Picture Shows

Last night Lorena played at the Waco ISD Stadium, a first visit there for any of us. It is a really nice complex.

Jon had a really good game although he only played three quarters. He got his knee bunged up in the first half, he played a little bit of the third quarter (I think the offense was only on the field once, it that tells you how the game went). The trainer and the coaches decided to hold him out the rest of the game as a precaution.

I don't have his stats but do know that he had two touchdowns, gained lots of yards, had a touchdown called back and laid two awesome blocks that resulted in touchdowns.

On the Waco Tribune-Herald's website they have a slide show of pictures from various high school games, both fans and game action. On their fan site there is one of Megan and Parker (#57) and on the game action Jon's pics start about #155, he's #21.

Go to the following link, at the top of the page you'll see Photo/Video, click on that then go to Fans in the Stands (3A) for Megan and Parker and High School Action (3A) for Jon's pics. Click here for pics.

OH CANADA!

Wow, it is sooooooooooo beautiful up here, and cool (weather wise) too.

We left the Ferrell Center at 12:45 yesterday and despite a large amount of traffic heading north, didn’t make too bad of a time getting to DFW. As soon as we got in the terminal, a big thunderstorm blew through the area. Well, you know what that means, DELAYED FLIGHTS!!!

Ours was supposed to leave at 4:45 but they kept posting delays. We finally took off about 6:35. The four-hour flight passed pretty quickly and since I didn’t get to bed until 1:30 a.m. the night before, I slept for the major part of it.

The Vancouver airport is gorgeous. They are hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics and they probably have been working on it. There are several historical and Native American art areas that we passed through on our way to customs. May I just say, MY PASSPORT IS NO LONGER A VIRGIN. Although I was disappointed that they didn’t stamp it, I was really looking forward to that. Luckily, the lines for customs weren’t very long, I’ll bet we didn’t stand in line for more than 10 minutes. Maybe it would have been a longer wait if we had landed at our original time.

We got up this morning, had breakfast in the hotel, and then got of our bus to do a little sight seeing. We went to North Vancouver to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. It is this neat nature area that features seven suspension bridges and a rain forest. Everyone, even a couple that had to be talked into it, ventured across the main bridge. We all received a certificate that has an official stamp and states, “I made it across world-famous Capilano Suspension Bridge. Be it known to all people that the bearer of this certificate braved the heights of 230 feet and a 450 foot span across the raging (they sure weren’t raging today) waters of Capilano Canyon in North Vancouver British Columbia, Canada. In due respect for this act of daring bravado, the proprietors of the world’s greatest suspension footbridge hereby grant the bearer bragging rights for the period of two years from the date of issuance (but there’s no date on it!!)”

Our hotel, the Fairmont Waterfront, is right across the street from where all the cruise ships dock. When we came out of the hotel this morning there were two of them that had docked this morning. Boy, are they big.

That’s all for now, we’ve got a game tonight against Simon Fraser University. Not expecting too much since we have seven newcomers and have had only four days of practice.

Later.

BUZZZZZZ

Buzz goes the clippers. Yep, Jon did it, joined some of his football teammates in getting a buzz job.

This took everyone by surprise as Jon is one that likes his hair long and usually keeps it as long as the football coaches and school's dress code will allow.

On Thursday before a scrimmage some of the boys decided to join the ones that had already cut their hair short.

Practice began at the beginning of August and they've been working hard. They've had a couple of scrimmages, one which I got to see. The other was in McGregor.

This is his senior year and I hope he is able to stay injury free and have fun.

Another Factoid

One factoid that I forgot to include on my final blog about our Road Trip 2008.

You know when they say they have graves of racehorses at Churchill Downs? Well...they don't bury the whole horse, just the head, heart and hooves.

Don't know about you but I wish they hadn't told us that!!!

Back to Work

After three weeks of vacation, it's back to work for me tomorrow.

Two weeks of my time off were spent in a car on our 'road trip' and the other week was spent on Bennett Acres.

Bruce and I both had the past week off and spent it doing 'projects' around the house. When I stopped by Pilot of my way to the grocery store this morning one of the cashiers said, "Has Bear (that's what they call him there) been enjoying his vacation?" I replied, "I don't think Bear would categorize this past week as a vacation!"

We spent the mornings working in the fields. For those of you who haven't been to our house, we live on two acres and have a large field behind the house and one to the side. We mowed and cleared both fields, Bruce had to do most of the 'dirty' work because there's a lot of poison ivy/oak around and we have found that I'm highly allergic to it but it doesn't bother him.

One thing I did was add our house number to the front of the house, after living here for 15 years I figured it was about time that we had our address on something other than the side of the mailbox post!

The around noon we'd move on to projects inside the house.

I did go into the office a couple of times during the week for an hour or so and Bruce did the same at Pilot.

I go back to work on Monday facing two media guides and several other immediate projects. Bruce will return to work on Thursday.

Also this week, Erin, Ashton and Landry came down and spent the night. We all went out to dinner on Monday, besides the Bryce's, Ninny, Megan, Ricci, Parker, Heather, Jon, Chris and Brodie joined us at Texas Roadhouse.

Tuesday morning Brodie, my sister Sara, Bruce, Erin, Ashton and Landry all went to Waco's Cameron Park Zoo. It is a fairly small zoo, it took us two hours to see, but was perfect for Ashton. You are able to get much closer to the animals than you can at the larger zoos and it wasn't too crowded.

That's all for now...later.

Random Stuff From the Trip

Sightings:
- Black squirrels at Fort Meade, Md.
- A red fox on Fort Meade
- A Longhorn in every major city (guaranteed Becky that in Baltimore, Boston and NYC we would see someone wearing something from TU, it happened)

Don’t let the tree huggers tell you there’s a shortage of trees…In the East, you get away from the big cities and that’s all you can see.

Most people say that ‘Easterners’ are unfriendly…NOT…every time we asked a local a question (which was often, especially in NYC), there always gracious in helping us. Oops, one exception, the guy from the hotel in Princeton who picked us up from the train, needless to say, he wasn’t rewarded. He should have checked with his cohorts, they would have clued him in.

Seems like it took all day to drive across Massachusetts, I can imagine what people say about Texas.

Even is you have a GPS, it’s a good idea to have an atlas with you. Bossy was generally on target, only misguided us twice, once which resulted in us ‘visiting’ Maine twice and New Hampshire three times in the space of 30 minutes!

Duck Boats are a good way to see everything if your time is limited and you don’t want to walk miles.

New York City
- Crowded (of course we were there on a Friday night)
- It would help in navigation the subway system if we knew if we were wanting to go uptown, downtown, etc.
- Crowded restaurants (we ended up eating our meals at Penn Station, there’s Nathan’s hotdogs down there that we patronized twice)
- Forget Krispy Kreme, Duncan Donut shops were everywhere. There were more of them than Starbucks!!
- Who knew that one end of Manhattan Island is all trees.
- The statue of Liberty is awe inspiring, so majestic.

Baltimore
- Went to a visitor’s center at the waterfront and asked directions to Charm City Cakes. I already had directions but wanted a backup. The gentleman was gracious and said that he gets requests for directions there about four times a day. I reassured him that I knew that we wouldn’t be able to go in, etc. All the while one of the other volunteers was muttering “I don’t know why anyone would want to go by there, you can only see the outside of the building.” I was ready to tell her to stuff it but refrained.
- The waterfront area was a very nice area to visit, very clean and lots to do and see.

Boston
- Very clean city
- Dodging traffic to get a picture of Sara crossing the finish line of the Boston Marathon (good thing it was a Sunday)

Hampton Inn – Evolved into our home away from home.

Pilot Travel Centers – passed 41 of them on our trip.

I got Becky hooked on sun flower seeds, she can now pack a bunch in her right cheek instead on going at them one at a time.

Passed the following baseball stadiums: Washington Nationals, Philadelphia Phillies, Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park (Boston), Camden Yard (Baltimore).

Best way to see the big cities is to stay out in the ‘burbs’ and take a train in. Hotels are cheaper and you don’t have to worry about traffic and parking.

Home Sweet Home

We are finally home…got home on Friday afternoon. I think the last time I posted was when we spent the night in Jamestown, N.Y., my how time flies.

The last couple of days of the trip I didn’t have any internet access and have been lazy since I got home. That’s why some of you out there thought we were still in the Chicago area!!!

Tuesday morning we got up and as usual left around 8 a.m. We thought we would spend the night around South Bend, Ind., but we got there in early afternoon and decided to go on. At South Bend we turned north on Highway 33 and went into Michigan, checking off another state.

From there we headed to the Chicago area but it was fixin’ to be rush hour traffic so the decision was made to keep south of the city on I80. We angled up to I39 then stopped at Rockford, Ill., for the night.

Wednesday morning we got up, hopped in the car and drove to Wisconsin, which was about 10 miles north of Rockford. With that state ‘visited’ Mom and I have now been in 49 states.

Once crossing the Wisconsin border we turned around (how sick is that) and ‘headed for home’, mission accomplished!!

We traveled on to Raymore, Mo., (just south and east of Kansas City) by way of Des Moines and spent the night with Kim (Becky and Les’ daughter) and her husband Steve. They were very gracious hosts and it was awesome to get to know them better. We briefly met them when they came down to Stillwater in January for Dad’s memorial service.

We have always heard what great people they are and now that we’ve gotten to know them better we can definitely concur with that. We also got another treat while we were there, we got to meet one of their children, Mike, his wife Nani, and their adorable daughter, Alana (I hope I am close on the spellings!) Being around Alana made me miss my grandchildren even more.

From there we traveled to Stillwater, Okla., arriving early afternoon. Stopped by and visited with our Aunt Vera (her granddaughter Britton was there too), then went to the Pryor’s and visited with John, Bonita and Aunt Olive. It was Olive’s 88th birthday so that was special to see her. From there we stopped by the cemetery and visited Dad. Becky and Sara hadn’t been there since the headstone was placed.

We hit the road again that day and spent the night in Norman, Okla. It seemed weird to be in Norman and not be going to a basketball game. One ‘basketball’ tradition we did keep when visiting Norman, we ate dinner at my favorite Norman restaurant, Charleston’s.

Friday morning, the last day of the trip, we headed to Frisco, Texas, to drop in on Erin, Bobby and the girls. Everyone had a good time visiting and playing with Ashton and Landry. Then we headed to Waco, making sure we stopped at Braum’s in Hillsboro for one final treat.

We gladly arrived back in town around 3:30. I was glad to get home and I know mom was too. Poor Becky and Sara still weren’t home though. Becky arrived back in Reno on Monday and Sara hung around Waco to help mom with some painting. She’s going home on Thursday.

I will post one more blog about the trip, mainly just some random stuff. Check back in a few.