
morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

Nothing to report, really

I figured it had been ages since I posted here, so I might as well write as not, even though I have nothing very interesting to report.

I did change my home telephone number, and if I knew for sure that these posts were private (and of course I realize that nothing on the interweb is really private...) I would post it here. Instead, I just need to send out a mass email, I guess, updating everyone on it.

I changed my phone to VOIP (voice over IP) with Time Warner Cable, and so far I'm loving it. It is cheaper than I was paying for my "regular" phone, and I have unlimited free long distance all over the US and Canada. I suppose that now I have no excuse not to call all of you and talk all the time! I always hesitate to call folks late (after 9:00 p.m.) when the cell phone is free, because I never know when anyone goes to bed. Me, I'm up half the night all the time...I think I have developed my Mother's insomnia. Calling y'all at midnight, however, would probably be bad form.

Jim and I are going camping the week before Easter, and staying through the weekend. With luck, the weather will be perfect, and we will have a great time. That's the plan, in any case. If I get any good wildflower pictures, I'll be sure to share them with you all.

Like I said, I have nothing really interesting to report, but I didn't want you all to think I was ignoring you or anything. I really miss seeing everyone. I should really plan some weekend trips, shouldn't I?

Love you guys!

Since Mom Didn't Do It

Grandkids

Its SPRINGTIME!!!

It's time to start having fun outside again, it's time to have Crawfish boils, it's Easter time, the grass is growing and trees are green again. Well If you can't tell I am enjoying the spring like weather. I mowed the yard for the first time last weekend and the pollen is really starting to bug me but its nothing I am not used to.

I had my first structure fire yesterday. When we got there we were the first on scene. So we pulled hoses to the front door, the next crew in met us at the door and took the hose so we could do search and rescue stuff. (My truck usually does that part of the fire attack stuff) So we walked in a searched found nothing but black smoke down to our waist, the guy that lived there said it was clear but we have to check anyways. The fire was in a hallway and closet so we broke down the walls and took a mass of burning cloths and tried to spread them out. All in all it was a great learning expressed for me. Some times I can't believe they pay me to do all this stuff.

hope everyone has a good spring time

Why not to let your wife cut your hair . . .

Hi

Hey everyone -

I'm just checking to see if anyone has any interesting news. Nothing new here. Mark and I took Megan & Mary to Sea World in SA for a couple of days. Whew - it was fun but glad to be home. We have a new rule about vacations - if you poop in your pants, you don't get to go! (Therefore Grant stayed home with Mark's mom and my mom.) We had a lot more fun than the last vacation we took when Meg was only 2 1/2 years old, had to have naps and yes, she still was pooping in her pants at the time!

Well - hope everyone is well. Miss ya!
Love to all!
J

3.25''

of rain in my rain gauge this morning. And about a foot of snow on the Superstition Mountains 3 miles away. There was a lot of snow all around us and some even in the northern 'burbs. It fell gently, for the most part, and soaked in. It's not nearly enough but it's better than nothing.

We sent it on but I'm afraid it went more north than east!

It's only been 142 days w/o rain.

The forecast is saying we have a 90% chance of thunderstorms tomorrow. I've got fingers, toes, even eyes crossed and praying, too. Today was NASTY and my eyes look like I've been on a three day bender--red as can be. It was extremely windy and there was so much dirt in the air I could scarcely see the Superstitions only three miles away.

So, all prayers, rain dances, wishes, etc. are gratefully received. We need rain BAD!

61!!!

Happy Birthday, Francie. If you keep this up you may catch up with me! I've had my last birthday and Harv stopped at 39.

Hope you have a good one.

Love from Pat and Harv

Thank you for your kind words i worked hard for that award

Happy Birthday, Brian!

Just wanted to wish my hubby a happy 29th B-Day!

this ones for you Harv :) from Courtney

Last November Courtney bowled in the Greater Houston Youth Championship Tournament. In addition to her team's second place finish, she earned 1st place for high individual scratch game in her division. She just got the plaques today and wanted to share this one with y'all. Remember she was 12 at the time. (It says 224 in case ya can't read it)

Way to go Courtney :)

I did it!

OK, you guys, the dumb one in the family finally got here! I'm not sure I can do it again tho, cause I've been given the run around. Jason signed me up when he was here, but then I just kept getting the page to create a blog.

As you all well know, it's cold here now. No, I haven't forgotten the winter in ND, but Dotty's right, OK can be very cold too. That first year at OU, I tried to tell myself it wasn't cold walking across campus, but it was!

There's not much to report on from here. Max's mom seems to be doing okay thus far, but she's been pretty busy getting the house back in order from the company and writing thank yous, so she hasn't had a lot of time to think about too much. We will try to go see her tomoroow evening.

I don't know if you're supposed to sign your name or if this thing always puts your name on your entry, so I'll sing this time/
Francie

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just wanted to send you all a Valentine's message. Hope you all have a great day!

Hi from Julie & Francie

Hey - Mom and I are trying to figure out this Blog thing. So here goes.

Besides - how does anyone have time to do this? : )

I guess Grant and Megan keep me hopping most of the time. We were just on to see what Jason had posted about our Grandad. Jason and Jennifer are here at our house tonight and we're going to work on a "word collage" of all the words and phrases that make us think of our grandad. Stuff like molasses and strawberries.

Anyway - better get to work. I promise to try to be better about blogging - and I'll try to show mom how to do it, too!

Much love to all,
Julie

Sad news to report

Julie and I lost our grandad early yesterday morning. For those of you who didn't know he was put into a nursing home sometime in November and was had been declining ever since. Although we hate to lose him it is for the best.

I know we never say it enough so...I love each and everyone of you.

Jason

Interesting news stop

At least, I thought it was interesting...not that I ever got a telegram, but I've seen them!


Era Ends: Western Union Stops Sending Telegrams

Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Managing Editor
LiveScience.com1 hour, 55 minutes ago

After 145 years, Western Union has quietly stopped sending telegrams.On the company's web site, if you click on "Telegrams" in the left-side navigation bar, you're taken to a page that ends a technological era with about as little fanfare as possible:"Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact a customer service representative."The decline of telegram use goes back at least to the 1980s, when long-distance telephone service became cheap enough to offer a viable alternative in many if not most cases.

Faxes didn't help. Email could be counted as the final nail in the coffin.Western Union has not failed. It long ago refocused its main business to make money transfers for consumers and businesses. Revenues are now $3 billion annually. It's now called Western Union Financial Services, Inc. and is a subsidiary of First Data Corp.The world's first telegram was sent on May 24, 1844 by inventor Samuel Morse.

The message, "What hath God wrought," was transmitted from Washington to Baltimore. In a crude way, the telegraph was a precursor to the Internet in that it allowed rapid communication, for the first time, across great distances. Western Union goes back to 1851 as the Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company.

In 1856 it became the Western Union Telegraph Company after acquisition of competing telegraph systems. By 1861, during the Civil War, it had created a coast-to-coast network of lines.Other company highlights:1866: Introduced the first stock ticker. 1871: Introduced money transfers. 1884: Became one of the original 11 stocks tracked by the Dow Jones Average.

1914: Introduced the first consumer charge card. 1964: Began using a transcontinental microwave beam to replace land lines. 1974: Launched Westar I, the first U.S. dedicated communications satellite. On Jan. 26, the last day you could send a telegram, First Data announced it would spin Western Union off as an independent, publicly traded company.