Eating Our Way Around Dallas/Ft. Worth and Beyond

Our Precious New Addition

2012-01-09T07:43:00.000-06:00

Back in April, we received a big surprise from our little girls. We went to one of Karsyn's Blast Ball games, and the girls came running up to us with a "present". Since it was Easter weekend, I thought they had an Easter treat for us.

Needless to say, we were totally shocked when we pulled out a baby outfit and were told they were having a new baby. At that time, the girls were 5 and 7. We have always known that Jennifer and Lamar would love to have a little boy, but figured the time had passed.

We were so excited to find out in July that the baby was going to be a little boy. Perfect addition for a football coach.

After much anticipation and a tough delivery, we welcomed baby Ryan Marshall. The two hours prior to his birth were filled with much anxiety and I was afraid Lolly was going to have a heart attack. I can't begin to tell you how happy I was to know that we had a healthy baby and Mommy!!

He has been the best baby, and one of the reasons is because he has the best Mommy and Daddy. Being that he was born on December 15th, there were lots of Christmas events going on and they didn't miss a thing. He came home from the hospital on Saturday and he was at his first party on Sunday.

This is a photo from his 2nd photo shoot. I believe he was 2 weeks old when this was taken.

When he was 6 days old, we went to Dallas to see a very special Santa. He is the grandfather of one of our Gladney babies that we had for about 6 weeks. It was so special to meet him and we will visit him every year.

Now that Christmas break is over, I have gotten to have my little Easton again. I love getting the boys together. Easton doesn't have much reaction to Ryan, but every once in a while, I think he gets a little jealous of Lolly holding the baby. He better get used to it because in February, I will have both of them. That will keep me busy!

Lolly loves her boys!

She Said YES!!!

2011-10-13T08:26:00.001-05:00

Just realized that this is my 500th post. I can't think of a better post to write than - Jordan and James are engaged!!

James has got to be the most romantic person I know. He is so good at planning great surprises for so many different occasions. Just an example: For Jordan's birthday, he flew her best friend Melissa in from Mississippi and had an entire weekend planned at The Gaylord.

Jordan and James have been dating for about a year and a half. They knew they had something special from the first night they met (hung out until 5 a.m. talking). They have been designing her ring and he told her to save the date - December 31st for their engagement.

Jordan and Melissa have been planning a girl's weekend in Oxford, Mississippi for a few months. That is where Melissa and her husband Matt live. Jordan flew in to Memphis, late in the afternoon after she missed her first flight. (I still haven't figured out how she missed it since she was sitting at the gate for a long time before the flight left. Must have been her new IPod).

When she got to the airport, Melissa told her that Matt wanted them to have a great weekend and that he had gotten them a hotel for the weekend. Much to her surprise, when they walked into the room, James was there, waiting on one knee with flowers and the ring.

Needless to say, she was just a little bit shocked and so excited. They went back to Matt and Melissa's and had a candlelight dinner to celebrate.

They are planning a wedding for next fall in Las Vegas.

Long Time!

2011-10-11T08:25:00.000-05:00

Well, it has been four months since I have checked on "the blog". A lot has happened since then. My last post was about Easton's arrival. We have enjoyed him SO much!! Hard to believe it has been four months. Shannon started back to school in August, so we have been keeping Easton. I have just about figured him out. He is on a perfect 4 hour schedule and I am learning what his cries mean.

I still pick up Landrie and Karsyn after school and they get to spend some time with Easton. They have so much fun with him! They are really liking him now that he will respond with a smile or a coo. It is going to really get crazy when we have baby brother with us.

YES, baby brother, Ryan. On July 4th, the Kirk's revealed with balloons and sparklers, that they are having a boy. Such a shock. I really thought it would be another girl. We are all excited that Easton will have a playmate. I can't imagine what it will be like in a couple of months, but I can see two little boys roughhousing together in another couple of years.

Ryan's due date is December 16th. That is also the date of the State Championship football game. What great timing for a Daddy that is a football coach. His team has been in the final game for the past several years. It will be interesting to see what happens! Fun Times!!!

Easton Is Here!!!

2011-06-10T08:45:00.002-05:00

We have waited a long time for this little guy to get here! Back in September, Justin and Shannon came over to show us a picture of their positive pregnancy test. We were so excited. They told us, "Don't tell anyone until after Shannon has gone to the Dr." That was a hard secret to keep, but we did it.

We had a family dinner planned for the night of Shannon's Dr.'s appointment, where they were going to make the big announcement. When they went to the appointment, it was too early to hear/see the heartbeat. They were told to come back the next week. We still had the family dinner, but just pretended it was a "just because" dinner. We were thrilled the next week when we learned that Shannon was expecting a healthy baby, due May 29, 2011. It was so hard to keep a secret for 3 weeks!!!

Shannon was scheduled to go into the hospital on May 23rd to start the induction process for Easton to be born on May 24th. Unfortunately, it was not successful. After many hours and lots of pitocin, Shannon's body did NOTHING. Much to their disappointment, they were sent home.

They went back to their doctor on May 27th. He told them they could try again on May 31st if there was bed available at the hospital. If a bed was not available, they would have to wait until June 6th. OUCH!

Luckily, there was one opening on May 31st. Justin and Shannon went into the hospital at 5:00 a.m. Pitocin was started and the contractions started coming. By 8:30, the doctor came by to check her and . . . nothing. He dilated her and broke her water. By noon, she was at a 4 and that is where she got stuck.

She never got past a 4 and Easton was face up and not moving down at all. At that time, they decided to do a C-section.

All of their family was at home waiting. We got the call a little after 2 to come to the hospital. We all rushed like crazy. We made it by 2:36. I was so worried about Shannon's parents. They live in West Texas, but had come the night before. I was so afraid the traffic and directions were so crazy that they were going to miss Easton's birth. They made it and he was born at 2:43 p.m.

It took about 40 minutes for Justin to come out and let us know that he had been born. They were having a little family bonding time.

Finally, Justin came out and made the long walk down the hall. He was walking very slowly and wiping his eyes, and I just knew there was bad news. Much to our relief, Shannon and Easton were just fine and doing great.

This is their first family picture when he was a day old. Doesn't Shannon look great?

Pops and Lolly holding Easton for the first time. I sure wish I had Photo Shop to edit out my chins!!!

Easton came home from the hospital on Friday. Aunt Jennifer stopped by to take a few pictures. This is one of my favorites.

We have been visiting Easton about every other day. This picture was from Tuesday. He is changing so much each and every day.

Easton, we love you so much!!!

Quick and Easy Mexican Rice

2011-05-27T08:48:00.000-05:00

Ingredients
1 T butter
1 C long grain rice
1 1/2 T Knorr tomato bullion with chicken flavor
1/2 t. cumin
1 t. sugar
1 tbsp dried minced onions or chopped onion
2 cups water

In saucepan, sauté onion and rice in butter, until browned.

Add seasonings and water. Bring to a boil.

Turn down heat to low, cover pan, and simmer for 20 minutes. Take off burner. Let stand for 5 minutes and fluff with fork.

Enjoy!

Strawberry Cream Cake

2011-05-20T08:33:00.001-05:00

This is one of my favorite cakes and it is so quick and easy! There is nothing like a cold piece of cake on a hot day. Yum! The recipe starts off with a cake mix, so it has very few ingredients and it is quick.

The first step is to make your cake according to the directions on the box.

Pour the yummy batter into your baking dish. For those of you that like to lick the bowl, this is some good batter!

The cake bakes in about 30 minutes and it is a pretty golden brown. While you are waiting for the cake to cook, poke holes throughout the cake with the end of a wooden spoon. Make sure you poke lots of holes, because that is where all of the yummy strawberry goodness will end up.

When your strawberries are thawed, just throw them in the food processor or blender and puree until smooth, juice and all.

Now it is time to pour the strawberry goodness over the cake. After a few hours, the strawberries will get really soaked up by the cake.

This is what your cake will look like after you have topped it with the luscious whipped cream topping.

And the best part, ENJOY!

STRAWBERRY CREAM CAKE

1 Duncan Hines Strawberry Supreme Cake Mix

2 10 oz. packages frozen strawberries (pureed in food processor)

Topping

1 3.4 oz. pkg. Instant Vanilla Pudding

1 C. milk
1 small container of Cool Whip

Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan. Prepare cake following the package directions. Bake as directed. Cool.

Poke holes all over top of cake with the end of a wooden spoon. Spread pureed strawberries over the top and let them soak in for a few minutes.

Combine pudding mix with milk. Add cool whip. Top cake.

Refrigerate for several hours before serving.

ENJOY!

Quick Summer Meal - Supper

2011-05-18T08:50:00.003-05:00

By the time summer rolls around, I am tired of cooking and it is just too hot in this Texas weather to be in the kitchen. I have a few "go to" meals that are quick and easy. These meals are some of our favorites and would be perfect for company.

Anything that has to do with rotisserie chicken fits into this category. I love to have half of my ingredients cooked and ready to go before I ever start my cooking.

One of my favorite meals is, King Ranch Casserole, Mexican Salad and Mexican Rice.

I developed the recipe for my King Ranch Casserole after tasting many others through the years that just didn't have enough flavor. I don't think I ever follow a recipe without tweaking it.

Here is the recipe for the King Ranch Casserole:

1 bag Nacho Cheese Doritos
1 rotisserie chicken deboned and shredded (about 2 cups of chicken)
1 10 oz. can enchilada sauce
1 4 oz can diced green chilies
1 small chopped onion
1 10 oz can cream of chicken soup
1 10 oz can cream of mushroom soup
1 12 oz can evaporated milk
2 cups cheese (cheddar or Mexican blend)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9 x 13 pan.

Layer Doritos in bottom of pan. Mix chicken, soups, chilies, evaporated milk and enchilada sauce in a bowl. Pour over Doritos. Bake for 30 minutes. Top with cheese and a few crushed Doritos and bake for another 5 minutes, until cheese is melted. Delicious & EASY!!

I love a good Mexican salad. Here, I used a bagged spring mix, grated cheese, ranch style beans, rinsed and drained, and garnished the salad with Frito's. The best part is the dressing. I drizzled Kraft Classic Catalina over the salad and tossed. I could eat this as a meal by itself. You can add tomatoes, olives, onions, green onions, avocado, or anything else you like. Sometimes, I will season some ground beef with Taco Seasoning and add this and it is a complete meal. Now that is quick and easy.
Below is my Mexican Rice. It is very quick and easy with just a few ingredients. A couple of those ingredients are unusual for a rice recipe.

And we can't forget dessert! That is almost the best part. Some of my favorite summer desserts are refrigerated cakes. This cake is a delicious Strawberry Cream cake. I could just about eat the whole thing myself. It is so light and cold and perfect for summer.

Tomorrow, I will be posting the recipes for the Mexican Rice and the Strawberry Cream Cake. Yum!

Quick Chicken for Supper

2011-05-17T08:37:00.004-05:00

I love to buy rotisserie chicken at the grocery store for a quick meal. It is already cooked, very hot and ready to eat. If you want to make chicken enchiladas, chicken spaghetti or chicken salad, it is a quick and easy alternative to buying fresh chicken and going through the cooking process. I think it is cheaper than buying fresh chicken. At Sam's, you get two huge chickens for around $10.

The not so fun part is that you have to skin it and bone it. I have gotten this down to a science, so it doesn't take me too long. I skin and bone it close to the sink with some warm soapy water and I can have it done in about 10 minutes. That is definitely quicker than cooking it myself. I buy all different flavors and they all work great. A chicken usually yields about 3 cups of chopped chicken.

It never fails that I decide to have the chicken on the day the trash men come to our house. That means the bones have to stay in the trash for about 3 days before the trash men come back. Have you ever smelled 3 day old chicken bones????? If you have, you will never forget it. It is one of the most rank, disgusting smells!

I have two solutions. One it to take the bones and put them in a Ziploc bag and put them in the freezer until trash day. The problem with that is by trash day, I have forgotten about the bones and my freezer is stuffed with frozen chicken bones. My other (and most used option) is to take my neatly wrapped bones to my local Big Lots dumpster at the back of a strip center near me.

Every time I do this, I am wondering if someone is watching me and wondering if I am stuffing a dead body in there.

Mission accomplished! Now I am ready to cook supper!!!

Can't Wait

2011-05-17T07:22:00.000-05:00

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Don't Look In My Closets!

2011-05-16T07:11:00.003-05:00

Saturday evening, we went to church, and then out to dinner at San Miguel's on Crockett Street in Ft. Worth. If you ever read my blog, you know that is my new favorite spot in town. Jordan and Janelle were home when we left the house.

Jordan left next, through the front door. You have to pull and click our front door to make sure it is closed good. (That will be the key phrase to this story). Janelle left for a few minutes to go to the drive thru at McDonald's before she went out for the night. I wish I had a pictures of her. She does this quite often. Ratty shirt, 10 year old shorts and her hair freshly washed in a turban wrap towel.

When Janelle left, she set the alarm. That is one thing we got in the habit of doing several years ago. Even if I leave just to go to the post office, I set the alarm.

When Janelle came home (dressed beautifully), there was a police officer at our house. Then another, and then another. She walked around the house to talk to them, and they yelled, "Get back ma'am." Since I have been to the Citizen's Police Academy and have a police scanner, I know the drill.

When your monitored alarm goes off, the alarm company calls your house. If you do not answer and give them the correct password, they send the police to your house. When the police department dispatches the officers, they tell them the alarm is going off and give them the latest history at the residence, if there is one. Red Flag: We had a robbery at our house in December.

The police will walk around your house and make sure all the doors and windows are secure. When they checked, our front door was wide open. This has happened before when it is windy. If you don't shut it good, and someone goes out the back door, the suction that it creates in the house will open the door. Of course, the police have no way of knowing any of this.

The police have to assume, for your protection and for their protection, that someone has broken into your house through the front door and are possibly in the house.

Janelle got to wait outside in her "beautiful" attire and wait for the police to search the house. Since someone could be hiding anywhere, they had to search each room, and all of the places such as under the beds, closets, etc.

The downstairs of my house is usually immaculate, but my closets look like a bomb went off. After I got home and realized someone had been searching in my closets, I just about died. I am so thankful that Janelle was at the house and not me. I would have been humiliated! I hope I don't ever see the officer around town again. He has seen something that no one is ever allowed to see. I guess I could clean then out, but . . . no thanks, too much trouble!

The ALMOST Big Surprise

2011-05-10T08:06:00.000-05:00

We have been telling Jordan and James about Bailey's Prime in Ft. Worth for about a year. It is a great place for special occasions. It looks a little like Las Vegas inside.

They went on Monday night and loved it. They were telling us how great the food was and how their waiter was so good and so much fun. Little did I know at the time, they were making arrangements for a surprise for my birthday with their waiter and the manager.

Pops made reservations for us at Bailey's for Saturday night. Jordan and James gave the manager their credit card number to pay for our dinner. Bailey's was going to have a special menu with our names on it and some other little surprises. J & J were so excited about the night they could hardly contain themselves all week.

Saturday night, we went to church and to Bailey's. As we were checking in with our reservation, we ran into some old friends that we had not seen in several years. They invited us to sit at their table. The manager was thrilled because it gave them an extra table on a busy night. The manager added us to the Neir's reservation and cancelled ours on their computer system. Unfortunately, when they cancelled our reservation, they cancelled all of Jordan and James' surprises.

While we were at dinner, Jordan sent me a text about an upcoming movie and I answered her back. I know she was expecting an excited text back from me about my wonderful surprise dinner, and it didn't happen.

When we came home, Jordan and James greeted us and asked how our dinner was. We told them we ran into our friends and had dinner with them, and she said, "Is that all?" After that, she burst into tears. I was scared to death because I thought she was getting ready to tell us some horrible news. She shared with us all of the big surprises she had planned that never happened. She was so excited about all she had planned and she was so upset and disappointed!

I was really excited because she had planned so many neat things for me, and I was also GREATLY excited because she didn't have some horrible devastating news for me. I do understand how disappointed she was, but it was all so special to me even if it didn't happen.

Thank you Jordan for being so sweet and thoughtful to me and working so hard on the birthday surprise . . . that wasn't. I am smiling as I write this!

Lollypalooza Begins!

2011-05-09T05:24:00.000-05:00

My family has been calling my Mother's Day/Birthday weekend Lollypalooza. We started out the weekend with a family dinner on Friday night at one of my favorite places, Maggiano's. Everyone made it except Justin and Shannon. Justin was out of town helping his father-in-law work cattle (he's loves it!) and Shannon had out of town company coming in for a baby brunch.

When we go to Maggiano's, we always order the family style dinner.

We had:

Mozzarella Marinara
Mushroom Ravioli
Spinach and Artichoke Dip
Chopped Salad with Bacon, Avocado and Blue Cheese
Lasagna
Chicken and Spinach Manicotti
Chicken Parmesan
Baked Ziti with Sausage
Apple Crostada with Ice Cream
Cheesecake

It was every bit as good as it sounds! It is served family style, all you can eat, and they just keep bringing it out. They also pack up any leftovers you have. I came home with a bag of food that I think was more food than we ate. Our server was great and she even packed up some extra cheese cake with strawberry sauce to go. I highly recommend Maggiano's, especially for a big crowd.

Birthdays Are The BEST

2011-05-05T07:35:00.000-05:00

I have a birthday coming up next week. It usually falls right next to Mother's Day, or sometimes I share a birthday on Mother's Day. My family is ALWAYS so good to me! Pops has been working on my gifts and reservations for the past few weeks and he is beside himself with what he has done. He is dying to give it all to me now!

I am always registering for restaurants frequent diner clubs. Most of the time, they will give you a gift on your birthday. This past week, I have gotten several. I can't wait to use them all and they are great gifts!!!

So far, I have gotten:

Free Dessert at Chef Point Cafe (aka the Gas Station)
Free Brunch at Blue Mesa (best brunch around)
Free Appetizer or Dessert from Piranha Killer Sushi
Free Dessert from Pappadeaux
Free Dessert from Pappasito's
Free Beef Medallions and Shrimp Scampi from Brio
Free Steak Dinner from The Keg

There are a couple that I know of that I haven't gotten yet. Wow! I will eat well during the month of May!!! I encourage you to sign up at your favorite restaurants. I usually get free offers on my anniversary.

Big Announcement From Landrie and Karsyn!

2011-05-03T20:44:00.000-05:00

Landrie and Karsyn are so excited about their new cousin, Easton, who should be here in about 4 weeks or less. They can't wait to hold him and help take care of him.

The girls have a bunch of baby cousins. When all of the pregnant girls in our family deliver their babies, we will have 8 babies under 2. That is a bunch of babies and a bunch to share.

But . . . Landrie and Karsyn will get to have more baby time when their new baby brother or sister comes in December! We are all so excited and can't wait to welcome another baby in our family!!!

Great Weekend - Great New Restaurant

2011-05-02T20:53:00.002-05:00

We had a great Easter Weekend. Our weekend always start on Thursday. Thursday night we went to Catfish Sam's in Arlington. We had a great meal and we had a groupon, so our bill for the night was $3.04. Not bad at all.

We decided to go to church on Friday night. We went to our new church, www.lifechurch.tv. It was a great service with a great message. Before we went to LifeChurch, we went to our favorite area in Ft. Worth, Crockett St. We tried a new restaurant, Hacienda San Miguel. It was great. They have a really neat patio. We chose to sit inside since it was about 90 degrees, but definitely want to it again soon.

The food was great. We ordered guacamole, which was some of the best we have ever tried, and we both had the Enchiladas Con Crema Poblano. We decided not to have dessert since it was so early. We headed to church and then after church, we went to Dairy Queen so that Pop's could get the ice cream sandwich he had been craving for a week.

Saturday night, we went to the movies before dinner. We went to see Water For Elephants. It was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time! After the movie, we went to Campania Pizza. Our favorite pizza is the Quatro Forgammi. No tomato sauce, just lots of cheese.

To finish the weekend, we had a family dinner and Easter Egg Hunt with about 35 people. Always a blast!

New Restaurants?

2011-04-18T14:10:00.006-05:00

We have tried several new restaurants over the past few months, but nothing good enough to write about.

Friday night, we went to one of our regular favorites, La Hacienda Ranch. It was very good. I do have a major criteria for when I am going to La Ha. No freshly washed clothes. Just like most people, I do wear my jeans more than once. There is NO way you can wear anything again after going to La Ha. Your clothes stink! Seriously, that is a big reason many times why we don't go there. We might be going somewhere else afterwards, and the only place you can go is home.

Yesterday for lunch, we went to Piranha Killer Sushi and it was SO good. I don't think I will ever try sushi any other place. Piranha is the best I have ever had.

Last night, we were a little bored and decided to go back to Ft. Worth. We tried Fred's for the first time. The atmosphere was pretty old and dilapidated, and the food was just okay. I think most people go there for the bar atmosphere, so they don't notice that the food is really not that great. It is more of a honky tonk bar, with food.

The main reason we went back to Ft. Worth is that Pops has been craving an ice cream sandwich, like Dairy Queen. There is a place close to Fred's, Sweet Sammies, that has made to order ice cream sandwiches. 12 different kinds of cookies and you pick your flavor of Blue Bell for the filling. We were so full from dinner that we just had a cookie. Janelle had a molten brownie cake with ice cream. Next time I will try one with coffee ice cream.

Any ideas on new places to try?

Weekday Restaurants

2011-03-09T13:33:00.002-06:00

Every night when we are trying to decide where to eat, we come up with the list in our heads. Some nights are easier than others. During the week, we try to hold the cost down.

I am posting my list here so that I have it readily available and don't have to keep recreating it. Any other suggestions?

Jason's

Quizzno's

Firehouse Subs

Chipotle

Costa Vida

Cafe Medi

Cheddar's

Catfish Sam's

Lupe's

Palio's

Bottle Cap Alley

Simply Burger's

Pappasito's (Wednesday's)

Smoky's

Dixie House

Mi Chula

Pei Wei

B J's Brewhouse

Beaufort and Beyond

2011-01-25T07:31:00.002-06:00

I love that when Pops and I go out of town, we both like to do the same things, eat and explore. If where we are visiting has a trolly tour, that is always our first stop. We like to take a tour around what the city says is their best spots, and then go back later and see the ones that we are interested in.

One day, we decided to go to Beaufort, SC and see what was going on there. We loved it! We ate lunch at a great place called Plums. Pops had a grilled pimento cheese sandwich. I think he thought he'd died and gone to heaven. He let me taste a little bit, and it was good.

We then took a tour. This was a horse drawn carriage tour. I didn't realize it, but a lot of homes in Beaufort have been around for a long time. Lots of movies have been filmed here. To name a few, Prince of Tides and Bubba Gump. After seeing houses that had a connection to Pat Conroy, Pops immediately came home and started reading some of his books.

This was one of our favorite houses.

From Beaufort, we took off to a couple of islands. One of the islands had a state park that was beautiful. It had huge trees, with lush palms and was on the beach. The day we went, it was freezing cold, but we had to check it out.

There was a lighthouse that you could climb. Of course, I did not. Too lazy! Pops climbed to the top and I got his picture.

On our way back to Hilton Head, we stopped in Beaufort again. We saw a shop that caught our attention. Because of the name, we had to go check it out. It was adorable! The girls always want me to bring them something back from a trip. This store had the Build-A-Bear concept, except you first filled the inside of the animal with candy. They held a lot of candy! They give you a cute decorative box (with a hole that the puppy's head is peaking out) that has filling in the bottom along with a star to wish on and an angel. When you finish the candy, you fill it all up and it is a stuffed animal. They loved them.!

Hey Ya'll - We Went to Savannah and Hilton Head

2011-01-22T09:24:00.008-06:00

Okay, I know the title is cheesy, but I love Paula Deen!

We went to Savannah and Hilton Head last week. I had planned what we were going to do for a while, and the first thing I wanted to do was to eat at Lady and Son's, Paula's restaurant. I anxiously awaited seeing a long line around the building. To my HUGE disappointment, we pulled up to the restaurant and there was a sign that said, "Closed for Renovations". Needless to say, I was so disappointed.

Since I am a Paula groupie, I knew that her brother had a restaurant close by, so we decided to go to Bubba's. While we were at Bubba's, they told us that Lady and Son's had been closed for 2 weeks, but would be opening the next day.

We went to Bubba's at about 5:00 p.m. on a Wednesday. It was pretty empty. We had great food.

Pops had the Shrimp and Grits. He loves this dish and orders it whenever it is on a menu. By the time we left the Georgia/South Carolina area, I think he decided he was so sick of it, that he would not be having it again for a long time.

I ordered the fried catfish. To my delight, it was whole catfish, my favorite! My favorite thing was the red rice. I tried it for the first time a few years ago in Charleston, and order it whenever it is on a menu. I bought Bubba's cookbook. I asked the girl if the red rice recipe was in there, and she told me, no, but it is in Paula's book on page 89. Sure enough, when I got home, I checked my old cookbook out and it was there.

We were too full for dessert, but we took some Strawberry Shortcake with us to the hotel. It was made with Grandma Paul's Sour Cream Pound cake. Delicious!

Our hotel was in Hilton Head, but we headed to Lady and Son's the next night. Pops was not too crazy about it, I thought it was great! They had a buffet and I decided to try it since I would get to taste more food. Friend Chicken, Brunswick Stew, Baked Beans, Macaroni and Cheese, Ribs, Mashed Potatoes, and lots of different vegetables. I would definitely go back again, but I'm not sure I would wait hours like some people do in the summer.

Werewolf or Deer?

2011-01-19T16:54:00.006-06:00

On Wednesdays, Karsyn doesn't have school, so we have a "Lolly Day". We usually try to do something fun. Today, we called Chase, my nephew, to see if he wanted to go to McDonald's with us and eat lunch and play. They have a lot of fun together and are in the same class at school.

We played for a while and then took Chase home. We stayed and played for a little bit. Chase and Karsyn were outside and he was trying to teach her to shoot his bow. Yes, it is a real bow and he is really good at it. They played on the trampoline and out in the yard.

I looked out to check on them, and saw what I thought was a big dog about 15 feet from them. It had stopped walking and was looking around. I yelled at Whitney and at the same time, we realized it wasn't a dog, but a coyote. About the same time, a flock of ducks flew by and the coyote ran after them. I quickly ran outside and got Karsyn and Chase in the house, while Whitney went to get one of the guys with a gun. Scared the crud out of me!!!

It was hilarious to listen to them talk about it. Chase said he thought it was a deer. Karsyn thought it was a werewolf. Later she asked me if I thought it was a deer dressed up like a wolf. Now she is telling everyone that it "tried to eat them because it was very hungry".

I told her that when they got older, they would say, "remember when . . ." She said, "yea, we will say 'when I was 4 3/4 and Chase was 5 a coyote tried to get us."

Questions Continued

2011-01-14T08:38:00.002-06:00

Did you suffer illness or injury?

I am very thankful to say that I am very healthy. Very rarely (knock on wood) do I ever get sick. I can't remember the last time I was sick. That is a good thing because I HATE to go to the doctor. Don't like to wait for a long time in waiting rooms where other people are sick and just don't like to go. I have to be close to dying before I will go. I also won't go inside a pharmacy to pick up my meds. There are a bunch of sick, coughing, hacking people in there and I think it is even more germy than the doctor's office.

What was your biggest achievement of the year? What was your biggest failure?

I am combining these two together, because my answer to these is the same. In August of 2009, I became a CASA. To find out more about CASA, read this link. My first case will probably always stand out for me. I was assigned two little girls. My supervisor gave me this case because unlike most cases, she thought the mother could use some mentoring that would help her develop her parenting skills that she was lacking, and reunite her family together.

I worked very hard developing a relationship with the mother. We talked on the phone a lot and went to lunch several times. She did not have any family, as she aged out of the foster care system herself. I tried everything I knew to help her help herself to get her children back home. After some rough times, her children were returned to her in May 2010. Unfortunately, she violated a court order and they were removed again in August.

The fall was bombarded by court hearings and two scheduled jury trials. I was very torn about the situation because I was going to be the main witness.

I know that the mom made the bad decisions to have her children removed, but I felt like such a failure because I had not taught her the skills she needed to parent. It was ultimately up to her, but the thought kept running through my mind, what else could I have done. I hurt for her, but absolutely without a doubt feel like the best decision was made.

The biggest success in all of this is that the girls are going to be adopted by their foster parents. These people are wonderful! They will give these little girls a fantastic life and they will love them unconditionally. I am so excited for them and look forward to seeing them flourish in the future.

Questions Getting Deeper

2011-01-12T14:31:00.001-06:00

I almost didn't answer this question, but I decided that since it was the next in line, I'm going to answer it. Not just the easy and fun ones.

What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

Up until around February, we had attended the same church for 10 years. We LOVED our church. We have never given more time, money or service to any other organization in our lives. We saw huge life change at that church and were so happy to be a part of such a great place. Over the past few years, we began to sense that our season there was coming to an end. We started the search for a new church in February.

We so badly wanted to get "plugged in" somewhere that we visited 4 different churches on Easter weekend. You know, everyone puts on their best service for Christmas and Easter. We have visited several churches and we have not found one that closely resembles the love that we had for our former church around 2005.

What do I want in 2011 that I lacked in 2010? A church that I love and that I am excited to go to. I want to be excited for the weekend to come so that I can go to church. There were times at our former church that we would go on Saturday night and then go back on Sunday because it was so good. It wasn't about the pastor, it was about the people and what God was doing in their lives. There was an energy and an excitement around being somewhere that you loved.

What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

The first date would be April 24th. That was the day that Justin and Shannon got married. We were in Maui (paradise) and so excited to welcome our daughter-in-law into our family.

The second date would have to be December 23rd. That was the day that we found out that we are having our first grandson. We are so excited to meet him in May.

This was a long awaited surprise. In early September, Justin and Shannon came over and showed us a picture of their positive pregnancy test. We were SO excited!!! They did not want us to say anything to anyone until she went to the Dr. two weeks later. We planned a family dinner at our house that night to tell the siblings. Unfortunately, they were a week off and the Dr. could not hear the heartbeat. He scheduled for them to come back the next Tuesday.

That is the biggest secret I have ever had to keep. 3 Weeks!!! I didn't say a word. Their sonogram was scheduled for December 17th. Shannon's parents live in West Texas. Since we found out about the baby first, they told them about the sex first.

By the way Justin had been acting, I thought for sure it was a girl. I even bought a girl outfit and wrapped it up for them. On the night of December 23rd, they brought over a huge present for us to open. We were shocked when we discovered an Easton baseball glove. I don't think I have ever been so surprised about anything in my life. There is a video of us opening the glove, but I will not post it here because it is not pretty. Justin says I look like I am having a seizure.

Can you guess what his name is going to be?

One More

2011-01-09T13:25:00.003-06:00

Although she was not born in 2010 - I can't leave out Kyndra and Bella. She was born in November 2009. She has a big sister. Here they are on Christmas day.

Picture Post

2011-01-09T12:31:00.000-06:00

This is the baby sister - Leasha and Londyn. Londyn is the first baby in her family.

One of two middle sisters - Whitney and Ellyot. Ellyot has two sisters and one brother.

And the oldest sister - Ashley and Tenley. Tenley has two big brothers.

As Promised!

2011-01-08T12:05:00.006-06:00

What did you do in 2010 that you had never done before?

I went snorkeling. I don't like to get dirty and the salty water in the ocean makes me feel dirty. When we were in Maui, Shannon talked me into doing it with her because she was going to be by herself, so being the good mother-in-law that I am (2nd day of being a mother-in-law), I sucked it up and went with her. It was fun. We saw lots of fish and sea turtles. The lovely picture below is us on the boat before the big adventure. Glad I did it and will do it again (hopefully). I would love to do it again in Maui someday.

Did you keep your New Year’s Resolution, and will you make more next year?

I have never made New Year's Resolutions. I actually think they are kind of stupid. My philosophy is if you need to change, change now and don't wait until January 1st. Top of my list is always that I need to lose weight. You think I should wait until next January 1st to start? Needless to say, none for next year either.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes! I am very close to my nieces and nephews. Within 3 months, 4 of them had new baby girls. Their names are Ellyot, Londyn, Reilee and Tenley. I have not met Reilee yet, and am hoping to one day soon, but the other three are ADORABLE. Our family has had so much fun with them. I will try to post pictures of the girls on my next post.

More to come . . .

Dear Blog

2011-01-07T09:15:00.002-06:00

I have neglected you in 2010. Not sure what I was doing, but you were not very high on the list. Looking back at 2010, what I can remember, there were some not so great things that put a damper on the year and then there were some FANTASTIC things!

I just read a blog that inspired me to get started again. She had about 30 questions that looked like fun, so it gave me some ideas to start with. I will break it up a few quesitons at a time. Stretch it out.

Dear blog, I promise I will be better to you in 2011.

Crazy Night at the Land Down Under

2010-11-07T07:09:00.004-06:00

Last night, we went to the movie and out to eat. We wanted to go to Crockett St., but we had seen all of the movies at that theater that we were interested in. The one movie we had not seen was, "Life As We Know It". We ended up going to the theater in Grapevine. Good movie. We both liked it. (On a side note - we have been going to the movies just about every weekend for the past couple of months. Not so great. We have seen many different kinds and this and Secretariat were probably our favorites.)

By the time we got out, it was after 9 and we were hungry. We decided to go some place close. We had not been to Outback in about 10 years, so we decided to give it another try. It was quite entertaining.

Our waiter came to get our drink order and was LOUD and brash. He asked for our names and used them the entire night, like we were his long lost friends. When he took our order, he sat in the booth next to me. I must say he was pretty funny.

He was having fun "playing around with" Pops. He would sneak up behind him and tap him on the shoulder. He had a huge black cat that he put on the ledge of the booth to try to scare him. He brought out a basket of about 25 knives. His last little trick was when he went outside for a long time. I think he went to get some fishnet fabric out of his car. When he came back, I thought he was going to sneak up on Pops and put it over his head, but instead he put it over his own head and snuck up on him and acted like a ghost.

The food was okay, nothing to write about and the entertainment - well, it was funny, but very strange. We laughed and played into it, but I sat there wondering what some of my "serious" friends would have done had they gotten that waiter.

I'm thinking another 10 years and we will give it another try.

Way Too Long!!!

2010-10-04T12:04:00.006-05:00

It has been way to long! The longer I wait to post, the more I procrastinate and it just goes on and on. So I have to start somewhere. So here I go.

We have been to a lot of new restaurants and really liked them. I have intended to blog about it, but it starts to get overwhelming and then I just say forget it. I have been trying to decide when the wheels came off. I think it started in April.

Since around the first of April, my volunteer job has gone crazy. My case was supposed to be winding down, and it ramped up instead. During the month of April, I was in court almost every week. It settled down in May and June and since the end of July, has is ramped up again. I thought today's hearing would be the end, but it is now scheduled for a trial. I have gotten so wrapped up in it that, writing about restaurants seems pretty trivial.

The end of April we had a water leak in our home. That lead to some remodeling that I didn't think was ever going to get started, and I really didn't think it was going to ever get finished, but it did. Around the first of September.

During that time, we took a couple of trips to the Lost Pines Resort in Bastrop, Choctaw Casino in Oklahoma and to Montreal. We were really disappointed in Montreal. The weather was supposed to be so cool, and they had a heat wave. I think it was hotter than Texas. There was one really neat street with lots of restaurants, but that was about the only thing that we liked. Between the heat and the language barrier, I couldn't wait to get out of there. I was so surprised about how heavy the French language is there. Most people spoke French only and most of the menus/signs were in French. Since I speak absolutely no French, after a few days, I was done!

That is what happened to my summer!

So I am just going to start with the new restaurants we tried and have liked along with a few old ones we have rediscovered.

Bailey's Prime Plus Steakhouse

Mellow Mushroom Pizza

Anna Mia's Mexican

J.R.'s Grill - Great hamburgers

Costa Vida

Fogata Mexican

Lava Grill - Lunch - Teriyaki

Saltgrass - Range Rattlers (I keep craving these)

Piranha Killer Sushi

I'll try to keep up better. We are going to the Brownstone tomorrow night, so I will start there. Promise!

Late Happy Birthday

2010-08-23T17:46:00.004-05:00

Pops birthday was last weekend. We had a great dinner at a new place, Bailey's Prime, along with a family dinner on Monday night. We cooked out and it was so hot. Don't plan on doing that again for at least 3 months.

I will write about Bailey's because it was so good and it is definitely one of our new favorite restaurants.

This was the 38th birthday that we have spent together and I am hoping for at least 38 more.

No Anejo's Post

2010-07-31T07:09:00.002-05:00

Not because it wasn't good. Don't know. We didn't get to try it.

We go out to dinner most nights. If we don't, it is usually because we are having a family dinner. I just can't stay home at night, and especially on a weekend night. During the week, we usually decide at the last minute where we are going, but on the weekend, it is a planned event.

We had planned to go to Anejo's. We have had people working on the house the last couple of weeks. The tile guys started yesterday morning. We knew it would take at least two days. What we didn't know is that it was going to be days and NIGHTS. Last night, we kept thinking, maybe they will leave around 6. Maybe they will leave around 7. I hear them taking plastic outside. They must be cleaning up. Maybe 7:30. I see one guy leave with an empty bucket. I see him come back with a full bucket or mortar. I give up at 8:45 and go pick up El Paisa. Finally at 9:55, they left. I felt sorry for them for working so hard and long. They had to stop by another house to pick up another crew and said they would be back this morning at 9.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to go out. Have other plans for the rest of this weekend and the next couple of weekends, so we will try Anejo's sometime in the future.

New Restaurant

2010-07-30T08:44:00.003-05:00

Trying a new restaurant tonight. I hope it is good and I can write great things about it. We have been hitting several new restaurants and have found some good ones. I am hoping this will also be a great hit. If there is no post, you will know it didn't hit the mark.

Another Crockett Street Favorite

2010-07-20T10:42:00.005-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, we found another great place on Crockett Street, Patrizio's. The week had been a little rainy and cooler than usual, so we decided to sit out on the patio so we could watch all of the actions going on. It was fun, but there were a ton of flies. They had fans going, but it didn't deter them very much. That was the worst part of the meal. Other than that, it was fantastic! The dining room is very nice.

We started out with the Crab Cake appetizer. Very good. (On a side note - if you go to their website and register, you instantly get a coupon good for a free appetizer. This is a good one to get.)

I had the Chicken and Mushroom Lasagna. It was delicious. The pasta was homemade along with a couple of different sauces. Pops had the Chicken and Sausage Cannelloni. It had a Roasted Red Pepper and Alfredo Sauce. Very good. Looked like Italian Enchiladas.

We were very full and done . . . until we saw the dessert menu with Cappuccino Pie. That is one of our favorites and it did not disappoint.

The only negative about Patrizio's is that they don't take reservations. You need to get there early. The wait start at around 6.

I'm thinking this just might have to be a Patrizo's weekend.

HOT Date!!!

2010-07-19T07:41:00.004-05:00

We have all kinds of "rules" in our house. One of those rules is we want to keep our marriage exciting. One of the ways we do that is by having regular "date nights". Having all of our kids grown up and on their own makes this pretty easy. We have many date nights a week, but Saturdays are our sacred night when we have a "real" date.

We take turns planning each weekend. We like to act like we are newly dating and our dates have to be exciting. If you were single and dating, what kind of date would make you fall for a guy? If he took you to the restaurant down the street at a strip center, would you be all excited? Of course not. You want to "go out on the town". Nice restaurant, Dallas, Ft. Worth, movie, play, etc. That is what Saturday nights at our house look like. I think after 37 years of being together, it is working for us!

Last Saturday night it was my turn to plan. I got tickets to a local play, Steel Magnolias. I loved that movie. I decided we would eat sushi beforehand and chose the restaurant with just the perfect amount of timing.

We went to Piranah Killer Sushi in Arlington. The hostess greeted us at the door by telling us the A/C was broken, but you are welcome to stay. I HATE hot places. We walked in and it didn't feel too bad, so we decided to stay. We really didn't have time to find another place since we had a time schedule. It was certainly not the ideal situation, but it wasn't just absolutely horrible either. We ate really fast though. The saving grace was we would get some relief in the car, and of course, theaters are always cold.

We got to the theater and the lobby was HOT. I couldn't wait to get to our seats, until I realized they we not so cool either. I kept hoping things would get better, but it never happened. It wasn't unbearable, but it was really warm and stuffy. The play was VERY slow and lasted 3 hours. There were several times during the night that we would look at each other and say, "you want to leave?", but we didn't.

It was a long HOT date. I hope next weekend is better!

Let's Have a Little Bit of Fun

2010-07-16T06:52:00.005-05:00

I was just visiting over at Kelly's Korner, one of the regular blogs that I read. Kelly's latest post is another "Show Us Your Life". This week, Kelly is doing a little match making and is having "Show Us Your Single Boys or Girls".

I have a cute little single girl I am going to "offer up". All of the kids are married or have found a special significant other except for Janelle.

So, here is to mine and Kelly's matchmaking skills.

Here is the latest picture I have of her from her birthday, last week. She is with her favorite man.

The best word to describe her is she is FUN! Janelle is 23. She graduated from college in 2009 and she also has her Cosmetology License to do hair. She has a full time job at a local church. She is a strong Christian, so if you are looking for a party girl, you will have to look elsewhere, but she is guaranteed to give you a fun time.

Brownstone

2010-07-12T08:16:00.004-05:00

Another great new discovery on Crockett Street (on the corner of Crockett and Currie) is the Brownstone. It is owned by Casey Thompson, who was a contestant on Top Chef, where she became well known.

The Brownstone has two concepts. One is to use locally grown produce and meats and the other concept is "small plates". You can order several smaller portions and get more of a variety.

We had a salad and three small plates. The salad was not your usual lettuce and dressing that Pops so loves. This salad had fresh okra, squash, turnips and other unidentifiable vegetables. Next time, we would probably skip the salad.

I will see if I can accurately describe what we had. First we had a small cast iron skillet that was filled with orange chicken. It was very spicy and sweet and oh so good. It was a little messy because it was on the bone. Next we had the "Grandmother's Biscuit Pan". It was three homemade biscuits with homemade venison sausage and of course homemade strawberry preserves. Really good. We then had what was called "Pork and Peppers". It was a piece of pork belly, baby bell peppers with homemade ricotta, Texas honey and jalapeno oil. Good but very rich.

I saw several other entrees that I would like to try next time. They had some larger plates for those who would prefer just a regular entree. Desserts looked good, but we were too full for anything else. Can't wait to go back.

I LOVE Crockett Street

2010-07-07T07:28:00.003-05:00

We first discovered Crockett Street in Ft. Worth about 6 months ago. There was hardly anything open yet, but it looked like a really neat area. We ate at Tillman's, which was so disappointing, and we never gave it much thought again

Fast forward to about a month ago. After eating in Ft. Worth and killing some time, we went to Barnes & Noble. While there, I was reading a local magazine that gave a great review for Terra Mediterranean Grill. We drove by and were really impressed by the area. We decided to go to Terra's the following weekend.

The whole area has now filled up and is still filling up. Lots of new restaurants with outside patio's, movie theater, lots of lights and lots of people.

We ordered an appetizer of olives and feta cheese. I wasn't too crazy about it, but Pops loved it. We both ordered the Gyros. I thought it was going to be a sandwich. To our surprise, it was a huge plate of meat. We could have easily split it with plenty of leftovers. It was very good and so was the pita bread that was served with it.

It has a neat atmosphere. It looks like they have a lunch buffet during the week for around $10. That would be a great way to try a bunch of dishes that you wouldn't normally order. Definitely a place to try again.

On a side note, if you plan on going to the movies, buy your tickets in advance. We tried to see Grown Ups on a Saturday night. We went to get tickets about 45 minutes before the movie started and it was sold out. The ticket agent told us that most movies are sold out on the weekends. Buy in advance!

Sweetie Pie's

2010-07-05T08:06:00.007-05:00

I have been so neglectful of the blog. I need to update it because I have about four new restaurants that we have tried and actually really liked.

The first of those is Sweetie Pie's. It is located in Decatur and is owned by the family that owns Babe's. Need I say more?

We went on a Friday night. Lots of traffic getting there and it took us about 1 1/2 hours. The way home was much better. It only took about 45 minutes. I am so glad that there was not a wait. Just like Babe's, there is not a great place to wait. There is no extra room inside, so you have to wait outside. Kind of hot on a 100 degree day. No place to sit, but they are kind enough to have a big jug of ice water and some festive Christmas cups. I wasn't sure if that was just a fun little treat, of if they were really left over from Christmas.

The wait was all worth it with the first bite of the roll. I could live on bread alone and this was some of the best I have ever eaten. It was a cross between a yeast roll and a biscuit, but extra sweet. At the end of the day, they slice the leftovers and make croutons for the salad. That made the salad extra good.

Pops had the Ribeye, and I had the Chicken Fried Ribeye. It was probably the best piece of Chicken Fried Steak I have had. Think about it - Ribeye - yum, Babe's chicken coating, double yum. The Ribeye was also very good. The only disappointment was their "special" baked potato. It is dipped in a vat of rosin and wrapped in brown paper, and served with a special butter topping. It sounds much better than it really is. It tasted just like a normal baked potato and not the unusual potato I was expecting.

We were too full to try the desserts that really looked great. It was definitely worth the drive and we will be back for more.

New Restaurant - High Hopes

2010-06-15T08:32:00.002-05:00

We are going to Sweetie Pie's this weekend. I have heard great things about it. I hope I will be able to write a glowing review. Looking forward to it. It is owned by the family that owns Babe's, so it HAS to be good.

Hamburger Heaven

2010-06-11T08:35:00.000-05:00

About 25 years ago, we discovered an old hamburger place that is still just as good today. Clown Burger in Haltom City, opened up 51 years ago. It used to be on Belknap and moved to it's current location when the building it was in did not pass building code inspections.

The building was pretty rough looking when we first went. I usually am picky about the ambiance, but the food is so good here, I can put my blinders on. It tastes exactly like it did 25 years ago. The "new" place does not look much better. It has a King's Korner (a shrine for Elvis) and clowns hanging from the ceiling.

The man that owns it now had the original griddle moved to the current location. He started working at Clown when he was in high school and everything is still cooked exactly the same way. The burgers are thin patties and the buns are cooked on the griddle. The french fries are double fried and they are so good, you don't even need ketchup. That is a huge statement coming from me, because everything tastes better with ketchup.

One of the funniest things about this restaurant is the quirky signs. You never know what they are going to be. They are usually handwritten on a piece of torn cardboard. One of my favorites is one that I have seen often on the door, "Closed - out of meat". One sign I saw yesterday said, "Closed Monday and Tuesday - College Registration". I am guessing that is for his daughter.

They are only open Monday - Friday from 10:00 a.m. - 5:45 p.m. If that doesn't fit your schedule, don't worry, it is likely to change next week. We usually call before we go to make sure they are open. They close for spring break and many other reasons. There is nothing more disappointing than having a craving for Clown and getting there and it being closed. That has happened to us many times. When we pull up, I am always surprised that they are open.

Worth all of the calories.

Piranha Killer Sushi

2010-06-08T06:52:00.004-05:00

We had great sushi when we were in Hawaii. I have had sushi a few times, but it is not something that I crave. After eating it in Hawaii, I realized I didn't get enough. Right after we got home, I kept thinking about it.

Justin insisted that we go to Piranha Killer Sushi in downtown Ft. Worth for the best sushi around. We went the weekend after the wedding.

Justin was right, it was a great place. We started with La La's Jalapeno Poppers. They were fresh jalapenos, stuffed with cream cheese and salmon and fried with a tempura batter. They were served with a sweet soy glaze. Delicious!

Next, we ordered several rolls. I am a roll girl. I do not eat regular sushi or sashimi. Texture issues. It reminds me of raw chicken and that is not a pleasant thought. Two of my favorites are the Lobster Roll and the Forget About It Roll. Avocado, cream cheese, shrimp, crawfish and a great sauce. I order mine without the wasabi cream sauce. Too funky for me.

The main thing I like about their rolls is the seaweed wrapper they use. It is very thin and not chewy. You hardly know that it is there. Nothing like a piece of chewy seaweed that you can't bite through to ruin a great meal.

This was so good that I talked Jennifer into going again the next week. She is hooked now and says she is "craving sushi". We will definitely go again soon.

Maui - Last Day - Sad Day

2010-05-25T07:03:00.007-05:00

Usually, when I go on a trip, three nights is the max. By then, I am ready to take a bath in my own bathtub and I am ready to sleep in my bed. This trip to Hawaii was not like that. On Sunday, I started getting sad about returning to the real world. I would love to make Hawaii my "real world". I couldn't live without my family close by, but I bet we could find some jobs for everyone there.

Our flight didn't leave until 7, so we had plenty of time to look around (and mourn). We decided to go check out the Wailea area. We were close to Wailea for the wedding, but we hadn't checked it all out. On a side note, Jennifer Aniston, Nicole Kidman and Adam Sandler were in Maui filming a new movie, "Just Go With It". I was instructed to "find them" by Jordan, but no luck. They were staying and filming in Wailea at the Grand Wailea Hotel.

As we headed to Wailea, we decided to go back and visit the spot where Justin and Shannon had gotten married. We hung around for a little bit and took pictures, and soaked in the beauty of the cove. Such a perfect spot.

Afterwards, we went and checked out some shopping areas and hotels. Then, we ate burgers at Cheeseburger Island. The burgers were nothing to write home about and they were ridiculously expensive. Not quite as ridiculous as the bottomless Dr. Pepper, for a mere $7. I was excited about the Maui onion rings, and I must say, Texas onions rings are much better.

From there, we headed to the airport. Justin and Shannon had a sunset dinner cruise they needed to get back for. They stayed in Maui for 3 more days and said they had a blast. They found a neat beach that we didn't visit and snorkeled some more. They also braved a helicopter ride. This picture reminds me of all of the episodes on the Bachelor where they go for a helicopter ride. I am pretty biased, but they look so cute.

This is from one of their last nights in Maui.

I hate to sound like "one of those people", but we all would say this was one of our best trips ever. Everything went absolutely perfect with no glitches. I would highly recommend this venue for anyone who wants a stress free wedding. I know a man that would be glad to marry you for free. Just get him a ticket to Maui.

Congratulations Justin & Shannon. We love you and are so happy for you. Happy 1 month anniversary!

Maui - Day #5

2010-05-19T09:58:00.003-05:00

I am usually the tour guide when we travel. I pretty much choose where we go and what we are going to do. Pops really wanted to go to Hana. We had heard mixed stories about Hana. Some people and books told us, that you HAVE to go to Hana. Others called it "The Road to Hell". Daryl and Cindy had gone a couple of days before and it took them all day. They said the traffic was horrible.

Being that I had already said no to the volcano, I decided to suck it up and go on the Road to Hana. We agreed to only go about halfway. It is a very windy road and if you have the slightest chance of getting car sick, don't go.

The scenery is beautiful. It is so lush and green with lots of water and waterfalls.

We stopped and saw a waterfall and then turned around. One was enough, even though it was all very beautiful.

On the way back, we passed a very famous restaurant, Mama's Fish House. Just about every book I picked up said you had to try it, so we did.

This is the view from our table. It was one of the most beautiful spots on the north shore that we saw. I was not as impressed with the food. It was just okay. I had eaten some banana bread from a stand on the side of the road (yes, highly suggested by all of the tourist books - and it was good). I was not real hungry, so I just ordered an appetizer of lobster guacamole with sweet potato chips. It had a little too much lemon juice for my taste, but what did I expect? A Texas girl eating guacamole in Hawaii?

Pops had a fish dish with some crab and lobster sauce. I had water and he had tea. Total bill? $80. That is a little steep for lunch. The view was worth it though.

We got back to the hotel and laid out by the pool/beach. Shannon's Mom and Dad had a flight out at 4, so we made reservations to eat sushi with Justin and Shannon. We went to Sansei. It is written up as one of the best sushi restaurants in the world. It was good, but not any better than Piranah Killer Sushi in Ft. Worth (that's another story).

We dropped Justin and Shannon back off at the hotel and went went shopping in Lahaina. It is a neat old sea village with lots of little shops.

There is always something sad about the last night. You know it is all getting ready to be over and then back to reality.

Maui - Day #4

2010-05-17T07:08:00.004-05:00

We booked a snorkeling trip for the morning after the wedding. We had to meet in the lobby at 6:15 a.m. We had a 30 minute drive to the marina. This is the boat we went on. I had planned to just stay on the boat and watch everyone else. The thought of getting all sticky in the salt water and staying like that for hours was not too appealing to me.

Pops and Justin decided that they were going to Snuba. We had never heard of snuba until now. It is a combination of snorkeling and scuba diving, without the tanks. You are tethered to a raft that holds the oxygen tank. You can go down about 15 feet.

Since they were snubaing, that left Shannon to snorkel all by herself. Since it was my first day being her mother-in-law and I wanted to excel at my new position, I sucked it up and went snorkeling. I was really glad that I did. Shannon, thank you for making me go! The water was not too cold and we saw some really cool stuff along with an eel.

We also saw a couple of whales and lots of dolphins. They looked like they were putting a show on for us. They were jumping and spinning all around the boat. At our second dive, we swam with several sea turtles.

Here is Justin in his Snuba gear.

We were exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel so we headed to the pool for an afternoon of relaxing and people watching.

We booked a luau at the Old Lahaina Luau for a post wedding party. We had lots of fun, but the lei's were so itchy.

More Wedding Pictures

2010-05-15T09:17:00.000-05:00

Maui - Day #3 - The BIG Day

2010-05-13T07:05:00.003-05:00

After weeks of planning, the BIG day had finally arrived. We were all so excited. April 24, 2010 was here!

We got up early and went to breakfast. After we ate, we went to the pool/beach. We stayed there until early afternoon. We had lunch by the pool and just relaxed and soaked up the sun. My legs were really white before we went to Hawaii and I needed color, any color other than white, even if it was red.

Justin and Shannon broke the rules of not seeing each other on the wedding day. They had to meet their wedding coordinator in Lahaina to get their marriage license.

We agreed to meet in the lobby to head to the wedding spot, Makena Cove, which was an hour drive away. This picture is of Justin and Pops just before we got in our cars. Justin rode with us and Shannon rode with her Mom and Dad.

In Hawaii, you have to have a permit to get married on the beach and the only person you can get a permit from is a wedding coordinator. Justin researched the internet, and found the best wedding coordinator. He chose Enchanted Weddings of Maui. We highly recommend Lisa. She handled everything, along with the flowers, rose petals on the beach and photographs. Shannon was really happy with her bouquet.

They got married in a very secluded cove. You had to drive down a long winding road. We parked on a not so pretty road. You would never know there was a beautiful cove on the other side. Justin, Pops and Lisa went through the rock doorway to the cove while we waited for Lisa to get set up.

Shannon's dad walked her down the beach. Shannon look absolutely breathtaking! So did Justin! The weather was perfect and they got married facing the ocean while water was splashing high on the lava rock. This is the first picture after they got married.

Lisa took pictures for over an hour. We stayed until there was no more sun. It was a beautiful sunset. The pictures are not finished yet, but I can't wait to see them.

The wedding was perfect! After the wedding, we went to Leilani's for dinner. Justin and Shannon were so happy. They said if they left Hawaii that night, it would have been a perfect trip. Lucky for them, they still had a week of fun ahead of them. We could not have asked for a better day.

Maui - Day #2

2010-05-07T07:04:00.003-05:00

Day #2 started out really early! With the 5 hour time difference, we were up and dressed and at breakfast around 7. We ran into Shannon's parents when we were at breakfast and had fun visiting with them.

Sidebar here: When booking the hotel, I stumbled across a AAA rate. I normally don't do this, but when checking it out, realized what a great deal it was. To join AAA, it cost about $75 per year. Our hotel rate was almost $100 less per night with the AAA rate and we also got free breakfast. Free breakfast was a great deal because the breakfast buffet was about $70 for 2 with the tip. Great savings!

After breakfast, we headed to the pool. About 10 feet separate the pool from the beach. We faced the beach and had access to the pool. Fun times. We had lunch out by the pool and then it was time to go pick up Justin and Shannon at the airport.

I spent the afternoon getting dressed while Pops picked them up. Bad idea. As great of a person as he is, he is directionally challenged! He got lost on the way to the airport.

He had the top down on the car, unknowingly with the air conditioner off and Shannon was baked.

I think they look pretty good after a 15 hour day, lugging the dress around. Pops and I decided to go on a sunset cruise on the Maui Magic. Justin and Shannon wanted a nap, so we made reservations to meet up with them and Daryl and Cindy for dinner at Dukes, again.

The cruise was a lot of fun. I got soaked getting on the boat. You load up through a back ladder. You have to wait until the tide is just right.

Unfortunately, I let someone else tell me to go right as I saw a wave coming. It was so very windy, that my pants were dried by the end of the cruise. It got a little cool and rained, but that made some beautiful rainbows. My picture does not do it justice.

While we were out, we saw a couple of whales. The sunset was gorgeous. With the cloud pattern, it made it look like the water was on fire.

Duke's was great again. Back to the hotel to get some sleep before the big day.

Maui - Day #1

2010-05-04T06:41:00.003-05:00

As excited as I was about going to Maui, I was dreading the flight. I have a hard time sitting still for a long time. Thank you to my little "flying" pills, I made it just fine.

I have to say, I was a little disappointed when we were driving in from the airport. When you look to your left, there is the beautiful ocean. When looking to the right, it is dead brown mountain area. You can't believe you are even remotely close to a beach.

We arrived at 3 p.m and by the time we got our car and baggage and got to the hotel, it was about 5. We stayed at the Hyatt. The hotel was gorgeous, but I have to admit, I was a little disappointed in the room. It is funny to me how room decor changes from state to state. The nicest of hotels in Hawaii don't really compare to Vegas or even Austin.

As you are walking through the hotel, there are several animals. Penguins, different beautifully colored birds, flamingos and swans. Lots of beautiful plants and flowers, waterfalls and ponds.

This is the view from the walkway between the pool and the beach.

Another area through the hotel gardens.

This is the view from our room.

As is normal Lolly fashion, I already had dinner reservations booked. I always like to have at least the first night planned out so that when we get there and are tired, we don't have to search for where to go.

We chose Duke's. We had eaten at Duke's in Honolulu and loved it. We were not disappointed at all. I had the terriyaki kabob with beef and chicken and coconut shrimp. It was delicious.

As much as we were dying to check everything out, we were so exhausted and couldn't wait to get to bed. We got back to the hotel at around 9:30, and that is 2:30 Texas time.

Just Maui'd

2010-05-02T09:28:00.003-05:00

Where did April go? It came and went so fast!

We just got home from what I would have to say is one of our best trips. We have been to Hawaii a couple of times during the past 5 years. They were really fun trips because they were business trips and someone else paid the bill, but this one was even better.

This time, we went for Justin and Shannon's wedding. The trip and wedding were absolutely perfect! I would highly recommend getting married this way. It was totally about Justin and Shannon. They loved every minute of it.

I want to get in every detail for my own journaling, so I will be doing several posts. Here is just a little preview of what's to come.

Lost In The Pines

2010-04-18T07:38:00.009-05:00

We had a little getaway this weekend at the Hyatt Lost Pines Resort in Bastrop. Pops spoke at an annual meeting for a group of managers. This is the kind of work I like for him to do. Work a little, get paid for it and get to be treated to a nice little vacation.

This was supposed to be the tanning vacation before the big vacation. We were here about 3 years ago shortly after it opened, so it had changed quite a bit.

My goal was to lay out by the pool all day and get a little tan so that I wouldn't be "pasty" for Justin's wedding. We got to the pool at 9:00 a.m. and didn't leave until 4:00 p.m. By looking at my body you could never tell.

There was one slight problem. It was cloudy and sprinkling the entire time. At some points, I was covered by the umbrellas and wrapped up in a towel. But, by golly, we were bound and determined to stay out there all day, and we did. Most of the time, we were the only people out there. It was kind of cold.

If you have kids and are looking for a weekend getaway, this place is perfect. There is so much to do. They have a spa, horseback riding, smores, face painting, hayrides, playground, pools, lazy river, golf and lots more. It is about 200 yards from the Colorado River, so if you are a fisherman or kayaker, there is lots to do there, also.

The food was just okay, but since it is so far out, its a great idea to park your car and stay in for the entire weekend. I can't wait to take Karsyn and Landrie next time.

Dinner at The Gas Station

2010-03-31T08:12:00.004-05:00

Last weekend, we had some really good food at some really bad places. One of my very favorites is Chef Point, but it is so fattening! For that reason, we don't go as often as we used to, but I have been craving it for a while, and it was worth every single pound I gained!

We have been going to Chef Point for several years, long before it was famous. Oh, it was famous, but just from articles in the Star-Telegram, not from all of the television celebrities.

Chef Point is a restaurant that is also a working gas station and convenience store. Banks are very stingy about lending money for restaurants because the failure rate is so high. They didn't have any problem with loaning money for a gas station with a kitchen attached. This is how this restaurant got started and it became affectionately known by us and many others as, “the gas station”.

We used to go about once a week. Now we go about once every few months due to our schedules, the crowds and the calories. Back in the olden days, most of the cooking was done by the owner, Franson Nwaeze. One night we were in there and Pops was telling him about our favorite restaurant, Water Street Seafood that had closed down. We were telling him about the Crawfish Chicken. I told him I had found a recipe on the internet for the sauce and he said if I brought it in, he would fix it for us. The next week, I took him the recipe. He looked it over and said, “Do you want me to fix it now?”

That is how the Blackened Stuffed Chicken Breast was created. Instead of crawfish, he stuffed it with his crab cake mixture and pepper jack cheese. Instead of the andoullie cream sauce, he uses his own creation, asiago cream sauce. He serves it over a bed of pasta. It is delicious!

My favorite dish is the Blackened Catfish with Asiago Cream Sauce. This was a special of the day and not a regular on the menu until recently. I was always so disappointed when we would go and they didn’t have it. Now that it is a regular, it is the only dish I ever order.

Another great thing to try at the gas station is the bread pudding. This was the first place we had ever tried it. As much as I love bread, somehow eating a dessert made out of bread did not sound very good. Oh my gosh, the first time I ate it, I knew I was in trouble. The recipe was featured in Paula Deen’s magazine and it is not pretty. Lot of sugar and cream.

Go to the gas station for dinner if you want a fantastic gourmet meal with a delicious dessert. You won’t be disappointed!

#4 Is #1

2010-03-16T09:05:00.003-05:00

I have not been neglecting my blog, I am just having trouble coming up with something of interest. Growing up, I was taught, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Thus, my silence.

We have tried a few new restaurants and our response has been: NOT GOOD! I was really excited to take Pops to a place I had gone to previously for lunch. It was really good at lunch, but my dinner was just about not edible. It is an upscale home cooking place and I ordered the turkey and dressing. The dressing was the consistency of baby food, yes solid mush, and the turkey was mushy. The entire plate was drowning in runny gravy.

The most recent D Magazine had the top 16 barbecue restaurants in the Metroplex. We decided to try the number 1 spot last week for lunch. Such a disappointment. I'm not sure I would have even placed it in the top 16. The meat had a very smokey flavor, but that was about it.

I have talked about Smokey's in Ft. Worth previously. Still my #1 favorite. Smokey's was given the honor of being the #4 spot. I would definitely move Smokey's from #4 to #1 and just knock off the #1. We were going to go down the list and try them all, but after #1 being such a disappointment, I don't think I am going to waste my time.

Blogging World

2010-03-03T08:32:00.004-06:00

The blogging world has been fun for me this week.

About 3 years ago, I was reading BooMama's blog. For those of you that don't know BooMama, she is the Queen of all bloggers. I don't think there is any woman in the blogging world that has not read her. I couldn't even tell you the post I was reading, but as I was reading the comments, I saw that a girl named "Janelle" had commented. Since I have a Janelle, I clicked on her blog. I was so surprised when I saw that she lived very close to me.

I sent her a comment on her blog. That started our cyber relationship. We have sent comments and emails to each other over the years about how we wanted to go to lunch. We finally did.

We met Monday at Chick-fil-A with Karsyn and Ellen and had a great 3 hour lunch. The girls played and played on the playground until they were red faced and exhausted. Janelle and I had a great time talking. It was so great to meet her in real life and we plan on doing it again.

We formed a connection because of our experiences in life. In reading each others posts, we saw that we had something in common that we could help each other with. What a neat way to meet someone!

On another note, last night I was at my book club and a girl that I only know through book club came up to me and said, "Can I ask you something? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Of course my answer was, "Sure, I will tell you anything you want to know." She said, "Are you Lolly? I read your blog and I thought that was you." Small world.

Restaurant Smells

2010-02-25T07:42:00.000-06:00

I have been given the "gift" of a great sense of smell. That can be good, and it can be bad.

I think smelling great food sometimes triggers me to overeat. I can be completely satisfied after a meal and smell dessert cooking, and that immediately triggers a desire for the dessert. That desire usually does not go away until I taste that dessert.

If I cook, which is a very rare occurrence these days, I will usually close my bedroom door and light a candle in there, so that the lingering smell of the meal will not be noticeable. If it is still lingering, I will wake up in the middle of the night and smell it all night long.

Now for restaurant smells. When I go into a Mexican restaurant, I expect to have a strong smell of Mexican food. When I go to an Italian restaurant, I expect to have a strong smell of Italian food. If I don't, I am immediately suspicious about the restaurant. If it doesn't smell like the food they are cooking, it may not measure up to my standards.

On the contrary, I have to be really prepared to go to two of my favorite restaurants, because I know when I leave there, EVERY part of my clothing and hair will stink. That would be La Hacienda Ranch and Pappasito's. Like I said, they are my two favorites. When we are making a decision about whether to eat there, I have to decide, "is it worth the smell?" We don't wear coats in there, or a scarf, or anything that can't be laundered. Sometimes, we will leave our clothes in the garage so they don't smell up the house.

But . . . the WORST smell for me is industrial soap. I have a big aversion to public bathrooms, and it is partly because of the smell of the soap. We are very easy customers to please, never send food back, don't complain if we don't like it, but if I am seated close to the bathroom, I will ask to move. It was kind of comical, but there was a period of time that it seemed like every time we went out to eat, we were automatically seated by the bathroom. I finally got bold enough to start asking to be moved.

If Pops has used the soap and is sitting across from me in the car or restaurant, I can smell it. We will be in the car and he will lovingly stroke my cheek or run his fingers through my hair. My response should be, "I love you", but it is usually, "You used the industrial soap, get your hands away from me!!!"

Gotta love a great nose!

Show Us Your Ministry

2010-02-18T07:16:00.000-06:00

I am participating in the link party at Kelly's Korner Blog. I am not doing this to say, "Hey look at what I am doing, aren't I great?", but I am doing it because the organization that I have chosen as my ministry desperately needs more volunteers. My hope is that others reading this, will have the same desire that I did, and volunteer with this organization. They are in desperate need of volunteers.

The following is a copy of a post that I wrote last June as I was starting my training:

Fifteen years ago, I started a volunteer "job" that was one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had in my life. It was also very rewarding for my entire family. For eight years we were a Transitional Care Family for The Gladney Center. We took care of newborns until their legal work was complete for adoption. We had 60 babies during our eight years, and we all loved it so much.

Many nights of interrupted sleep finally took its toll on me. I also knew that I would be having grandchildren soon and didn't want to be "burned out", so I resigned. I still think about returning, but I know that it would be hard to do now at this stage of my life.

I have been looking for a volunteer opportunity for quite a while now. The problem is that I could not find anything that was the perfect fit. I volunteered at a couple of places where I was in a back room doing "busy work."My last volunteer job was brutal. I would arrive on time and the person I was working for would not be there yet. When she arrived, she would always say, "Oh my goodness, I didn't realize it was Wednesday. Come back here and let me see if I can find you something to do." It would be something that would keep me busy for three hours, only to be shoved aside until the next time she couldn't find anything for me to do. It was just busy work and didn't make a difference. After 6 weeks, I decided that sitting at home and watching TV would be better than that. Rather than my work helping out and making a difference for them, they were trying to find something to keep me busy.

I was watching TV recently (Dr. Phil Show), and I heard that they needed CASA volunteers. Dr. Phil and Robin are the national spokespersons for CASA. When I read the description of what is involved, I knew it would be perfect for me. A CASA is a court-appointed special advocate for children who have been removed from their home because of abuse and neglect. In these cases, CPS removes the child from their home. There is the CPS caseworker, the attorney for the parents, and ad-litem attorney for the child and possibly other professionals involved in the case. These professionals all have a huge case load and to them the child is a "case" and not a delicate human being.

As a CASA, I will be assigned to a child as his/her personal advocate. I will visit the child, go to parent visitations for observation, go to his/her foster home, talk with Dr.'s and teachers and most importantly the child and find out what is in the best interest of the child for a forever family. I will also "investigate" to see if there are other possible family members that would be willing to care for and provide a loving environment for the child. From there, I will attend court hearings and make recommendations to the Judge, along with the professionals.

I am SO excited. Besides the fact that it will make a difference in the children's lives, I will be doing all of the things that I enjoy; investigation, legal, court and talking to lots of people. I can't wait to get started.I have passed the application, recommendation, interview and preliminary background process. (I was clear on my last criminal check for grand jury in the fall and I don't think I have committed a felony since then, so I will probably pass). The next step is 30 hours of training that starts mid July, and then 2 times of court observation. I will get sworn in by Judge Boyd and then I will get my first case.

I got my first case in August, and it has been everything I thought it would be and more. It has been frustrating, heartbreaking, gut wrenching and made me smile. I love that I feel like I have helped make a difference in several people's lives. I wish I could write about some of my experiences, but the cases are confidential. Confidentiality has also caused me much grief. There have been people that are in bad situations that could have been remedied, with just a little bit of help. Unfortunately, I have had to say "I'm so sorry, I can't." That is hard to do when the reason you are doing this is to help people. That has been one of the hardest parts of this job.

On a happy note, who do I feel like I have helped?

The foster children

The 2 sets of foster parents

The CPS case worker

The parents of the children

Why would I not love a ministry like this? I hope this inspires someone else to check into the life changing work of becoming a CASA. Right now in Tarranty County, there are 300 children that are waiting for volunteers so that they can have a CASA.

Favorites

2010-02-17T07:51:00.000-06:00

When we go to restaurants, we usually order the same dish. We find the dish we like and don't change from that. For me personally, it seems like if I try something new, it is never as good as my favorite, and I am disappointed. I have thought about doing a "best of" for a while, but I think the list could go on. So, here are a few of our favorites:

Burrito – Chipotle
Fried Chicken – Babes
BBQ – Smokey’s and Salt Lick
Crab Dip – Hibiscus
Mole Enchiladas – Lupe’s
Pizza – Palio’s
Upscale Pizza – Fireside Pie’s
Cheesecake – Fireside Pie’s
Burgers – Simply Burgers, Clown Burger
Cranberry Chicken Salad – Celebrity Bakery
Vanilla Thumbprint Cookies – Celebrity Bakery
Fajita’s – Pappasito’s
Salad Bar – Jason’s
Crawfish Chicken – Water Street Seafood
Mexican Breakfast – Mi Tierra in San Antonio and Esparanza’s
Donuts – Krispy Kreme
Meatloaf – Dixie House
Cinnamon Roll – Dixie House
Steak – Nick and Sam’s and La Hacienda Ranch
Seafood – Pappadeaux
Deli – Jason’s
Sandwich Shop – Firehouse Subs – The Italian
Gourmet Mexican Food – Javiar’s
Favorite Seafood Pasta Dish – Chef Point – Blacked Catfish
Brunch – Blue Mesa
Italian – Maggiano’s
Bread – Logan’s or Texas Roadhouse

Have I missed anything?

Fun Valentine's Weekend - Way Too Much Food

2010-02-15T06:49:00.003-06:00

Since we started our Valentine holiday on Thursday, it made for a long, but fun celebration weekend.

For my gift, I got some roses and a spa gift certificate. Can't wait to use it. I got Pops a shirt and a book. The shirt was a replacement shirt for one of his favorites that got ruined at the cleaners.

Sidebar here: A couple of weeks ago, he spoke at an annual meeting for a group in Austin. There were approximately 250 people in attendance. He had picked up his clothes from the cleaners and they went straight into his baggage. About an hour before he was to speak, he started getting dressed and realized that he had a 2 inch rip in the fabric just to the side of his collar. He only brought one dress shirt, and there was not enough time to go buy a new one. I think it bothered me way more than him. I reassured him that it "didn't look bad". I asked him if anyone mentioned it and he said no, and that he had forgotten about it completely. Lesson learned: always check your wardrobe before you pack, and take an extra shirt and pair of pants.

We started our celebration Thursday with lunch at Rise. All weekend long, when we have received the bill for our meals, the joke has been that each one was half the price as Rise. But Rise was definitely worth it and we will go again.

Thursday night we went to Lupe's for some Mexican food because it was so cold and snowy. Friday night we went to Saltgrass Steakhouse. Saturday we went to Mi Chula with Justin and Shannon and we finished off Sunday big. We went to Ft. Worth for breakfast at Esparanza's and then to Frisco to Maggiano's for dinner.

It was all so good, but I am getting ready to pay for it big time at the gym.

Unexpected Treat

2010-02-12T09:46:00.003-06:00

Yesterday in Texas, we had a unbelievable snow storm. When it snows, everything comes to a halt. All of my plans for the day got cancelled. I am not one to let anything stop me, so I made alternative plans.

There is a really neat restaurant in Dallas, Rise No. 1, that I have been wanting Pops to try. I was a little reluctant to take him for two reasons. The number one reason is that they don't take reservations for parties under 5, and it is always extremely crowded. The second reason is that they serve souffles. That is not really a hearty man's meal.

With the snow day, I was trying to think of someplace unique to go. I thought it would be the perfect day to go to Rise. I figured everyone would stay home and we wouldn't have to wait. Wrong! It was just as crowded as it normally is. Our option was to wait at least 45 minutes, or sit on the patio. The patio was covered with an awning and plastic sides, but there were heaters outside. We opted for the patio and it was so cool. It was snowing so hard and it was so neat to just sit outside and watch the snow fall down.

Pops had a cup of onion soup and I had the Rise salad. He had the crawfish souffle and I had the ham and cheese souffle. For dessert we split a raspberry souffle. He loved it!!! The atmosphere is awesome. The only warning I have, is be sure and bring lots of $$$, or take out a bank loan. It is not priced like your typical lunch. It is pretty pricey.

We decided this meal would be the start of our Valentine holiday. Can't wait to see what else is to come!

I Love Second Chances

2010-02-11T06:12:00.004-06:00

When we try a new restaurant, we usually have one of three thoughts. We love it, we have just given it two chances - the first and the last, or it was just okay, but worthy of a second chance.

The first time we went to Mi Chula's in Southlake, we thought it was just okay. Nothing bad, but nothing great either.

A few months later, we decided to give it a second chance, and I am so glad that we did. It is now one of our favorites. I don't know if they got some kinks worked out, or if we just ordered differently and found our favorites. The "extra good queso", yes that is the name, is great. The hot sauce is very different and very good. We now always get the chicken flautus. The guacamole that comes with it is delicious. Oh, and don't let me forget the dessert. At Mi Chula's, we can't leave without getting dessert.

The sopapillas just might be the reason that we are so smitten with Mi Chula's. They cook them just as you finish your meal. The are little bitty squares, about the size of donut holes, dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon and served with a cup of honey for dipping. Oh my gosh, can I just tell you how great they are???

I Made It Without My Hubby

2010-02-07T06:29:00.002-06:00

I am joining the party at Shanty2Chic this month. I finally have something new to post.

About 2 1/2 years ago, when Jordan got her new office, she asked me to make a collage for her. I bought the paper and several bits of bling to go on it. At the time, I just didn't feel like doing it. I even pulled all the stuff out about 6 months ago to work on it, and just couldn't.

Finally, last week, I decided to do it no matter what. Now that it is finished, I can look at it and see so many things that I would have done differently, but it is all glued on with Gorilla Glue and there is no changing it now.

I started out with a 24 x 36 inch canvas. I attached torn paper that had been inked on all of the edges. Tearing the paper is rough on your fingers. I attached it with Mod Podge and then put Mod Podge all over it. When dry, I painted the edges and tried to give it a distressed look with some more paint. I then put more Mod Podge on it and let it dry. Then it was bling time. It doesn't show up very well in the picture, but it has crystal swirls on the canvas as well.

The "party" starts at 9:00 p.m. tonight. Go check it out at www.shanty2chic.blogspot.com. You will get some great ideas.

Lupe's Tex Mex

2010-01-28T08:07:00.002-06:00

I thought I had written about Lupe's in the past, but have checked back a few months, and realized I have neglected Lupe's. It has been open in Bedford for about 2 years. We have gone on and off for the past year, but have recently found a new love for Lupe's. It is good, very flavorful, cheap Tex-Mex.

They have the best chicken mole enchiladas that I have ever eaten. It is obvious that it is homemade and has lots of different spices in it. It is a little on the hot side, but oh so good. The cheese enchiladas, soft cheese tacos, crispy tacos and guacamole are also very good.

One of my favorite things is the black bean dip they serve with the chips and salsa. Really yummy.

To make Lupe's even better, click here and print off a coupon for buy one get one free. I feel a little guilty using them, but the waiter was the one that told us where to find it.

Enjoy!

Don't Give Up On Dickey's Yet

2010-01-27T09:16:00.003-06:00

I sent in a comment on the Dickey's website. I got the following response:

Thank you for your loyal patronage over the past 35 years. It is guests like yourself that have made Dickey’s the company we are today. We treasure your feedback and this helps us keep our company on track. I am very disappointed to hear your comments about the product in these stores and I will make a visit to those locations this week and determine if there is a variance to our current recipe.

Thanks again for your input and I would like to invite you back to our restaurants again to enjoy great Dickey’s Barbecue. We are offering 1$ Pulled Pork Sandwiches in every store, every Monday in February. Please come and let us serve you again.

I will try it again next week and hopefully it will be back to normal. See, it pays to send in your comments!

Dickey's Has Let Me Down :(

2010-01-26T07:08:00.003-06:00

What a fantastic deal! It has been our Monday night "rotation" for the past few weeks. There are two Dickey's close to us, so we have been going to both.

Now first let me clarify, I have been eating at Dickey's for over 35 years. If they change something, I know. I love their potato salad so much, that I used to get an order of potato salad and beans to go, when there were only a few locations. I think there were a couple in Dallas and one in Grand Prairie.

Last Monday night, we ate at the Dickey's on 157. The potato salad was off. It tasted like it was the pre-made stuff that you buy at Kroger. We decided that we were done with the 157 Dickey's and would not be back.

So last night, we headed to Hurst. Hurst has always been good. We ordered the pulled pork sandwich, only to be told that they were out. Then, when I tasted the potato salad, it tasted just like the bad stuff the week before. (These two Dickey's are owned by the same people.) How could they do this to me after 35 years???? I'm not sure the sun will even come up today.

No more Dickey's for us for a while. I guess we will have to drive to Smokey's.

By the way, D Magazine came out with the best BBQ restaurants in Ft. Worth and Dallas, that are not chains. We plan to make our way through the list. I hope I will have some great new restaurants to share.

Pappasito's - The Singer

2010-01-21T08:12:00.002-06:00

We love Pappasito's and go quite often. We especially love to go on Wednesday nights when they have 1/2 price fajitas. Fajitas for two are $16. The portions are huge and we always take home leftovers.

We go to the Pappasito's in Ft. Worth because it is the best one. The only thing wrong with Ft. Worth is that they have a roaming singer. He wears a Mexican costume and goes around from table to table singing. I do not want anyone coming to my table and singing. It is very awkward. I don't know any Mexican songs that I want to request. Do you continue your conversation or do you stare into his eyes while he sings to you??? Awkward!

Every single time we go to Pappasito's, he comes to our table. He can be on the other side of the restaurant, and I will think we have dodged him, but no such luck. He always manages to find us. I purposely don't make eye contact with him and when I see him coming, I get in a "heavy" conversation, hoping he will go away. He does not. The entire time, Pops is teasing me that he is coming to the table and I am creeping out.

His classic line is, "Are you in the mood for a song?" He asks it in a little creepy voice. It makes me CRAZY!!! Oh, if he only knew what I really wanted to say. We just smile and say, "No thanks."

Dear Mr. Pappasito's singer, if you are reading this (ha ha, no such chance), PLEASE stay away from me. I am not ever going to be "in the mood for a song."

Where Are The Reviews?

2010-01-17T12:17:00.005-06:00

The restaurant reviews have been pretty sparse lately. It is not because of lack of effort. We have gone to several new places, but have not found anything worthy of writing about. I go to new places with such high hopes, only to be disappointed.

Some of the places we have been have just been "okay". Others, just not good.

Friday night we went to Tillman's in Ft. Worth. We have eaten at the one in Dallas and liked it, but Ft. Worth was a real disappointment. We had completely different menu items, so I think to be fair, we need to go back and try our original items and see how it is. In Dallas, we had the ribs, cornbread and french fries. In Ft. Worth, we had the quesadillas, grits and chicken fried steak. The french fries in Dallas were some of my favorites, so I do want to give it another shot.

We had a reservation that we made a week in advance. From looking at opentable.com, it looked like they were always packed. It wasn't so. I am guessing they block space off during what they think will be peak times. The bar was packed, but the restaurant was empty.

Another one we recently tried was The Love Shack. Just okay, nothing to get excited about.

We went to Vidallia's at the Worthington for New Year's Eve. It was okay, but not great.

I will tell you about a few old ones we have moved back in the rotation.

Lupe's Tex Mex in Bedford - great mole enchiladas - some of the best I have ever had.
Dixie House in Bedford - great meatloaf and pot roast
Mi Chula in Southlake - great meat queso and the BEST sopapillas anywhere. They are little small squares, dusted in powdered sugar and honey for dipping. They are like little donut holes.

We did find a great place for a Mexican breakfast. I will post about it soon.

Christmas Tree Still Up?

2010-01-15T05:59:00.000-06:00

I put my Christmas decorations up around the middle of November, so once Christmas is here, I am ready for them to be put away. This year was a little different.

On December 26th, as I was taking my Christmas tree down, Pops grabbed some gold heart ornaments and suggested we put those on the tree in the bedroom and make it a Valentine tree. I thought that was a good idea since I love the lights in the room.

I bought some little red hearts and made some paper ornaments with some vintage Valentine paper. I still have the lights on the timer, so it is not too much trouble to mess with.

Maybe I will change it to an Easter tree and leave it up year round.

Congratulations Whitney!

2010-01-12T20:49:00.007-06:00

Take a close look at this picture, because one of these days soon, my nieces Ashley and Whitney are going to be famous!

First, I guess I should talk about Ashley's past fame. I sure wish I had a picture to show, but I think she hid these long ago. About 8 years ago, there was a talk show on TV. It was called "The Other Half" and the hosts were Dick Clark, Danny Bonaduce and Mario Lopez. At the time, they had a contest to win a date with Mario Lopez. Ashley sent in a video and WON!!!

She wasn't too thrilled. She was on the show and she and Mario went salsa dancing and bull riding. There was not a love connection, but it was fun for the family.

Both Ashley and Whitney are very creative, and they decided to start a blog in August. It has gone off the charts. The name of the blog is Shanty2Chic.

They take "shanty" objects (trash) and revamp them. They have made some adorable, creative stuff and their blog has gone crazy. In November, they were running about 30,000 hits a week. (Just for the record, my blog hasn't hit that many in the 3 1/2 years I have been blogging.)

They have been contacted by several huge companies to advertise and give away merchandise. Each of the girls recently entered a 11 week contest at Michaels.com. Ashley came in 2nd place during the week she entered and Whitney came in first. On Friday, she received a call that she won the Grand Prize.

She will be receiving another gift card from Michael's and she won a trip to the Martha Stewart Show in New York.

Congratulations Whitney!!! I am so excited for you!

She Said YES!!!

2010-01-04T08:21:00.006-06:00

Everyone in Justin's life has always said he is so picky about girls. He went through a long period where he didn't even date, because he couldn't find anyone he was interested in. My mother used to always ask me if he had a girlfriend, and I would always answer, "No, he is very picky." He has really high standards and there are not many matches around. I used to tell Justin that if you look in the garbage can, you are only going to find trash. He finally decided that church might be a good place to look since half of the people at our church of over 20,000 are single. Nothing. I think there were times he would get discouraged. There was something wrong with every girl. Until now.

Several months ago, a girl, named Shannon, caught his eye at Group Sync at church. What a great place to meet your spouse. It wasn't long before he showed me her Facebook pictures and asked her out. Shortly after their first date, he told me he knew it was early, but she was the one.

Soon the family met her and she passed the test. The biggest test of all is the "Sister Test" and she passed with flying colors.

Shannon is from Bangs, Texas and she is a Kindergarten teacher. The connection was immediate and it wasn't long before they were talking about the future. With her birthday in December, Christmas and New Years, no proposal. Justin was trying to throw her off.

He came up with a plan to ask her Saturday night at our house while we were all at church. Jennifer and I had so much fun running around getting all the props and decorating the house. Since purple is her favorite color, we bought purple roses and flowers. We had candles and rose petals from the door, down the hall, to the dining room.

Shannon said she could not figure out what was going on until she saw the "Will you marry me?" sign. She said that is when she lost it.

She looks beautiful as always, but her eyes are just a little red.

The plan for the night had originally been to cook out steaks. We all ended up going to Mi Chula after church and when they called us to tell us the details of the engagement, they ditched the steaks and came with us. We had fun hearing all the stories.

One great story is that Justin said after he gave her the ring, she didn't even look at it. Later, she said that was because it was not about the ring, it was about the moment. I love her for that. Now, she can't take her eyes off the ring.

Yesterday, Justin called and said his cheeks were killing him because he couldn't quit smiling. I hope you never lose that!

We love you both and are so excited for you. Congratulations Justin and Shannon.

State Championship - Go Trojans!

2010-01-02T11:07:00.000-06:00

Since Trinity made it to the 5A District Championship game, we decided to go to San Antonio for the weekend. Jennifer and the girls, and Justin and Shannon met us on Saturday morning. We stayed on the river, so when the girls got to the hotel, we took them down to see it.

The game was probably the most exciting game I have ever been too. I have not been to as many as Pops, but he definitely agreed with me on this. With out 2 minutes and a tied game, Trinity scored what looked like to be the winning touchdown. With 17 second left, Westlake tied the score and for the first time in 5A Championship history, the game went to overtime. Westlake scored with a field goal, and Trinity followed with the game winning touchdown. The crowd went crazy.

Lamar has loved his coaching, even though some weeks it meant working 7 days a week and into the wee hours of the morning.

After the game, dinner and an hour wait, we went on the river boat ride to see the Christmas lights. It was so neat. I would love to go to San Antonio every year just for the decorations.

When we got back to the hotel around 10:30, the girls were exhausted.

Here is the happy family. The girls went on the field to see Lamar, and Karsyn had fun playing with the clipboard. I wonder what top secret info she got to see?

Christmas Day

2009-12-31T10:55:00.003-06:00

We had a really fun Christmas this year. We started out the festivities with church on Christmas Eve, and dinner at Jennifer's. It was crazy trying to get from church to her house with the icy roads.

It was a long day. I woke up at 4:30 and decided to get up and get a head start on the day. I had the stockings in my room with the "stuff" out, but had not filled them, so that was my first motivation. It was so cool to have a white Christmas. My first ever. It was cold, so I turned on the fireplace.

The girls are so much fun. They came over about 9:30 and of course the first thing they did was get into the candy.

After about an hour, the living room looked pretty disastrous.

This year was also fun because we had someone else join us. Shannon. After our Christmas, Pop's mother came over and we had our annual breakfast (the only day of the year I cook breakfast) and then had our Christmas with her. Shannon and Justin left to go have Christmas with her family in Bangs. Christmas afternoon, we went to my mother's house and had Christmas and dinner with my family.

It is great to have our family close so that we can spend the day with them.

Tacky Christmas Party

2009-12-24T06:52:00.003-06:00

My niece, had a Tacky Christmas Party on Sunday night. She let a few of the old folks crash her party. I hope it becomes an annual event and I get to go again. She threw this together at the last minute and did a great job. We had a blast!

Since we were out of town when this party was planned, we didn't have much time to get our outfits together. We found some hats, but next year we will do much better. I am already planning what I am wearing.

One rule that has been implemented is that you can not wear the same outfit. That will really change my shopping for next Christmas.

In good Tacky fashion, we had casseroles. I brought mine in aluminum foil pans since I don't like to have to wash dishes when I get home. That was another rule that was implemented for next year. All disposable pan.

We had a contest for the best outfit, and Leasha won. The pictures just don't do her lovely dress justice. It was a beautiful gold sequin number with a silver poinsettia in the middle. Her hair was 1980's style.

While I loved Leasha's outfit, I voted for my sister because I couldn't believe that she actually went to the store and bought this and WORE IT. That is not her nature. She made sure that she had earrings and a necklace to match.

She and Tim worked hard to get to the party. His shirt took lots of sewing and they even made a homemade ornament out of tensil and a toilet paper roll. They were classy enough to nicely wrap it in a Jared's bag.

I wish this was a full view of Whitney because she had it going on. 1980's hair. All that was missing was the "baked potato bangs".

Gifts ranged from singing lobsters, singing nativity animals (in their original voices), a tacky roller (it was supposed to be a tacky gift), used VHS tapes, crazy socks, ceramic frog and lots more fun stuff.

Can't wait for next year. I have a long time to plan for this.

Weekend in San Antonio

2009-12-22T07:53:00.003-06:00

After much begging from Pops, we made an impromptu trip to San Antonio for the weekend. That is not a big deal since we are very flexible, adventurous people. The real issue here is that I cannot sit in car for more than 2 hours. I hate riding in a car. I check all kinds of flight schedules, even thinking if I could fly at least one way, I could make it. Unfortunately, nothing would work out, so I sucked it up and went anyway.

The other huge issue was that it is the weekend before Christmas. Let me repeat, the weekend before Christmas. I am doing okay, but I still have lots to do, but it was for a good cause. This is why I went.

Our plan was that we would leave early and break up the trip. We left about 9:30 and made our first stop for breakfast in Hillsboro at Whataburger. Next we stopped in Salado for Pops to go to the bathroom. Our next stop was in Round Rock to go to Salt Lick BBQ. My navigation skills were not too good. After driving around for 30 minutes on the west side of the freeway, we did the OnStar thing and realized we should be on the east side.

Our original plan was to go to the Salt Lick in Driftwood, but when we realized we could shave an hour off of the trip by going to the new one in Round Rock, that changed the plans. It was so worth it. I had the beef ribs and they were delicious.

6 hours later, we were in San Antonio. We stayed on the Riverwalk and had a fantastic view. Our first stop was Water Street Seafood. That was our favorite restaurant in Ft. Worth. It closed about 10 years ago. Every time we go to San Antonio, that is our first stop. It has changed names, but it didn’t disappoint! The crawfish chicken and wedge salad with creamy walnut dressing were delicious. So delicious, that we went back for dinner on Saturday night and took the rest of the family with us.

For breakfast, we went to Mi Tierra. It was great. So great in fact, that we went back for breakfast on Sunday.

On the way home, we were supposed to stop at Saltlick again, but we were too full from breakfast. We stopped and did a little shopping. We had a couple of gifts to get and had to get some clothes to wear to our Tacky Christmas Party.

Cookies With Karsyn

2009-12-07T13:56:00.003-06:00

Today is a "Lolly Day". That is what we call it when I babysit the girls. Karsyn gets "Lolly Day" on Monday and Wednesdays.

Here she is changing the ornaments on the Countdown to Christmas Calendar.

Since it is a cold and gloomy day outside, I decided to make cookies. Karsyn loves to be a helper. She had a lot of fun playing with the dough.

She gave up and decided to watch Dora instead. She knows she is not supposed to sit on the coffee table, but she likes to do things her way.

Here is our finished project. We made Pecan Sandies, for Pops, and Spritz Christmas trees.

Lolly Meets The Pioneer Woman

2009-12-02T07:46:00.005-06:00

One of the first blogs that I ever read 3 1/2 years ago, was the blog of Ree Drummond, also known as "The Pioneer Woman." She is a great photographer, cook and writer, and she is so funny.

She started a story three years ago about how she and her husband met. She did it in such a creative way. She had several parts to it and she stretched the story out for 3 years. At first, she posted about every other week, then she stretched to about a month, and finally she was writing every couple of months. She is such a great writer, you checked her blog every day to read the latest installment.

At the same time, she was posting pictures and stories about her family and her cooking. When she posts a recipe, she has a ton of pictures. She first posts a picture with all of her ingredients and then she posts step by step instructions, even boiling water.

When she announced she was publishing a cookbook, I pre-ordered on Amazon and could not wait to get it. I read it like a book the day I got it. Lots of great stories, recipes and pictures. I also saw that she would be in Dallas in 6 weeks and I immediately put it on my calendar.

Janelle and I headed to Dallas yesterday around 4:00 p.m. We knew it would be crowded, but never dream it would be SO crowded. They were giving armbands out and we secured our place in line at around 212 and 213. There were almost 500 people behind us. Yes, you read it right, 500!!! The staff said she is running about 1,000 per signing all over the country.

She is such a kind person, that she gave everyone in line her undivided attention (and a cute t-shirt). We got our books signed at 10:00 p.m. I can't imagine how long she stayed. At 10:00 p.m. there were still several hundred people in line. She was smiling the entire time. When I was getting mine signed, I heard one of her staff tell her that she had to be at the TV studio at 8:00 a.m. and she said, "That's okay."

Oh, I looked like CR**, but I would not miss posting my picture with her. By that time, the hair was disastrous, the makeup gone and my feet were KILLING me.

So glad I did it and was so happy to get in the hot bathtub at 11:30. I just saw Ree on Good Morning Texas and I am guessing she was really tired. She said she left Borders at 2:00 a.m. What a trooper!

New Baby in the Family

2009-11-30T11:35:00.003-06:00

It has been 3 1/2 years since we have had a new baby in the family. That is a long time for our family. In the previous 3 1/2 years, we had 8.

Baby Bella is my new niece and she was born November 18th. She had a little bit of a rough start and gave us a little scare. She had trouble breathing and was in NICU for 5 days, but now she is just perfect!

She is doing so well, she slept for 7 hours when she was 1 week old. She was passed all around the family on Thanksgiving and she didn't make a sound. Congratulations Kyndra and Sergio.

Food

2009-11-27T09:19:00.003-06:00

Ouch!

I received the following comment on my last post:

I reread this post several times thinking surely I missed something. You filled your basket thinking how lucky you are. You cooked thinking how blessed you are. Did you not think to put a few things in your basket for the person with no FOOD! Or perhaps take some of the delicious foods you prepared to that person. You spoke of how "we" help people around the world. Lady, obviously you don't help people anywhere. You should be ashamed.

I try to be a humble person and not focus on myself. I didn't want my last post to be about me, but to be about all of the hurting, lonely, hungry people in our community.

Let me assure you that the person I wrote about now has more food than could fit in their pantry. It should be more than enough to last until Christmas. Not just generic food, but I made sure to ask about specific favorites. I personally buy generic brands, but I made sure that I bought only name brands. I also made sure there was some of my homemade dressing and a bag of favorite candy. I wanted it to be special for this person.

It's not about me.

TRUE Meaning of Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T15:19:00.002-06:00

I am in my kitchen getting the food ready for the Thanksgiving feast. I am fixing my family favorites. In a few hours, we will be going to my Mother's house and spend the evening with 35 members of my immediate family, and many more. We are blessed because we have so many people to share this day with along with a TON of food.

I have recently had a conversation with someone who will be alone for Thanksgiving. Not only will this person be alone, there is no food in the house. I'm not talking about "we don't have anything to eat in this house" food, I am talking NO food. Yesterday, as I went to the store and filled my basket, and today as I make these favorites, I keep thinking about this person with no family and no food.

I think it is great that we go around the world to help other people in other countries, but there are people right here in our city that need help. I am sure there are lots of them. I hope I don't ever forget how I am feeling today. I get to choose what I want to eat, not if I get to eat.

I am very thankful that I have food, clothing, shelter and family.

31 Years

2009-11-24T18:02:00.002-06:00

Today, Pops and I celebrate 31 years of marriage. We met while we were taking Driver's Ed when we were 15. At that time, I knew I was in love, but many people questioned my decision. They thought you did not know what love was at that age.

I guess I proved them wrong. We have had 31 great years and we would both do it all over again. Pops wrote about us in his blog post today.

The greatest thing about our marriage is, not only do we love each other, but after 31 years, we really like each other.

Zhu Zhu Hunting

2009-11-09T12:49:00.003-06:00

I love to have fun and I will do just about anything crazy. That is if it not illegal or immoral or permanent. (Good questions to ask yourself when your kids ask permission to do something that is questionable.)

In years past, I have stood in line for hours to get the hottest new hard to find toy. I remember dragging the kids to stand in line for 3 hours to get a Cabbage Patch Doll. I can't even begin to imagine how many hours I stood in line for Beanie Babies. I can remember one specific time that a Cracker Barrel in Duncanville was getting some hot ones in at 6:00 a.m. To make sure I didn't miss out, I left the house at 3:00 a.m. to stand in line.

I recently heard about the new hot toy for Christmas this year, Zhu Zhu Pets. I am ALL for pets that don't smell or go to the bathroom. When I heard about how hard they were to find, that made it more intriguing. Karsyn and Landrie have not even seen them on TV until this weekend, so I am hoping that they will love them.

I started my search on Wednesday with helpful hints from Missy. (Thanks Missy to you and all of your family.)

Here is the fun house. That is the main part that you have to have. That was pretty easy to get.

The animals are a completely different story! They are selling for about $30 on Ebay and Amazon. Both Saturday and Sunday I was up at 5:00 a.m. to find some. With the help of Tina, who just randomly found them at Target on Saturday and lots of hours in line, I have just about everything that we need.

I sure do hope the girls LOVE them!

Random Ramblings

2009-11-03T07:23:00.002-06:00

I wish I had something new and exciting to talk about, but everything is pretty uneventful around here right now.

We did try a new Mexican restaurant for lunch last week, Tio Joe's, and I would give it an okay. Just had enchiladas. The cheese enchiladas were covered with queso. They were good, but just a little cheesy for me. I won't make a mad dash to get there again, but wouldn't be opposed to going.

The fun part of eating the past couple of weeks is that we have had dinner with lots of great friends. We love spending time with our friends.

Cheesecake Factory - Jeff & Ginger
Italian Villa - Jim & Kathy
Tricia's Cafe - Great Cajun cooking with Tricia, Pelletiers, Hamiltons & Holsts
Blue Mesa - Justin & Shannon
Cheesecake Factory - Hanna Family

A great new scrapbooking store opened a few weeks ago and I have made myself a frequent customer. I am signed up for classes every Tuesday until the middle of December. Lots of fun.

Yesterday was the first annual Jimmy York Memorial Golf Tournament. While I don't play golf, I did go out in the afternoon to visit with friends and stay for the awards dinner. It was great to be in the same room with lots of friends that all loved Jimmy. They presented Tricia with a nice check that will help her with the boys for the next several years.

I have been Christmas shopping and have 21 gifts. Yeah. I hope to keep the pace up and not be trying to finish up on Christmas Eve.

I am loving this California weather! Happy Fall.

Ellerbe - Update

2009-10-22T08:59:00.002-05:00

I decided to give Ellerbe another try, since I loved the atmosphere so much. I so wanted it to be great. I took four friends with me.

The joke was on me. On my first trip, I wrote about how the hostess had a little bit of an attitude. This time, it was much worse. The owner was pleasant, but it went down hill from there. Now, I don't expect everyone to be my best friend in a restaurant, and I actually like to keep my personal space, but rudeness? As my friend Amy said about the waiter, "He does not act pleased to be serving us."

He wasn't the only waiter with an attitude. We had to beg for bread, and the food was very mediocre.

I am sad for the owner because he has a great concept and I predict that he won't be open for long. You can't sustain a restaurant with mediocre food and bad attitudes. I really would love to see this restaurant succeed, but until changes are made, I think it is very doubtful.

Sunday Fun Day in Oklahoma

2009-10-20T07:09:00.003-05:00

Last Monday, I had the opportunity to go to the U2 concert in the new Cowboy Stadium. It was a last minute deal that Justin called me about. The only problem was that there were not going to be enough tickets for all of my children to go. Janelle was working, but I felt bad about leaving her left out, so I declined the tickets. I was a little bummed, but I also needed to babysit for Jennifer. I was thrilled that Jordan and Jennifer got to go because they are U2 fanatics - in tears that they were getting to go. Jordan got her ticket less than 3 hours before the concert.

On Thursday, Justin told me Billy (his awesome boss and friend) had some tickets to the show in Norman, Oklahoma. He had been talking to a sweet friend of mine that desperately wanted to go, but couldn't find a "date". I thought it would be fun to go, but when I found out Fergie and The Black Eyed Peas were going to be there, I was definitely IN.

Tricia and I have a running joke that one of these days I am taking her to the Winstar to gamble. We now had a plan. I was to pick her up at 2:00, head to Oklahoma and stop off to see if we could win a little money.

We started out BIG. We went to the penny slots. We sat there for a little bit, and Tricia doubled her $$$, $5 and I was up $9. We were so excited and feeling great. We moved to a couple of other penny machines and lost all of our winnings. I was on a desperate search for the nickel slots because I just knew I could really win big there.

We finally found the nickel machines and I hit big. 1300 nickels. $65. We were ridiculously excited! You would have thought we just won our first million. I looked at my clock and saw it was 4:00 and we needed to get on our way.

When we pulled into Norman, the traffic was ridiculous and I was disappointed that we would not be able to eat at the great restaurant I had picked out ahead of time. We had a quick dinner at Soup R Salad. It was pretty lame.

We headed to the stadium and made it in with about 15 minutes to spare. We had fantastic seats! The only problem was that there were so many middle aged drunks around us. It was pretty disgusting. Tricia got beer poured all over her purse and coat before the concert even started.

Let me tell you, The Black Eyed Peas were FANTASTIC!!! I could have sat there for another set. They were worth the price of the ticket.

Bono was great too. He is not too bad for an old man, although he is moving around a little slower.

The only bad part of the day was the drive home. It took us about 30 minutes just to get out of the parking area and it was a long drive home. After I dropped Tricia off, I had another 30 minute drive and was wondering if I was going to make it. I got to be about 3:30, which is just about the time I normally start waking up.

It was a great day and I would do it all over again. Thanks Tricia for such a great day.

Maximo's = Minimo's

2009-10-15T20:16:00.000-05:00

I am wondering if maybe I need to start drinking. My drink of choice is Dr. Pepper and it doesn't do anything to alter the taste of food. I am thinking maybe I need to start drinking alcohol so my food will taste better. My tastes are not matching up to other diners, and I'm thinking that must be my problem. Maybe it is that they drink until their taste buds are numb and they don't know what good food is.

I was watching "The Naughty Kitchen" last week and Blythe went to see her old boss at his new restaurant, Maximo's. It looked really neat. I checked out the menu on line and it looked good. Gourmet Mexican. I am thinking Javier's. The chef that opened Maximo's had previously been at "The Mansion" for 28 years.

One of the first ways I evaluate a restaurant is by the smell when you first walk in. The decor was nice, but I told Pops, "We might be in trouble because it doesn't smell like Mexican food." We sat down and they brought out the chips with three different salsas. I was impressed. The sauces were all very different and good. The chips were made from flour tortillas instead of corn. It was different, but good.

We ordered the "Dos Quesos". There were two different quesos. One was white with poblano peppers and the other was yellow with chorizo. The white was so bland and tasted like melted cream cheese mixed with milk. No flavor at all. The yellow was a little better, but I am not sure that it was all "real" cheese.

I ordered a chicken dish that sounded so good, but was very bland. I poured lots of hot sauce over it to give it some flavor. The chicken was so overcooked that it was mushy. It was served with some cilantro rice that had good flavor, but it had been sitting for so long it had a very starchy taste.

Pops had the chicken mole. It had a pretty good flavor. You could really taste the individual spices, but the sauce was so thick, it was like a thick cream gravy that is served with chicken fried steak. It was gloppy.

We decided to give the dessert a try and that was a good choice. We had some crepes that had caramelized bananas and tres leches ice cream. It was probably the best part of our meal.

I like to see businesses that succeed. It makes me sad to walk into a restaurant at 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday night and it be deserted. You gotta bring the food if you are going to be successful.

Ellerbe Fine Foods

2009-10-14T12:12:00.001-05:00

I have driven down Magnolia Dr. in Ft. Worth a few times lately, and this really neat restaurant keeps catching my eye. Friday night we wanted to try something different, so we headed over to Ellerbe Fine Foods.

Oh, how I want to LOVE this restaurant. The atmosphere is fantastic. It is in an old gas station that has been revamped. It reminded me of a restaurant in Europe. It has a marketplace attached to it that will soon have prepared dishes. In front, there is a great patio with huge water troughs filled with wildflowers. The restaurant is multi level with white table clothes with brown butcher paper on top and wild flowers and herbs on the table. This is the best atmosphere that I have seen at a new restaurant in a long time. I was hoping the food would be great and I would want to make this one of my favorites. The best descriptive words I could come up with are quaint and charming.

I must say, the hostess at the front door was a little snooty for my taste. She asked if we had a reservation and then looked a little put out that we didn't. It was not a problem because when we were there from 7 - 9, only about a third of the tables were full.

The concept of this restaurant is that their dishes are prepared with fresh seasonal local ingredients. My understanding is that the menu changes regularly. My thoughts on the food are that the chef worked so hard on trying to incorporate the local fare that the taste was lost in the translation. The presentation was very beautiful, if only the food had matched up with the looks.

For an appetizer, I had the corn soup. It was good, but needed a little more salt for my taste. It had an interesting texture because it was pureed and strained. I wanted to try a salad, but they were a little "funky" for my taste. I would love to see a lettuce wedge or a basic salad for those that don't want to go too far from the norm. For my entree, I had the glazed pork shank. It was served on top of black eyed peas and creamer peas with a little bit of fried okra. While the pork was so tender that you could cut it with a fork, it was very bland. It was supposed to have a stone ground mustard sauce, but I did not see or taste any sauce. It got the punch it needed when I dipped in it some ketchup.

Pops had the Chef's Choice Steak served with Herbed French Fries and Sicilian Candy. What is Sicilian Candy? Roasted garlic to spread all over your meat. The steak was a sirloin and it was pretty tough with a pretty good size piece if gristle. Although it tasted like it was cooked over charcoal, it had very little, if any seasoning. The french fries - some of the best I have ever eaten. They were delicious!!! That is where the ketchup for my pork came in.

The dessert was great. We split Maw Maw's Bread Pudding. No raisins or pecans, just a bunch of rich goodness. When you are given the check, you are also served some wonderful tiny sugar cookies with cajeta filling and dusted with powdered sugar.

As I said, I Loved Loved Loved the atmosphere. With a little tweaking, I think it could be a great restaurant with a long history in Ft. Worth. I would love to see some of the dishes that are frequently at other upscale home cooking places. Great mashed potatoes, shrimp and grits, gourmet meatloaf, etc. The bread was good, but nothing special. I would love to see a bread basket with a variety of homemade breads.

As I said, I will definitly go back and give it another shot and hopefully it will turn into one of our favorites.

Yucatan Taco Stand

2009-10-12T09:43:00.004-05:00

I tried 3 new restaurants this week and I had so hoped that they would all be good, but the verdict is still out. The first one I went to was Yucatan Taco Stand on Magnolia in Ft. Worth. Jordan has eaten there several times and has been begging me to go with her. This is not your typical Tex-Mex restaurant.

We went on Monday night. According to Jordan, there is only one item to order from the menu, the Tequila Chicken Nachos, so that is what we had. She told me there would be more than enough for us to share. She was not lying! We didn't even make a dent in them. I think two more people could have shared them with us. The order was huge.

Here is the description for the nachos: Crispy corn tortilla chips topped with Chihuahua cheese, aged white cheddar, queso fresco, roasted tomatillo sauce, lettuce, pico de gallo, sour cream, guacamole and jalapeños. They actually had more than than. There were red onions and cabbage and I think another sauce.

They were very good. We didn't go until about 9:00 p.m., and we ate outside on the patio, so it was hard to see what we were eating. The nachos were a huge pile of chips with lots of layers. There was one particular layer of sauce that was so good, but I could never quite identify the taste. It seems like the actual menu had a couple of other sauces listed.

Definitely worth another try. The chicken was a little bland, so next time I think I will try the beef.

Shanty 2 Chic Party

2009-10-07T21:00:00.000-05:00

It's a party!

It has been a LONG time since I have done any projects, but I wanted to go to the party with Ashley and Whitney. I pulled out some old projects.

Back in the day, I think I did every project possible. The last projects that I have done are collages. I still have all of the stuff to make one for Jordan's office, but I just can't get motivated. One of these days I might work on it.

This first on was for Jordan's bedroom. As you can see, she loves hot pink.

The next one I made was for Janelle's bedroom at her apartment.

This one I made for my guest bathroom.

The final two were from a class I took at a scrapbooking store. You start out with the Christmas tree with the countdown numbers. Every day you replace a number with an ornament until the tree is full. Karsyn and Landrie really enjoy doing this to countdown until Christmas.

With each of these, I used the 2 inch thick canvas. They are about 24 x 36. All of these have been made with scrapbook paper. I started out randomly gluing the paper on the canvas and then finished off the edges with paint. I used Mod Podge over the entire picture and then glued on treasures. One little tip, put the hook on the back before you start working on your project. It is much easier than after you are finished.

Join The Party

2009-10-02T06:43:00.002-05:00

As wonderful as my husband is, he is not a handy man at all. I'm not just talking about hobby wise, I am talking, you don't even want him to have a screwdriver or hammer in his hand. If you need help unscrewing something, he will attack it until the screw is busted. I am the handy man at our house.

The girls at Shanty 2 Chic are having a link party next week. The theme is a project that you have completed without your hubby's help. I think I can do that without any problem at all.

I am getting ready to head to Canton this morning with the Shanty 2 Chic girls and their mother, aka my sister. Can't wait to see the treasures that they find.

Central 214 - The Naughty Kitchen

2009-09-29T06:15:00.000-05:00

We have been going to Blythe Beck's restaurants since around the Spring of 2008. We didn't know anything about her, until she came to our table to talk on our first visit at Hector's. We were fans from day one. I still remember when she told us there was a possibility of a reality show.

It has happened. Last week, the first episode debuted. According to Blythe, it was a success and has gotten great ratings. She was in New York last week to tape an episode on the Tyra Banks show and she will be going back to be on the Today Show on Tuesday. I think she has made it and is now a star. It was fun to listen to her stories about being recognized on the streets. She is so funny and has got such a great personality. We are really happy for her.

We ate at Central 214 last night with Mike and Amy and had a great time. She is extremely observant. She came over to talk to us and she even remembered the shirt that Pops had on the last time we were at Hector's. It was pink, her favorite color, but I was so impressed that she remembered. It was great to eat her food again.

One of the most unique items she had was her bread. It was baguette bread, served with great butter, pimento cheese and smoked trout spread. She said it was inspired by her mother from her childhood days. She said she grew up on pimento cheese and tuna fish. She fancied it up a little bit.

All episodes for this season of The Naughty Kitchen have been taped. Hopefully it will be picked up for Season 2. Congratulations to you Blythe! What a fast start to a career in "total culinary domination". I suspect you will be the top chef at a New York restaurant in the near future.

Are You Serious???

2009-09-25T21:17:00.006-05:00

I have the best family in the world, and that includes my nieces and nephew. They all live close by and they are like my own children.

A couple of months ago, two of my nieces, Ashley and Whitney started a blog. Their blog is called Shanty 2 Chic and they have a great knack for taking junk and turning it into treasures for almost nothing. They have made the cutest things.

This afternoon, I was over at Whitney's house and we were talking blogs. She showed me an email that she got from the makers of Gorilla Glue asking her if they could send her some of their products.

I knew they had a great following from their comments, but I had no idea what it really was. I asked her how many hits she gets a day, thinking that she had a huge following and might get as many as 300.

She pulled up her sitemeter and showed me, and I about fell on the floor.

30,000 hits a week. I have had this blog for over 3 years and I haven't had near that many hits in it's lifetime. That is incredible.

Congratulations Ashley and Whitney. I am SO proud of you!

Chef Blythe Beck

2009-09-22T11:45:00.000-05:00

In 2008, we discovered a great restaurant, Hector's On Henderson. The food was great but the chef was even greater. I wrote about our experience here. Blythe was definitely the entertainment of the night.

She has since moved restaurants and now she is at the Hotel Palomar - Central 214. We have not been there yet, but we have reservations for Saturday night. Can't wait. (We are going with our favorite funeral director.)

Blythe has such a wild and crazy personality that she was "targeted" for a reality TV show several months ago. They shot the pilot for it last fall and we happened to be at Hector's that night. It was a fun night to say the least.

Her reality show has been picked up by the Oxygen channel. It premieres Tuesday night. I have my DVR set to record it. Looks like lots of fun. When we were in New York last week, it was crazy to see her picture all over the place. She was on billboards, buses and the shot below is of her on a trash can. Couldn't resist taking a picture.

Can't wait to check out her new restaurant Saturday.

GREAT Discovery - Smokey's Barbeque

2009-09-21T06:55:00.001-05:00

Last weekend, the Star-Telegram had a review of a new barbeque restaurant that looked good. The building has been around for many years, with different owners coming in and out. I have never eaten at any of the establishments, but was aware that they were around. Putting it politely, this is not be best of locations. It is located at 5300 E. Lancaster in Ft. Worth. There are not a lot of great places around it, and some people might be a little intimidated to go after dark. All that said, all I can say is "oh my gosh!"

My understanding is that this restaurant is owned by the "Deen" family of the famous Eddie Deen's Barbeque. Eddie Deen does not have a restaurant location, but does lots of catering and has great facilities for that. A few years ago at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, they had an event where Eddie Deen catered and it was great.

Going to Smokey's, I knew that we were not going to be wowed by the atmosphere, but it was better than my expectations. I looks like an old Dairy Queen that has been converted. It has a nice patio on the front and looks like a dining room added on to the side.

First of all, anyone that knows me know how much I love bread. I could live on bread and Dr. Pepper alone. Smokey's makes homemade buns. Can you even imagine great barbeque on top of a homemade bun? You can see them mixing and rolling out the dough as you are ordering. That alone would have wowed me to come back.

We tried 3 different meats and 3 sides. The ribs were probably the best I have EVER had. They had a dry rub and then were cooked with a sweet sauce until it was crunchy. I have read it described as having a candy coating, and that was a great description. They did not need any sauce and fell of the bone.

I thought the cole slaw was good and the potato salad was "off the chain." I am a potato salad lover and would definitely put that one on the top of my list.

Smokey's is open daily except Monday. They serve a Sunday dinner that sound great too. Chicken fried chicken, chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, turnip greens, cabbage, creamed corn, etc - $6.95. Where can you get a full meal like that for so cheap? We didn't try it, but the buttermilk pie is supposed to be great.

Can't wait to go back.

Updated - Well, I couldn't wait to go back and I did, just 2 days later. I was craving it. The ribs were not quite as good this time. They had been taken off the pit and wrapped in aluminum foil and did have the "crunch". I will be sure and ask for "crunchy" ribs next time. The other items were just as good. There was a couple sitting behind us that said they eat there almost every day. They really pushed the buttermilk pie, but I was too full to try it. Maybe next time.

Good Morning America

2009-09-16T09:43:00.001-05:00

I have been an ABC "groupie" for all of my life. I remember watching Good Morning American from as far back as I can remember. I loved Joan London and David Hartman. When Joan was having babies, so was I. I could relate to her.

Every time I have been to New York, I have always gotten tickets to be in the audience at Good Morning America. We have seen some fun people. The first time I went, Jordan and I went to the "Concert in the Park" series and saw Pink. She is one of my favorite singers. At the time, Tony Perkins was the weather man and Jordan got to talk to him while we were waiting to get into Bryant Park.

The next couple of times, I went with Pops, and we were there for the New Year's Eve show. We saw Dick Clark, Rachel Ray and Ryan Seacrest.

Pops and I got up at 5:00 a.m. on Friday so we could be at the studio at 6:15. The nice thing was that we could see the studio out of our hotel window, so we didn't have far to walk. The bad thing is that it was cool and rainy. My hair reflects that. Oh, I was having a BAD hair day. I almost didn't post pictures because of that, but I decided what the heck. It is what it is.

Robin Roberts is one of my favorites on GMA. I have a picture with her from the last time we were there.

The last time we were there, Pops was not a fan of Diane Sawyer. I will not post what he said about her, but it wasn't very nice, and everytime he sees her on TV, he reminds me of that. This time, she was much nicer. Her days at GMA are numbered. She will be moving to the head anchor spot on World News Tonight in January.

One fun guest that we got to see was Mary J. Blige. She is in a movie that is set to premier soon. She performed the song from her movie. She was fun to see in person.

Pops had to go to work, so I stayed around for pictures and another pre-recorded segment. Here I am with one of my favorites, Chris Cuomo. And YES, my hair looks terrible. I am aware of the BAD hair day and my crooked necklace.

For as long as I can remember, Jack Hanna, Director Emeritus of the Columbus Zoo, has been around. And, he looks the same. He did a segment that will air later with about 6 different animals. One was a giant iguana. I did keep my distance. Jack didn't seem real thrilled to be taking pictures, but I figured, hey, what the heck, I am going to get one along with everyone else. I STILL have bad hair, but at least the necklace is straight this time.

Fun trip with bad weather in both Dallas and New York, but no flight delays. Yeah!

From Old Country Roads to Times Square

2009-09-14T09:31:00.002-05:00

Last weekend, we were on a lot of deserted old country roads where there was not a person in sight. This weekend, we were in the heart of Times Square. What a change! I am still wondering what would possess someone to choose a 6:00 a.m. flight. That means getting up at 3:00 to be dressed and packed, and leave for the airport at 5:00. That is insane.

The good part is that by 12:00 noon, we were checked into our hotel and on a double decker bus headed around New York. This is the first Statue of Liberty that we saw. He was so nice to pose for us.

We stayed in Times Square, so it was very convenient to be right in the middle of the chaos. There was a special event for mayors from all over the country to help memorialize 9-11. That is Katie Couric speaking along with Mayor Bloomberg.

This is my fourth trip to New York and I always look for The Naked Cowboy. I wasn't disappointed this time either. He is pretty amazing. He wears the same outfit, rain or shine, sleet or snow. The past couple of times I have seen him, it was New Year's Eve and he was right in the middle of Times Square dressed exactly the same way.

It was interesting being in NY for 9-11. There was a lot going on. I didn't get a good picture, but the sky was lit up at night to look like the twin towers. This is a picture of the ground zero site where they were reading all of the names of the people who died that day.

This picture shows some of the service men and women leaving the service.

We did not have the great weather I was hoping for. Thursday, it was cool and windy. Friday and Saturday it was cold and rainy. It didn't stop us though.

Several years ago, when Jordan and I went to NY we went on a "Foodie Tour" in Greenwich Village. We tried to recreate that on Thursday. We went up and down Bleeker St. and sampled cheese, rice balls, fried ravioli, cookies, pastries, etc. That was a fun way to eat lunch.

We didn't get much sleep on this trip. On Friday morning, we got up at 5:00 a.m. so that we could be in the audience of Good Morning America. It was worth it. We got to see some famous people. Stayed tuned, pictures to come.

Great Weekend - Walden Plantation

2009-09-07T15:13:00.004-05:00

After being married for 30 years, we are having a little trouble buying gifts for each other. We have all the clothes we need and we have every gadget you can think of. But . . . giving gifts is very important to both of us and we refuse to stop giving them. I had a hard time coming up with something for Pop's birthday last month, so I decided to give him a trip.

I saw an ad in the paper for the Walden Plantation in Llano. It looked really neat. The ad was a full page ad in the Star-Telegram. While Pops was in the kitchen, I quickly tore the page out of the paper and hid it. I knew if he saw it, he would immediately say we have to go there. I made the reservation and wrapped the ad up in a box for his birthday.

We went this weekend, and I have to say, it was a fantastic trip. On the way down, we stopped in Waco and ate lunch at the Elite Cafe. Really good. Walden is way out in the sticks. I was shocked when we pulled up. It was much bigger than I thought it would be. The rooms were nice and very clean. It didn't even look like anyone had ever stayed in our room. The pool was great and it was right on the river. They serve dinner Friday and Saturday nights. We had dinner Saturday night and it was great. At night, we would go sit down by the river. Friday night a couple of deer ran by us.

They have several benches by the river and decks with tables and chairs. Breakfast is included with the room and it was great. We had lunch by the pool yesterday and it was also good. Last night we went to the famous Cooper's BBQ. It was not that great. We will not be going there again.

We will definitely come back to the Walden Plantation, hopefully several times a year. It would be a great place for a group trip or a family reunion. The longhorns in the picture are part of Walden; Tally and Moe.

Looking forward to a great week this week. Will post about it soon.

Present to Myself - 400th Post

2009-09-02T21:47:00.006-05:00

I decided a few months ago that I needed a new design for my blog. Perfect timing that it was finished for the 400th post.

Jennisa does a fantastic job and is great to work with. If you need a makeover, go check her out at Once Upon A Blog.

Thanks Jennisa!

Just Can't Get It Right

2009-08-30T07:57:00.003-05:00

I have not had many blogs about restaurants lately. The reasons is, I don't like to have negative posts. I will call it what it is, but I like to write about great experiences, not bad. I do have another criteria. I will not write anything negative about a restaurant that we know the owner, or write negatively about a restaurant where someone takes us out to dinner.

So, all that to say, other than our super regular restaurants, there has not been much great to write about lately.

Friday night, we decided to go to a favorite spot in Dallas. Every time we have been there, the food is excellent. We had a great table on the patio by the main street. Lots of fun to watch the people go buy. The waiter was average, but the food . . . . terrible. If that had been my first time, I would never go back. I decided to order the special instead of sticking to my regular favorite. Pops had my favorite. The special was fried chicken with potato salad. (If I was on death row, that would be my last meal.)

Pops stroganoff tasted like it was burned and had been salvaged with some vinegar. On the friend chicken front, if you can't compare to Babe's, don't even try. The potato salad had truffle oil on it. There are very few things I don't like, but I have learned lately, to stay away from truffle oil. The first bite is good, but after the third, it is sickenly rich. The chicken was marginal at best.

We didn't even try dessert. We decided to cut our losses with the meal.

So last night, we were hoping for a better experience. We went to La Joya in Las Colinas. We usually go there about once a month. We know a couple of servers and recognize the staff. Not last night. It looked like a whole different crew. There were more staff than customers and the staff spent the majority of their evening drinking at the bar.

To start off with, the bartender came to our table to take our drink order. I said water. He said margarita, beer or wine? I said Dr. Pepper. He looked at Pops and said, margarita, beer or wine? Pops said Dr. Pepper. He then chastised us for not getting a margarita. He said, what is wrong with you?

After a long wait, we ordered an appetizer and our meal. They all came out at the same time. The waitress never came back. Finally after about 30 minutes she took Pops plate and I asked for a to-go container. She didn't come back for another 15 minutes. We ordered our favorite dessert. It came out with no ice cream or almonds (our favorite part). We had to flag her down and wait another 30 minutes for our check. In the mean time, she and the bartender were yelling at each other in Spanish all night in between customers (all 4 tables of them).

The check was then another joke. The computer was down and she had to come back and ask us what we had. She hand wrote a ticket and did not add correctly. She was huffing and puffing and yelling in Spanish the entire time.

So, if we could have gotten Friday's atmosphere and service mixed with Saturday's food, it would have been perfect.

This Week In Pictures

2009-08-28T10:30:00.005-05:00

We have had a great week. Leasha and Geoffrey got married on Saturday.

Landrie started Kindergarten.

Karsyn has been very busy working.

Celebration At Celebrity

2009-08-24T05:44:00.004-05:00

If you have read my blog for anytime at all, you will know that one of my favorite places to eat lunch is Celebrity Bakery in Colleyville. It has been one of my favorites since it opened over 5 years ago. I always go at least a couple of times a week, and usually more. My favorite item on the menu is the Cranberry Chicken Salad.

Celebrity recently had a contest to name local celebrities for their volunteer work in the community. My wonderful friend Kathy, who by the way is an awesome writer, sent in a letter and I won. I feel quite certain that it is her writing skills that sealed the deal.

On August 15th, I was honored at a party with 3 other local celebrities. They had a great party with lots of wonderful food. My great family and friends showed up for the celebration.

Now for the best part. Besides the party, I have won another party that will be a VIP Baking Experience. And, for the next year, the Cranberry Chicken Salad will be named after me.

If you have a chance, go to Celebrity and try it. You won’t be disappointed. And you also need to order some Vanilla Thumbprints for dessert.

New Blog In Town

2009-08-16T08:58:00.001-05:00

One of my greatest blessings in life is my family. We are so fortunate to have all of our family within a 15 minute drive, some even closer. I have a brother and a sister. My brother has two girls and my sister has 5 kids. They are all about the same age as my kids.

My kids have grown up with their cousins, just like they are brothers and sisters. Some of them were even roomates in college.

My niece Whitney has always been very crafty. She is now rubbing off on Ashley and Kyndra. Jennifer joins then quite often and they are always making fun stuff.

Ashley and Whitney have started their own blog, Shanty 2 Chic, where they have all of their great finds and how they turned them into gold. Check it out. Really cute. Way to go girls!

Eating Our Way Around Dallas/Ft. Worth and Beyond

Our Precious New Addition

She Said YES!!!

Long Time!

Easton Is Here!!!

Quick and Easy Mexican Rice

Strawberry Cream Cake

Quick Summer Meal - Supper

Quick Chicken for Supper

Can't Wait

Don't Look In My Closets!

The ALMOST Big Surprise

Lollypalooza Begins!

Birthdays Are The BEST

Big Announcement From Landrie and Karsyn!

Great Weekend - Great New Restaurant

New Restaurants?

Weekday Restaurants

More Questions

Beaufort and Beyond

Hey Ya'll - We Went to Savannah and Hilton Head

Werewolf or Deer?

Questions Continued

Questions Getting Deeper

More Questions

One More

Picture Post

As Promised!

Dear Blog

Crazy Night at the Land Down Under

Way Too Long!!!

Late Happy Birthday

No Anejo's Post

New Restaurant

Another Crockett Street Favorite

HOT Date!!!

Let's Have a Little Bit of Fun

Brownstone

I LOVE Crockett Street

Sweetie Pie's

New Restaurant - High Hopes

Hamburger Heaven

Piranha Killer Sushi

Maui - Last Day - Sad Day

Maui - Day #5

Maui - Day #4

More Wedding Pictures

Maui - Day #3 - The BIG Day

Maui - Day #2

Maui - Day #1

Just Maui'd

Lost In The Pines

Dinner at The Gas Station

#4 Is #1

Blogging World

Restaurant Smells

Show Us Your Ministry

Favorites

Fun Valentine's Weekend - Way Too Much Food

Unexpected Treat

I Love Second Chances

I Made It Without My Hubby

Lupe's Tex Mex

Don't Give Up On Dickey's Yet

Dickey's Has Let Me Down :(

Pappasito's - The Singer

Where Are The Reviews?

Christmas Tree Still Up?

Congratulations Whitney!

She Said YES!!!

State Championship - Go Trojans!

Christmas Day

Tacky Christmas Party

Weekend in San Antonio

Cookies With Karsyn

Lolly Meets The Pioneer Woman

New Baby in the Family

Food

TRUE Meaning of Thanksgiving

31 Years