Christmas and New Year's Texas Style

We spent Christmas and New Year's in Texas and loved being there for M's baptism. Uncle Zach spoke, Grandpa Bond (Michael) spoke, I played the piano, Morgan conducted and Nathan baptized his boy. A family gig if there ever was one. And such a sweet event. Lots of Denneys there. And Martin had his other grandmother there and two very cute grown-up cousins there from his dad's side of the family. Afterwards we had carrot cake from an old recipe Morgan had with Aunt Naomi in full flower as aunt extraordinaire. Veritably scrumptious!

We swam on Boxing Day! Morgan and Nathan heated up the pool. We had so much fun.  That day was cool but it was never really cold there. And one day it got up to 70 degrees. Such nice, nostalgic Christmas memory for me. I remember Christmases in shorts in  Louisiana. My kind of deal.

It was a great trip as a visit with Momma and Dad and Michael's sister Katie and husband John were part of the trip. But mostly, it was playing with grandbabies and much needed rest for Michael.

Morgan and Nathan treated us to the Dallas Symphony New Year's Eve concert and we even got to drive his slick car. So posh. We walked next door and toured as much of the new opera hall as we could see. It was such a disappointment to have had tickets for so long to the opera and then have to give up our priority seating in the new hall. The symphony was lovely and the young conductor was just charming.

My eternally young parents. Mom is a fashion trendsetter at their retirement village.

Michael's fabulous sister Katie. She's added so much happiness to our lives.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip and it was hard to come back to our home in Pennsylvania. Moving back to Texas has become such a high priority.


We have tons of adorable pix of the grandkids and I've posted a lot of them on my Facebook page.

And take note: The picture at left is both of us at our chubbiest. We are on a diet and are doing great!  New, slimmer pictures to come.

Christmas Treats

Here we come a-waddling! Why is Christmas so tied up with food? Michael and I both could stand to shed a few pounds, but it is the holidays after all.

Firstly, the Christmas party. It was really fun. That's our bishop in the red shirt. Man, has he had a rough few months with all the extra work and strain the flood brought to our area. Nice to see him a little relaxed.

I love living here and I love our ward, but honestly, the folks up here cannot make food like Texans do. It's probably a case of not better, but different. But I do miss Southern cooking. I always looked for the other Texan's food when we had a ward potluck. But she's moved on.

Speaking of food, I always make a little something for Michael's employees. This year, I made cranberry bread again due to popular demand. They came out quite nicely. Recipe on request.

And the inevitable and important sugar cookies. Even though there are just two of us, I needed to make these. So I mustered up a five-year-old to help me. A new addition to our ward family, her family came back home from the Midwest. I think she said about five times "This is fun!". She had a grand time, loved the dinosaur cookie cutters pulled out of Kroger peanut butter jars many, many years ago, and made a set of cookies for her family. She especially thought about the boys which is surprising because she very frankly told me that they give her a hard time some days.
We're off on Christmas Day to see our family in Texas. And there will be more food there, I am sure. And I certainly hope there's some Mexican food in my immediate future.

Back home again

I had a fabulous trip to Texas and Utah. I saw all four children and their families. I missed some grandcats and a granddog but otherwise saw the whole clan. MF had just had her fourth and I went to Texas to help out there. Then I went to Utah for the baptism of GL's second-born. The photo is of one of the dance moves of GL's fourth. What a doll! All ten grandchildren were unbelievably cute and charming.

I loved the weather in both places, ate Mexican food in Texas and hit up the Provo Bakery in Utah, played games, helped with art projects, and got to rent a very cool Fiat 500.

The only glitch to the trip was that there was rain in Philly when I arrived there from Denver on my way home. This may not mean anything to you, but the Philly airport is notorious for shutting down for weather. We got stuck there two days in December and I would have been stuck there for almost twenty-four hours if Michael hadn't decided to come pick me up. I guess he missed me! It's a two and a quarter hour drive one way. Instead of getting home at 6 we rolled in right before midnight.

I realized how much I love Texas on this trip. Yes, I love northeast PA. It is beautiful, lush, green and the possibility of seeing a gorgeous waterfall is never more than a few miles away. But I do love that open Texas sky, the cloudless days and the general look of the place. It drove right, smelled right and sounded right. Which means, of course, that that is our final destination once Michael finishes his career up here.

The other big news is that my book (Snarky and Sweet)  is coming out in print very soon. It's already available as a Kindle book. It will be on Nook soon and then the print versions will be available. I'm waiting for my box of books from the printer. It's been a fun thing to go through this process.

Sorry Texas, Pennsylvania wins.

Mystery PA location

Moi at Dairy Barn opening

Callas on the slate in our side yard

Waterfall at Ohiopyle

Random view on our way to Ohio

The callas Michael bought me to replace the Mother's Day ones I killed

So sorry, Texas. But big news flash. Pennsylvania wins hands-down on natural beauty. Here are a few photos from our recent trip and of the yard after we got home. There's really not much contest. 

When we first moved here we had no idea where we might retire, and we talked about how beautiful it was here and when the first summer came, we decided to enjoy every minute of it as it was so gloriously moderate in temperature and so very green.

Now we know that Texas will be our home when Michael retires, but we also talk wistfully about how nice it would be to keep this house so that we could come here for the summers. 

Not all of these photos are in PA, but enough of them are that I think you can see what I mean about wanting to be here forever.

The mystery location is that beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright home we visited. We're not allowed to post photos of it, but I think we can safely post this one as no one is going to recognize it.

The Dairy Barn photo is obviously in Ohio but all the rest I think are in PA. Not quite sure about the view as we crossed through Maryland and Kentucky to get to Ohio. 

We hope the weather will cooperate when our grandkids, daughter and son-in-law arrive on Tuesday. We've had some uncharacteristically scorching days. Michael has actually had to water a few times!

Mondegreens and other idle thoughts

I learned a new word--mondegreen.

According to Wikipedia:
A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardized phrase such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song, due to near homophony, in a way that yields a new meaning to the phrase.

Um, that's a mouthful, but we've all done it. You hear a song and not quite understanding what the words are, your brain makes something up. One of our children, bless her, came up with "from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white befoam" in the song "God Bless America." Another thought the words to Annie's famous song were "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow. You're only a day awake."

But we adults do it too. My fave, that we still use in our family, was the puzzling song from "The Phantom of the Opera" which I thought was "Awesome Day" but, in fact, is "Masquerade." But I like "Awesome Day" better.

And so, without further ado, I'd like to wish an awesome day to my last-born, not baby. How little he looks like a baby today at almost six feet tall. I had a great chat with him today and he's going to spend the evening with his sister. They are both really fun people so I am sure they will have a good time.My son thought that sushi might play a role in the festivities.

And our darling V had her fourth birthday in Prague yesterday and I got to see her open her present on Skype.What a doll!

I really don't like living so far away from my family. It's a lovely sunshiney day in Wilkes-Barre, PA today. But I would much rather be in the rather dreary weather in Denton, Texas today making a big dinner and probably cheesecake for Z's birthday. Our children always got to pick their birthday dinner. And type of cake (or dessert), of course. One child picks lemon meringue pie which works just fine for me. One son-in-law has the dessert first and then the dinner. How clever of him to know what's really important.

I'm missing a lot of awesome days with my family. Which means I just have to make the most of every minute I get to spend with them. So I'm off to take a walk in the sunshine which we don't get a lot of. It will make up somewhat for the birthdays I've missed this week.