Congrats Critter!

Christopher, Heather's middle son, is just finishing up his junior year of high school. On Monday we went to the school's annual Academic Awards ceremony.

Chris didn't get just one certificate, he got THREE of them. He earned outstanding academic achievement in English III and geometry and was named the school's most valuable student athletic trainer.

Way to go Critter, keep up the good work.

He had a whole crowd there cheering for him: Grampy, Grammy, Ninny, Heather, Jon, Brodie, Megan and Parker.

Elvira

For those of you who don't know, the Bennett Clan names all of our cars, a practice started (as far as I know) by Bruce. Currently in our immediate family (me & Bruce) we have Titus (Bruce's 2004 F-250 Truck), Elvira (my 2004 Expedition), Mickey Mustang (a 65 Mustang that sits in our backyard), Lilly Lynx (inhabits our field), Molly Mustang (also in the field) and Ferdinand Ford (in California safely tucked away in a garage). We have also had (among others) Delbert Dodge, Ellie Explorer, Thor (F-350 truck), Freddie Falcon, Mildred Mustang, Sunny Sunbird, Oscar Oldsmobile and Virgil Vega.

Anyway, I deviate from my original thought so I'll get back on track. Elvira, which I bought brand new, just recorded her 100,000th mile on Friday. As you can see from the pictures I recorded the 99,999.9 milestone as well as the 100,000.

I know Brodie (grandson) thought I was crazy. As we were toodling around Waco on Friday I had to time the milestone so that we were on a street that I would be able to pull over and take a picture of the odometer. Luckily we were on Old Lorena Road and it worked like a charm.

One of Life's Best Jobs

One of life's best jobs is being a grandparent and I'm blessed nine times over!!!

Earlier this year Ashton, Erin and Bobby's six-year-old, came to spend a weekend with Grampy and me. The visit coincided with her winter break and home women's basketball games. Ashton called me last week and read her report to me and I was totally impressed. Specifically with how much detail she remembered. Erin typed the report out exactly as Ashton wrote it. I though you'd all get a kick out of it, it's precious. I have provided some translations in red in case you couldn't figure it out).

“My FavoriteTthing About My Winter Break”

{Typed as she wrote it}

My favorite part about winter break was going to a Baylor game! I got to help my gramo the hole game! We got ther around 3:15. Me and my Grammy had to get redea. We had to get the candy for the cochis (coaches). Coch Kim likes the Hony bitse (Bits). I like the Souer appel (sour apple). My most favorit part of the game was Rachol Allison scored her 1’000^th pointe! At a time out they gave Rachol a vaere spechol basketball that had her name on it. By now I think it was 25 to 14. Texas was getting beat. When you sit ware the peapol wrke you can not cheer. It has to be qite because so the peapol can wrke. My Antei Hether wrkes thar. She sits down the rowe. We sat by the end. Evrea ones in uwiol (awhile) a lady woud put a piece of paper that had the score. And the players. Now the score was 95-45. Baylor was 95 Texas was 45. I sat next to a man he called me budy (Buddy, he calls everyone that). When ever I hadide (handed) him the paper. He seid thank you budy and gave it to the man beaside him. The man next to him had a green and white T-shrt that had a yellow BU with outling on it. He was a guy whoe has a computer that shoes (shows) what is going on in case the Referea needs to see wut is hapning in case he or her maks the wrog (wrong) call. The Lady Bares were grate. I got to see the men four a bit. And then me and my granpa and grammy went to Texas Rode house. I love ther rolls with sinumin butter. I had a chees brger. I didn’t like it that much but it was good. I ate a lot of peanuts. The best part about eating peanuts is you get to throe them on the grownde. After we were finished we

Went home. I had a grate time at my gramparints houes.

Isn't that priceless, see what I mean about it being the best job in the world?

Another Ring

Woo-hoo, the Lady Bears won the Big 12 Championship by defeating Texas A&M in Oklahoma City on Sunday. Another ring for me!!!

What makes this one so special is that it was unexpected. So, with that being said, I decided that I was going to savor the moment. This time I actually climbed the ladder and cut down some of the net. I had always been too busy to do that before but decided that I was going to do it this time.

Found out last night that we're a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and will play in Lubbock on Sunday and if we win that game will play again on Tuesday. Both games should start around 8:30 (CDT). ESPN2 will carry the game but if you don't live in the Texas market, you will only get what they call whip-around coverage (they're carrying 4 games during that time slot).

If we win both those games, next up will be Raleigh, N.C., for the Sweet 16 game, that game would be on the 28th.

SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry it's been sooooooooo long since my last post:
1) I've been busy
2) I forgot my password to get into the blog

Today a light went on and I fiddled around until I got into the site to update!!

Basketball has been going well, we're currently ranked No. 8 but have been as high as No. 3. Two home losses dropped up down this week.

We're on TV on Saturday (Feb. 7) at 11 a.m. (Central) on Fox Sports Net, playing No. 18 Kansas State.

When we hosted Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago we had a special couple come to the game. President George W. Bush and Laura made the Lady Bears' game their first public outing since leaving office. I got to spend quite a bit of time with them on the visit and have posted a picture that was taken in the Lady Bear locker room.

That's all for now, more later as time permits.

Stuck in Portland

Oh, what a road trip this has become! We left Dallas on Friday and flew to Portland. Then took a bus to Eugene as we had a game on Saturday at U of Oregon. Won that game, 81-71.

They say that they only get one snowfall out here a year. Well, there's enough here now to take care of the next five years.

Since we had reservations to fly out of Portland at noon on Sunday (today) to fly into Oakland, we decided since the weather was bad and supposed to get badder we would bus to Portland after the game last night. What would normally take two hours took about 3 1/2 hours. The last 90 minutes was verrrrrrrrrry slow going, since the roads were total ice. Props to Richard our bus driver for getting us to our hotel in Portland around 3 a.m.

Since the weather is so bad, all the flights out of Portland were cancelled today. So here we sit. We had to cancel our game at Cal on Monday. We don't know if we'll even get out of here tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be home by Christmas. Let me just tell you, we won't be singing the song "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" any time soon.

There are various other dramas associated with this trip as well. When we arrived at the hotel in Eugene on Friday, one of our players got a call that her mother had been murdered. You can read a very well-done story about it on the Waco Tribune Herald's website: wacotrib.com.

The picture I posted is from the player's outing into the snow today. They were playing and having snowball fights and tackling each other. Then they saw a car that couldn't get into the hotel parking lot so they trekked to the top of the parking lot and pushed to get him going again.

Check one off the Bucket List

One of the things I have always wanted to do was go parasailing. I got the chance when we were in the Virgin Islands over Thanksgiving. So, I got to check on thing off my bucket list. But, through the process, did add another item to the list.

Lori and her daughter Emilie and Makenzie (Mulkey's daughter) and I all went parasailing on Saturday. Since you go in pairs, that is Makenzie up in the air with me. They said we were about 400 feet in the air. As they're reeling you back in they slow down so you can dip your feet in the water, that's the only time we got wet. Took off from the boat and landed on the boat.

Sorry it has taken me so long to get pictures up but I had to get them from Lori.

It was a totally awesome experience. Although one of the other parasailers on the boat said that it was fun but what we really need to do is the one behind the speedboat called the Screaming Eagle. Hence, another addition to the bucket list.

Enjoy.