Texas Weekend

Weekend before last the dh and I drove to Texas for a surprise birthday party being held for a longtime friend of his. When we got into town on Friday we met up with the dh's brother and family for dinner at the Olive Garden. The nieces are familiar with this restaurant, during the wait for a table they spent their time looking for interesting rocks outside the building.
They brought their interesting finds for us to enjoy. The dh also likes to look for shapes in rocks so he really appreciates this skill.

The older niece found a rock with REAL personality. I told her that if she ever got tired of it we we be glad to give it a good home.

On Saturday we drove about 30 minutes from out hotel to the location of the party. The children of the couple had set this all up. It was even more a surprise for the father since his birthday is in November.

My dh was part of the surprise, they hadn't expected us to drive down. Back when they were in High School my dh had introduced the couple to each other, so everything since has been 'his fault'.

All the children were having a great time with the balloons. Then the dh showed them that if they tied one of the helium balloon strings to one of the balloons on the floor they had a balloon that would float just far enough off the floor to punch around. Next thing the dh knew he had all sorts of children wanting him to fix them up.

It was a GREAT weekend with friends and family!

Super Bowl Party 2010

Wish you could have joined us. We had an empty table and plenty of food. It was a last minute throw together party and most people had already made plans for the day so we decided to see how it would work to set the Big Screen up in the studio.
I need a wide angle lens. The studio is small enough that I couldn't get back far enough to get a really good picture of everything set up.

But maybe you can get a pretty good idea. It was like sitting in a little theater.

See the football decorations on the wall? My mom dug those up from a SB party they hosted in 1996. There's a football shaped chip and dip bowl on the table from that party, too.

I did a little online research on the teams and posted the info on my bulletin board. See the ornery look on my son's face.

He had been teasing my BFF. But she has a son, too, and knows how to deal with it.

Here's the food table. There was chili, cheese sauce, BBQ smokies and pizza in the plugged in appliances.

I just hung the white board that afternoon. BFF made good use of it, changing what was written as the game went along.

Just another angle. You can see a corner of the football bowl.

I couldn't get a picture of the whole screen and part of the table in one shot. I could get the whole screen all by itself but then you couldn't get a feel of the size without something else in the picture.

Below is the table no one sat at. I wanted you to see the decorations on it. I had printed up the team logos and cute them out in approx. 1 inch squares. I also printed out two banners. The Princess laid out the little squares on the tables for me. I think she did a wonderful job, don't you?

At halftime my BFF surprised me with a Birthday Cake! Thanks Sis! I really appreciate it.

Hope all of you out there had a wonderful weekend whatever you may have been doing!

Hey, Guys! You're the BEST!!!

My BFF called me Sunday night to say that another friend and a co-worker said they'd come over to help Monday after work. I had told her that I'd have steak and beer them so on Monday morning I went to the store to get more food for another BBQ. Monday, after working a full day, my friends show up to work some more. My son had the day also and was there putting up the wallboard when they arrived. The work that I really needed them to do was the open area so my son got out of their way so they could get started.

Putting up the insulation in the center was no easy feat and the heat inside the building didn't help any. I think it got over 100 degrees on Monday.

My son still worked on the wallboard when he could.

I set up tables outside and sat the kids down to eat as soon as it was ready.

Then everyone else ate when they finished up the center section.

I'll get some more pictures later of how much has been done. Right now I just want to thank my friends for the hot, sweaty work they did yesterday. I know that if it hadn't been for them I'd still be struggling with getting it done.

California Vistors

My Uncle (Dad's brother) and Aunt from California stopped at mom and dad's for a visit last week. They had just been for a visit to see new great-grandtwins in Texas and after their visit here they were on to a driving tour with (I think) General Conference Mennonite group. I didn't quite catch everything my Aunt said that they were going to do but she was excited to be a part of it.
Friends and family in Wichita got together one evening for dinner at Home Town Buffet.

Seems like this is just something that family does, gather for a meal and conversation, only nowadays a lot of times we opt for eating out rather than at someone's home.
Sorry about the blurred shot, I seemed to have focused in on mom and dad in the forefront.
Below is a long-time friend. I remember he and I walking across a field in west Wichita as kids to visit a pet store the had exotic pets in it. Those fields are no longer there, they've filled with homes, stores, churches and schools.
This is my friend with his lovely wife and step-daughter and my folks. Gotcha! LOL
We all had a wonderful time and way too much to eat.

What's Your Angle?

I must admit, I don't usually cook breakfast. The hubby usually has a bowl of bran and I often delay eating to the point that I'm fixing lunch instead of eating breakfast. But we're getting ready to go on a trip and there's some things in my refrigerator that I want to use up, one of them are the eggs. Yesterday I fixed omelets and baked a batch of canned biscuits. This morning I knew I wanted to heat up a couple of the biscuits, so I decided to poach our eggs and I also had bacon left over from yesterday and green onions left from my salad fixings that are gone. Below is the finished creation. My hubby said, "Take a picture!" So I took two...

I couldn't decide which one to post. Which one do you think is the better angle?

A little history about my egg poacher. Growing up my mother had a 6 or 8 egg poacher that had removable cups for each egg making it real easy to take out the eggs one at a time. As an adult all I had in my kitchen was a single egg poacher which just wasn't convenient for two people for breakfast. I decided I'd just go buy me a multiple egg poacher. My sil and I went to stores all over Wichita KS and all we could come up with in multiple egg poachers didn't have the removable cups. At home, online, I was able to find some large ones like I wanted but they were in restaurant supply and rather pricey. I was resigned to give up my search for the time being and wrote of my wasted day to an online friend in England. This wonderful lady in England I had "met" when I had responded to a question she had posted on some board concerning publishing a book of her father's letters. She and I were soon corresponding regularly and exchanging pictures of children and grandchildren. Not long after my egg poacher lament she wrote me to expect a package in the mail from her not saying what it was that she was sending. A week or so later the package arrived and much to my pleasure and surprise was the egg poacher that you see in the picture here. I have not heard from my dear friend across the pond in sometime now, but I think of her fondly whenever I have poached eggs.

Saturday Night

Bec, I'm so tired, been a busy couple of days, I think I'm going to cheat and hope you don't mind. Bec is the author of KSHIPPYCHIC blog and now the official photographer for T&S Mobile Projectors. We met up on Saturday night at McGraws in Hutchinson for BoxABuddy. Bec did a wonderful write up of the event and our meeting, please go to her blog KSHIPPYCHIC and scroll to August 12, 2007 to read it. I'll be working on editing the new BoxABuddy for the next few days but tonight I'm going to post a couple of things and then get some sleep!