Giving Thanks

A few years ago I wrote about the 50th Thanksgiving that my in-laws had spent with another couple. This year marked the 53rd, held at my sister-in-law's house, 40 in attendance.

Here is number one nephew Bob carving one of two turkeys.



No, that is not a used car lot.



It was nice enough outside for my niece to play with the dog.



Minnesota people will appreciate this pic.



These are the original couples. The rest of the pics are just people having fun, chilling out, some watching football.









All in all, a very nice Thanksgiving, so good to see people we have known for so long, to share what they have experienced this past year. The food wasn't bad, either.

Endless Road Trips

I started a new job in March, as a court abstractor. This requires that I travel over the year to 18 counties in Oklahoma. Some I visit several times a year. My territory is pretty much the northwest quadrant of the state. Hubby goes with me on most of these trips, makes it more fun and we get some quality talk time in the car.

Many of these counties have courthouses that are in fairly small towns, so it's kind of amazing when you drive into a tiny town in Oklahoma, to the county seat, and see something like this.



This is in Sayre, Oklahoma. If you watch "The Grapes of Wrath" in the scene where the Okies are fleeing Oklahoma, there is a fleeting image of this courthouse in the background.

This is a statue in front of the courthouse.



And this is where we stayed, an original Route 66 motel. It was updated and quite clean, and had wireless internet. Right across the street from a Route 66 museum.



The same three night trip, we visited another county, Roger Mills (town of Cheyenne, population 778), that built a brand new courthouse in the eighties, during the oil boom. Very nice building with lots of paintings and sculptures, but they preserved some of the old.


What the sign says is that this is the records vault built in 1907-1908.

Protected the court records in the courthouse fire of 1916.

State Historical site of Oklahoma.

Next to that is this globe sort of thing made of horseshoes.



And last but not least, we have the veterans memorial.



Those are two of the courts and towns, I have lots of pics of the others coming up. Stay tuned.

Rumors of my Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

To those loyal readers who have kept checking back for another post while this blog has been neglected for two and a half months, thank you! I even missed my three year blogiversary last month. I could say that I was having a hard time topping the last post featuring my daughter. But the real reasons for the neglect are 1) I started a new job last March that requires travel almost every week (which I will elaborate on in a future post), and 2) I got on Facebook. Soon after signing on, I realized that I am at least ten times more likely to get a comment from anything that I post on FB than I am here. And since I am a blatant comment whore, well, you can see why FB has lured me away from the blog. I have missed it, though, so thanks for your gentle nudging back to it.

When we last checked, Jessica had turned 21. She asked me about a year ago if I would take her to Las Vegas for her 21st birthday and I was happy to oblige. We went over Labor Day weekend. To those of you who have followed this blog from the start, you may remember my first November 4th post was about my dad, and how I met him in Las Vegas on Labor Day weekend. This past Labor Day marked the 25th anniversary of that meeting. Sadly, this trip we had to visit him at the cemetary, but it turned out to be a very nice visit. We hadn't seen his headstone, it has a cowboy hat on it. We sat down in the grass and told Grandpa stories and we could almost feel him laughing with us.

Other than that, we did the usual Vegas stuff, played some slots, went to a fancy restaurant, looked at the shops in Caesars Palace and Bellagio, saw the water show, visited the grand canal at the Venicia.



That is a key lime pie martini with graham cracker crust on the rim of the glass. To die for!

We had to go to Hoover Dam.



Full circle, that's me and Dad 25 years ago at Hoover Dam.




We stayed at the Luxor, the pyramid shaped hotel/casino. Because of the interesting shape, the elevator goes up and sort of sideways. They don't even call it an elevator, it's an inclinator. The evening we boarded along with several very loud, inebriated young women, it was quite amusing watching them try to stay upright.

We took this picture of the Hard Rock Cafe for my son, the guitarist. Figured he would appreciate the huge axe. He pointed out that the G string was missing.



And, of course, we had to have a picture in front of the famous sign. All in all, a wonderful weekend with my daughter. I have to say I am honored that my 21 year old wants to spend a long weekend in Vegas with me!

21 Already?!

Twenty one years ago, this beautiful little person came into our lives.



Nurse: "Oh, whose little blonde baby girl is this?"
Randy: "MINE!"



First birthday at Chuck E. Cheese in Corpus Christi. She was the only little girl not screaming whenever Chuck E. or one of his friends came near.



This is on her second birthday. I didn't scan the photo of her in her pointy birthday hat stuffing cake into her mouth with her fist because it was Corpus Christi in August and the only thing she was wearing - besides the hat - was a diaper.



Her fifth birthday party at Ruttger's Resort in Bemidji, Minnesota, with her grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins.



Tenth birthday at her grandparents' new house in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. She and I spent the day at the Mall of America.



Fifteenth birthday at the bowling alley. A month later, she and her friend did their annual combined birthday party (Kate's birthday is in November). Kate's mom and I drove twelve kids to Greenleaf State Park where we rafted down a river. Then we checked into this cabin. Jan and I took the bed, the kids sacked out literally wall to wall in their bedrolls on the floor.




Last Saturday her friends threw her a party at the home of one friend's parents (who happen to have a backyard pool). They also rented a moonwalk.



Today we went to Stillwater to take her out to lunch at Chili's. She ordered a Jamaican Paradise, and boy, did her eyes light up when she got carded!



Happy Birthday Jess, we love you!

Back to the Wild

Last month we went back to the Boundary Waters. There were seven of us, six from last year plus a newbie. Our son and his bride weren't able to accompany us. It was the general consensus that we would not portage this year, no canoe carrying or schlepping of large, heavy packs. On that note, we set out from a different outfitter onto a very large lake.



We paddled out in search of a campsite. We came around a bend to see our first choice, which had a large, flat rock sloping down to a nice sandy beach. Unfortunately, there were several tents up and a naked guy standing on the rock, so we kept paddling. We didn't see any more naked guys, but every campsite we came to was already occupied, so we kept paddling. We'd been on the lake quite awhile by then and were getting a bit concerned about the availability of campsites. We were in an area where there had been some fires a few years back, and also a massive blowdown of trees during one storm that produced very strong straight line winds, so some of the campsites were uninhabitable. The thing was, the sky was starting to look ominous and the lake was getting choppy, and we had several confabs as to who was reading the map correctly.



We finally found a nice site just as the sky opened up and dumped its entire contents on our heads. Thank God for rain suits. We managed to get camp set up and the rain stopped long enough for us to get supper. Here are our resident engineers contemplating the design for putting up the food packs.



It rained a good portion of the night and then off and on all the next day, making it a day suitable for sitting in the tents and visiting and reading, or under the tarp, not so much for exploring or fishing. The following day, however, was beautiful.



Trevin cleaned his first fish, and he even had some fun with the fish head. Just kind of stuck his fingers into it and turned it into a little Billy Bass. This was Jessica's reaction.



The mosquitoes were out in full force this year, so I resorted to walking about with this on my head. I think I should send it to the What Not To Wear people and see if I can make them stroke out.



The next morning we paddled back out, took showers, stopped in Grand Marais for lunch, and headed back to The Cities. I collected scrapbooks from last year so I can add our new adventure and our new memories. All in all a fun trip. I think these two pictures sum it up nicely.

Going to the Chapel and We're Gonna Get Married . . .

Everyone has been asking for more wedding photos, so here they are!




With best man, cousin Bob.




Being escorted to my seat by my ever so handsome son.


How did I get such gorgeous children? And would you check out those hot pink shoes!


Is this a wedding party or the Minnesota mafia?


Pastor Paul loves weddings!


That is a Hudson like the one in the movie "Cars." Very cool.


The fab four.







Weddings do make for some of the best pictures ever.

Road Trip Part 3

Between work and car accidents, I haven't had time to post the last leg of the road trip to Atlanta. We started out from the hotel in Atlanta at something called a cyclorama, which was a 42' high, 360 degree painting of the battle of Atlanta. You are seated stadium style and rotated (slowly) while the narrator points out key pieces of the battle and the painting. From there, on to Graceland. Have to say it in pictures.



The infamous jungle room. Yeah, that's green shag carpeting ON THE CEILING!



This used to be a raquetball court.



From there we went to the Jack Daniels distillery in Tennessee and the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock. Then home and back to work. That's a tromp l'oeil wooden bench. You can sit on Hillary's lap.



Tomorrow, bright and early, we are off to return to the Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area. We have hubby and me, his parents, Jess and two of her friends. The kids didn't want to portage this year, so we are taking a long haul across a big lake and setting up camp. I have some home remedies for mosquitoes (that smell ever so nasty) that I'm hopeful will keep them at bay. I'll let you know . . .

Footnote: We went out for Chinese last night for my birthday and Trevin's fortune cookie said this: You will soon be crossing great waters on a fun vacation. Bodes well for the mosquito situation. Indeed.