HAPPY NEW YEAR FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Can you believe this is the last day of 2010. Like everyone else says - where did the year go.

As I type this blog I'm sitting outside under our awning with sunny skies, 85 degrees and a nice breeze. You can't ask for a better ending of the year weather wise.

The year has been great for us. We enjoyed last winter on our lot in Mission even tho most of the winter was colder than normal. That didn't stop us from going to some of the activities at the clubhouse and the happy hours. Most gatherings had to be inside but that's ok, we can't have perfect weather every year.

Last spring it seemed like many of the friends left early for their summer journeys to where ever they were going. We too left earlier than normal and traveled with Jack/Danielle up to Junction City KS. It was a different route this year heading home and other than the construction in downtown Kansas City the trip was pretty uneventful back to Michigan. After a few days out at the farm with Larry/Stint (DB & SIL) we made the big 5 mile drive to the nephews and settled in their back yard.

The summer was quiet and we did our normal things. Made a couple of trips up to Bob/Dianes (DB & SIL) for a night and of course our annual sibling weekend at their house. Happy hours were spent under our awning with David/Gail (BIL/SIL) and David/Dawn (nephew/niece) and Yvonne (friend).

Of course the best thing about being home is the time we spend with our kids and grandkids. Priceless!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Before we knew it, it was time to leave but those plans changed at the last minute. On one of our walks around town we spotted a house that was for sale. I'm sure you remember all the blogs about that so won't repeat it again but we did end staying in Michigan about a month longer than we planned do to the purchase of this home. It's a cute little place, just the right size for us but does need some work, that will keep Larry busy during the summers.

We arrived back in Mission in Oct and have been enjoying seeing friends, happy hours and the weather.

So that is a quick summary of our year. Hope everyone has a great New Years Eve and for those out and about drive safe and be careful. Till next year....................................

Merry Christmas Everyone

If you ate as much as we have in the last two days then you are stretched out in your favorite spot feeling like you never want to eat again. Can we all say Diet.

Lets back track to yesterday afternoon. We had happy hour at Gary/Marilynn's early at 3:30 as some would be going to church. Of course the cookies we baked the other day was placed on the table along with some candy. It was a short HH (happy hour) but as always lots of laughs.

The weather was wonderful so Danielle, Jutta and I decided to sit outside and share a bottle of really good wine. So nice sharing Christmas Eve with them.

About 7:00 we walked over to David & Linda's and spent some time with them and Gary & Marilynn. Marilynn made a yummy Brie appetizer along with some chicken, crab meat and crackers. Of course some candy/cookies too.

I was able to talk with all our kids and even the grandson Darrius got on the phone with me today. I miss them all so much especially this time of year, so I'm sending big hugs to them through the blog.

This afternoon we had another wonderful meal with friends.

I uploaded more pictures so click here to see them. We had Turkey and Ham with all the trimmings and everything was soooo good. After dinner we had a $5 gift exchange than a group sing along of Christmas Carols. I thought I had my camera set on video recording but I forgot to push the record button. Bummer and we all sounded so professional.

Another Christmas is over and pretty soon a New Year will be upon us. We hope all our family and friends had a wonderful day.

Merry Christmas!!!!! Till next time.............................................

Christmas Eve Day 2010

We introduced our HDT Friends to a new type of breakfast/brunch today. It's called Eggs in a Bag. We were really surprised that none of them (except Donna/Grant) had ever heard of it and all were excited to try this weird way of fixing omelettes.

We purchased this turkey fryer a few weeks ago just for this reason. It takes about 20 minutes to get the water boiling.

Here is the group adding their favorite ingredient to the zip lock bag.
Such concentration to make sure it was smushed.
Dale and Stacy (DD) on a hunt for that egg shell
Can you see the excitement on Dave and Sue faces
Doug and Jutta are soooo proud
Here's Grant, Doug and Larry putting the bags in the boiling water
Now all we have to do is wait for 13 minutes
And here it is, time to dig in
The best thing is know matter how large the group everyone gets served at the same time and all have hot food. By the looks of everyone it turned out to be a success.

Luckily our cold front won't be here until tonight so we were able to have brunch on the patio.

One last picture to share. Cookie stopped over yesterday to show off her new Santa Helper suit.

Hope all are enjoying their Christmas Eve and we'll see you tomorrow.

Cookies, Flea Market , Illegals, Lunch at Rubys

Tuesday: Some friends decided to get together and baked cookies at the clubhouse. We started around 8Am and I think the last cookie sheet came out of the over around 1PM. We had a great verity of Sugar & Spice and everything Nice along with the calories that go with these.

Choc covered pretzels
Spice, pumpkin, sugar, coconut, date, to name a few

Here's some of our taste testers.

Jack/Danielle Mayer pulled in this afternoon around 2PM. They've been in Alabama the last few weeks with a lot cooler weather than here. We don't normally have a happy hour on Tuesdays but to welcome them we had one under our awning and the two of them were having a hard time with our 83 degrees.

Wednesday: We went for our walk (to work off some of those cookies) and decided to take the levee back. As we were walking along there were two mini vans that came over the levee from a area that doesn't have a road and moving at a pretty good clip. As we got up to that area there was a couple of guys standing there but when they saw us they kind of disappeared in the brush.

I've been wanting to get down to the Flea Market in Donna TX since we've been here. Not sure why. Every year we go down there once and see the same "junk". But today after our walk we jumped in the car and made the drive down. Well I have to say it hasn't changed one bit. If anything it's gotten worse but I can say I've been there. We wanted to have lunch at Gonzales Burger but the cars where lined up on both sides of the street so we kept on driving. And it was only 11:30. Usually when it's like that your looking at least a hour wait for your hamburg. Guess that will have to be another time. We did decide to go over to Ruby's BBQ that has really good pulled pork.

So that's it for today. Just a few more days before Christmas, hope everyone has their shopping done. By the looks of traffic when we came home this afternoon there's a whole lot of people in this area that's not done. Till next time......................................

Time with Friends

Here's a little humor to start (or end) your day. Brandi (DD) posted this on FB on why she wants to leave Michigan in the winter. The first part is ok, you will see people doing some very stupid things but the #3 reason at the end is a good one for a laugh - So enjoy

It's 5:30am and currently 71 degrees, not a bad way to start off the first day of winter. By the sounds of it, part of the nation will be digging themselves out in the next few days. We will also be getting the cold front on Christmas Day with highs only 64. Bummer

Saturday we went over to Larry and LaVila's. We haven't seen these good friends since last spring and always enjoy spending time with them.

Sunday we made a run over to Lowe's and while Larry was in his favorite department I went to mine. I'm always looking for something different for the house back in Michigan, which is fine but I keep changing my mind.

That night we went to Dairy Queen with Dave and Linda for her ** birthday
Happy Birthday Linda

Also with us for the birthday party was Lon & Pat, and Gary & Marilynn. We had a nice time and of course had to have that Blizzard. Oh did you know that there are 400 calories in a mini blizzard? Glad I looked this up after we got home that night.

Monday morning Linda, Marilynn and I went out to get the Turkey and Ham for our Christmas Dinner. But first we "had" to make a detour for a cup of coffee at

Renee's It's a neat place to have lunch or coffee and do a little window shopping in their Boutique but like the Salon a bit to expensive for us.

From there we went to our budget type store Target to see what was on sale - nothing there that we couldn't live without. We agreed that this store has really cheapened their merchandise but it's a good place to just walk around. Than on to HEB Grocery Store which is like a upscale Kroger Store in Michigan.

While I was busy doing this Holiday Grocery Shopping and fighting the crowds Larry stayed home and ????? well guess I'm not sure what he did.

Guess that's it for now. Till next time.....................................

A Boring week in Texas

Yup I'm still around. Can't believe it's been since Monday on my last post. Ok so what have we been doing all week. Nothing!!!! At least not anything exciting to write about.

Larry has been working on the project on the trailer and still has more to do. He had to order some epoxy so that will be a few days before it's here.

Linda and I went out for coffee one morning and did a walk around Target.

Had a village meeting on Tuesday with the developer. He was bidding out the landscape for our personal lots and went over the three bidders.

Keeping up on our 4 mile walks every morning. And trying to get a 2 mile bike ride in each day.

Oh we went over to the other trailer and got that washed. Renters are coming in at the end of the month and talked with them. They sound like nice people and are very anxious to get out of PA.

Beautiful weather all week, in the 80's until today. High of 64 but back up in 70's tomorrow.

Happy hours every night with most nights without liquor. Seems like the whole group has pretty much backed off on liquor. I've been drinking Cranberry-Raspberry juice with 7up. If you haven't tried it get some. It's really good, oh and I do have some Raspberry Vodka every now and than.

Laundry, grocery shopping and cleaning house - exciting ha

So I guess that's it for the week. Just wanted to pop in and let you know we're still around.
Till next time..............................

Memories of the Farm

With all the snow pictures yesterday I forgot to mention that we went to a Greek Festival on Saturday with Donna and Grant. We tried some of the food and shopped at the vendor tables and it was good. Than we made a trip to the Bread Store and I picked up some ginger bread pieces. They take all the scraps from the ginger bread men and sell it by the bag. Taste just as good and a whole lot cheaper. Than since it was such a beautiful day we "had" to make a stop at the Diary Queen and get a mini blizzard.

Update on snow storm. Daughter Brandi got the power back on around 8pm. Brother Bob lost their power again around 11pm last night and didn't come on until this morning. Luckily they have a generator and used the electric heater in the bedroom but the rest of the house got down to 52. Twin brother Larry sprained his ankle over the weekend and was out plowing his driveway with a splint on his leg. Grandkids along with most of mid-Michigan kids had the day off and were able to sleep in.
.
We had happy hour at our place tonight and new friends Tim and Roseann came over. I couldn't resist taking this picture.
Would love to have one of these smart cars. They are so cute and there really is a lot of room inside.

I was reading the local home paper (online) the other day and there was a article about lambing has started on the farms at Michigan State Univ. There was some pictures of the cutest little lambs and I had to share.
This picture brought back so many memories when we had our farm. When we first got the farm we started out raising cattle. We'd get them when they were just a few days old and would have to bottle feed them. We or I should say I, learned that no matter how cute it is when these calves come up behind you and try and bunt you they do grow up. Trust me it's not cute when a 1000 lb cow sneaks up behind you.

Anyway after a couple of years we decided to change over to raising sheep. They are so much easier to take care of, especially when they get out. Unlike cattle that seem to have to run as fast and as far as they can sheep like to stay around the barns. Lambing would start in the spring at our place and go on for several weeks. Larry and I would take turns on going out in the barn during the night to make sure the ewes weren't having problems lambing. Even tho it was a lot of work (we both had full time jobs) it sure was fun watching a couple hundred lambs running across the pasture full speed.

Not much going on with us. Larry started working on his "to do" list for the trailer today while I went to the grocery store. Tomorrow we have to go over and wash the other trailer and get it ready for the renters. Luckily it's suppose to get back up around 80.

Guess that's it for tonight. Till next time.......................................

Winter in Michigan, Ohio and Texas

I've been watching the winter storm that's moving across Michigan and Ohio today. For those that are lucky enough not to be in the Mid-West I thought I'd share with you some pictures the family has taken from their homes.

Here is one that our great niece Candace put on FB
She and Andrew live out in the country at the end of a dead end road. Should be fun tomorrow.

My sister Nadene sent me this one.
This one our daughter Brandi sent me.
Our other daughter Renee sent this from Avon Lake Ohio. As you can see the storm hasn't arrived there "yet".
The last one if from our niece Tina.

Now I tried my darn-est to try and find some of that white stuff around here but all I could find is:

Blue Sky
Green trees
And of course Larry doing is favorite thing.

My brother Bob said if I wanted to see the snow I would have to come home and see it in person,. Sure - like that's going to happen, especially when I just looked at the temperature at his place (Houghton Lake) and the wind chill is -6. Thanks brother dear but I'll stick with the pictures.

Just a few more pictures to share from Happy Hour today.
Here's the guys
And the gals

We too have had to dress warm today. Yesterday 89 degrees- today 67 - Texas winter

Trash decided he wanted his picture on the blog too.
He loves to take all of his 120lbs and climb in your lap to cuddle. And we've decided that tail of his is a legal weapon so you have to watch out.

OK, I only have one more picture to share. Donna and Grant went to some friends place today and came home with a couple of lemons off their tree.

Anyone for lemonade

That's it for tonight. Here's hoping Brandi (daughter) gets her power back soon and from the schools already being closed for tomorrow the grandkids will be able to sleep in. Everyone else up north be safe and stay off the roads. Till next time..........................................

Brunch with friends

Thursday -It seems every morning this week therewas something going on and we didn't get our walk in. We did just the 3 mile walk today as I'd gotten some new "walking" shoes and it was the first time of trying them. My old tennis shoes were really getting bad and I was starting to have some pain in my hip. The new shoes really are nice, I'm being forced to walk the way you should and no more pain.

Larry needed to go to Home Depot so we made a trip there. We had a coupon to buy one get one free at a Mexican place called El Pato which is basically a Mexican fast food place like Burger King. It took us awhile to decide what we wanted and finally ordered the Tacos Nortenos which are six tortilla shells with seasoned beef and onions and a really different bean soup. There was one major difference between this place and Burger King - you can buy a bottle of beer. Pretty much any of the Mexican food places you can get a beer or margarita with your lunch, haven't figured out why these places are allowed liquor but never see it in other fast food places.

After lunch we decided to run over to Walgreens to get our passport pictures done. Oh Lord, the only thing I can hope for is the Border Patrol people will keep their comments to themselves when I hand it to them.

Friday - did our 4 mile walk in just under a hour today. Must be the shoes are working. Than ran up to the post office and got the pass port application mailed. Hopefully it won't take too long to get it back. The bummer is when we get to South Dakota this spring to renew our drivers license this State has a secured drivers license so we won't need the passport ID card.

A group of ladies (Dale, Bonnie, Jutta, Kathy, Diane & I) decided at happy hour the night before to go to Mimi's Cafe for brunch as a welcome to Diane. She flew down this week from Massachusetts for a two week vacation out of the cold and snow and she left her husband Mark back there to shovel the snow before going to work.

Speaking of snow I see back home is going to really get socked this weekend. Our new neighbors up there will be testing out the new snow blower we purchased before leaving. Our town has a ordinance that snow of more than a inch has to be removed from the sidewalks within 24 hrs. So we worked out a deal with our neighbors that if we furnished the snow blower he would do both ours and his. Since they don't have a blower this is working out great for both of us.

Guess that's it for tonight. Till next time.............................

Christmas Concert

Tuesday- had a haircut appointment in the morning which meant I missed the monthly village meeting so Larry had to fill me in. That night we went out with some friends (20 of us) to dinner at the Republic of the Rio Grande. This place is really neat so check out the "gallery" on their website.

After dinner we went a whole block over to the McAllen Civic Center for a Christmas Concert by the McAllen Symphonic Band. It was just over a hour of Holiday Music so it put us (at least the woman) in a holiday mood and a bit home sick.

The auditorium is huge and their website say's it has a seating for over 1700.

The concert was a sell out so picture 1700 + bald heads and white hair. Other than a couple of people everyone there looked like winter Texans. It was a very nice evening out with good friends and while listening to the music you could vision big huge snowflakes coming down but thankfully when we walked outside it was to green grass, flowers blooming everywhere, stars in the sky and NO SNOW.

Today (Wednesday) we were suppose to go to Mexico with Donna and Grant. While waiting to take off Larry was looking at our passports and realized they expired last July. Thank Goodness he saw that before we crossed the border. Not really sure what would of happened. So we need to get the new ID Cards. Went over to the post office and got the paper work, need to get to Walgreens for one of those wonderful ID pictures that never look like the person, than mail it all in. I've head any wheres from 3 to 6 weeks and of course it has to be mailed to our mailing address in SD than forwarded down here. Hopefully we have it before we leave here next spring.

Since we didn't go to Mexico I decided to go to the monthly ladies luncheon. There's so many new people this year it's starting to get hard to remember them all. I was able to walk down each street and be able to tell you every lots owners name and even most of the pets names. But with the new sales and even resales it's getting harder. Anyway the luncheon was very good.

Even tho the sun did come out today the winds were pretty strong out of the north and the temperature didn't get out of the 60's. So we decided to have happy hour up at the clubhouse in front of the Christmas Tree.

And here's a picture of the fireplace.

So guess that's it for tonight. Looks to be another 4 blanket night as it's already down to 50 and their saying lows in the 30's. Gets any lower and I may have to venture out and buy another blanket. Till next time.......................................

What's in that Michigan Air

OK did I get your interest with that one?

No the pollution is still the same - well now maybe that's not true - with all the factories that closed in Michigan the big machines aren't blowing the smoke/carbon out in the air we breath so maybe the pollution level is lower.

Pollen is still the same, with the factories closed that means no $$ for new homes which means the lumber isn't being cut, which means more trees are growing that gives off more pollen, which means there might even be more pollen in the air.

So what prey tell you are thinking - could possible be in the air. Pregnancy germs!!!

Seems some of our nieces have caught the bug - so Congrat's to Kayla who announced it first, she will be giving us a great, great nephew (oh lord I feel old), than Kira gave the #2 announcement, this will be a great ???, than Candace, gave #3 announcement - another great-great ??, and finally Tina gave #4 announcement another great ?? Now keep in mind that all four of these gals live within five miles of each other, like I said there's some floater's out there.

OMG (that"s computer talk, my kids would be so proud of me) the cold front has been here for two days. Been cloudy and only in the low 60's. Not liking this at all, Larry's back in big boy pants so he's grumpy and I'm back to my four blanket nights. I'd say lets move farther south but we'd have to build a raft to go across the River, and with our luck we'd meet up with the illegals in the middle of the river and we'd have to share our house with them. So guess we'll stay put, besides after today it's suppose to be back in the 70's.

I had a fleeting thought the other day while drying my hair. Was thinking how fun it would be to jump in the car and surprise the family for Christmas. Had it all figured out how long it would take us, where we could stay, what clothes we had that would work and with getting over 30 mpg in the car it wouldn't cost that much in fuel. Had myself convinced that I could handle the cold weather, can't be that bad, -right- I mean it would only be for a few days. When I made the big announcement to Larry he just gave me "the look" and I thought I had some very good answers for all the questions he felt he had to ask. Than the cold air came yesterday and we buried ourselves inside with the electric heaters going, heavy socks, long pants and sweat shirts on and still had that bone chilly cold. These 60 degree days are something else. Of course Larry couldn't pass up the "so you want to go to Michigan ha" remark. So there will be NO surprise for our family, we'll stick with the xmas day phone calls and hopefully we'll be in t-shirts and shorts.

Guess that's it for today. Hope everyone out there is staying warm. Till next time............

Our Special Day

Friday - This was a special day for Larry and I. Our 33rd anniversary. And to make it even more special we actually 1) remembered it, 2) got the day right & 3) got the year right. OK this calls for a little more explanation - 1) we always had a hard time remembering our anniversary and actually depended on our kids to remind us. After all they were not only at the wedding but the five of us took off together for a honeymoon at Disneyland. 2) probably the first 25 or so years we both thought we'd gotten married on the 2nd. For some reason I needed to get a new marriage license (yup lost the first one) and guess what - it was the 3rd. 3) also when we got the new license it gave the year which we were a little fuzzy on - but only by 1 year - we new it was either 1976 or 1977.

Thursday night our friends helped us celebrate with a carrot cake and a really neat card. I want to take a picture of it and show you - and I will - just as soon as I remember where I put it - and it's in a place so I'd know right where it was. Any hints?

Back to Friday - Normal walk that morning. Did see something different, there were three Border Patrols agents that went pass us on four wheelers. We saw a lot of 4wheelers when we were out in AZ but have never seen them here. Really does make sense with having to go out in brush and across fields, plus I'm sure it's still fairly wet down by the river. Which is something we need to do, go for a walk down by the river and see how much is still flooded. The weather was perfect so we were sitting outside and soon Doug/Jutta walked over, than Donna/Grant and shortly after Gail/Bonnie stopped. A nice happy hour anniversary with some good friends and at the last minute we decided to go out to Excalibur for dinner. My favorite bake potato place and awesome frozen margarita's.

Saturday - another beautiful day. I turned the air conditioner on early as it was suppose to be in the high 80's and since I'd have the roaster going I knew it would get pretty warm in here. Reason for the roaster - you ask - I was making a boiled dinner for friends Gary/Marilynn and David/Linda. So we had a nice evening of good food and great company.

Today the cold front went through about 6:30 this morning so it never got out of the 60's. We made a trip into Academy Sports early, my tennis shoes are getting pretty bad and really needed to get some good walking shoes. The rest of the day was pretty much spent inside watching old movies on TV. Happy hour was canceled, just too cold to be sitting outside. So that fills you in on the last couple of days. I do have a couple of pictures to share.

Here's my table decoration, Linda Cypcar made me the table mat, isn't it cool.
If you zoom in you will see the Christmas Decoration that Jutta/Doug brought back from Germany last year.

Here is my little decoration. I got the flowers on one of the trips to McAllen.

So that's it for now. Heading to the mall tomorrow on a hunt for UGG Boots for the grand-daughter. I'm just excited she's actually wearing boots back there in Michigan and has put the flip flops away (hopefully) for the winter. Till next time..........................

Shopping & Really low Helicoper

Yesterday Bonnie, Marilynn, Kathy and I went to down town McAllen. This place is about as close to being in Mexico as you can get. There at least the streets are paved, no sidewalk vendors but the stores are just as over crowded with "junk" as Mexico is. So after wondering around town for over three hours I ended up with a 1.09 purchase. By then we were all getting pretty hungry so we stopped over Feldmans Market for a wrap and soda.

Feldmans a neat place
to have a lite lunch

It also has a huge selection of Wines and Liquor but the prices there are a little high. Since we needed to get home as it was getting close to happy hour we didn't look around.

This morning we went out earlier than normal for our walk. We were walking down

Military Road (this is a older picture)

and we could hear a helicopter coming. It was a bit unnerving having a helicopter fly just above the tree tops right beside you and feeling the down draft of the blades. It kept going back and forth along the road where we were walking. Luckily the illegals either went the other way or they buried themselves deep in the brush. But I'm thinking if the guy in the copter who was scoping things out didn't have his goggles on I would be able to tell you the color of his eyes. Told Larry I wish I had my camera but he reminded me that taking pictures of the Border Patrol is not the best thing to do, they frown on it.

This afternoon Linda & I ran up to Walmart to get a few groceries. I was surprised they weren't that busy so it didn't take us long. I also needed to pick up a gift. Each year the park gets involved with a project called Angle Tree. The child we have is a little girl that's 4 years old who's name is Linda.

The new remote control came today from Direct TV. The buttons on the old one wouldn't turn the TV off and would have to keep pushing them to get the volume to change. While talking with Direct TV person about the East/West Coast feeds I had them send us a new one. So Larry got that programed and guess we didn't realize how bad the old one was.

So guess that's it for today. Till next time................................