Redland Rendevous

My niece, Sydney had a volleyball tournament this weekend in Oklahoma City. My sister invited Mom and I to come spend the weekend with her and the girls. SOOO, Friday after work, off we went! We arrived in Bricktown that evening about the same time the Wichita girls did!

We turned in early since Sydney and Tina had to be over at the Cox Convention center at 8:00 a.m. Mom, Nicole and I stayed back at the hotel until 9. She had 4 games of 2 sets each on Saturday.




They finished up about 3:00 p.m. Nicole and I had already schemed a plan to go across to the Ford Center and try to get some tickets to the Thunder game, but they were sold out! :(
We headed back to the room to freshen up for dinner. We went into Bricktown and ate at The Spaghetti Warehouse...yummy! It was so good. After dinner, Mom went to the room and Tina, the girls and I went over to Pinketzel Cupcakes!







It was such a neat place! Of course, there was a sea of teenage girls due to the tournament! We sat in the cafe and ate our cupcake and had some hot cocoa. It was SO cold and the cocoa hit the spot!


Sunday, CCVA played at 8:00 a.m. They qualified for the Gold bracket, which were the best teams in the tourney! Unfortunately, they lost their first 2 games and ended up in 4th place. But, they were proud anyway! It was the 1st tourney of the season!

Mom and I headed home Sunday afternoon. We got home and had 5 inches of snow on the ground!! The best part, I got a snow day on Monday!! Woo Hoo!!

It was a super great weekend, spent with my favorite girls!!!!


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Fresh Beginnings...

I love a new start, a clean slate, a fresh beginning! The beginning of 2011 sparks a fire in me to clean and simplify, to start new things, tidy up if you will. Not only my home but my heart too. I don't like to express "resolutions" for the new year, I prefer "hopes." SO, my hopes for the New year are.....read my Bible through, simplify my home, clear clutter in my home and mostly my mind, save money, live simply, send birthday cards to my family and friends (on time!), be a better friend, but mostly I want to draw near to God and let him guide me.
I want to be a better blogger, I have many family members that I don't get to see very often and recently they have told me...."you haven't updated your blog, what have you been up to?" SO, I can't disappoint them!
My job recently announced a cutback on hours. Starting Feb 1 we will be working 4 days a week. It's a scary thought, even though it isn't as big of a cutback as some people have faced recently, but it's enough to shake me into reality and begin trying to think of ways to save my family money. SO, as the year begins, so does the budget! Wish me luck!
Happy New Year!

Happy Veteran's Day

Today was a very emotional day. Along with honoring our Veteran's today, we laid to rest my great-uncle. He served in the United States Army for almost 30 years, he fought in WW II and loved his country until his last breath. He was buried with full military honors and the service was beautiful! It was fitting for him to be buried on Veteran's Day. Thank you to ALL soldiers and veteran's today, I LOVE being an American!


Loyd Leon Sample
1919-2010


This photo is one of my very favorites! I took it this summer, this flag flys over the battlefield in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

The never-ending "to-do" list

Seems lately my "to-do" list gets longer and the "crossing off" almost never happens! The approaching holidays have my excitement level going up! I am having Thanksgiving AND Christmas at my house this year!!! I am so excited for that! My fall decorations MAY make it until Thanksgiving! I am so ready to decorate my tree! I will try to control myself and not make my family look at a Christmas tree or listen to Christmas carols while we dig into the turkey!
I have been very busy getting ready for a Christmas show I am doing in Dec. The Polka Dot Factory has been in overdrive trying to get orders out for Christmas! I am SOOO thankful that it has been blessed this year! I hope you come see us in Antlers on Dec 3 and 4 if you are local!
Yesterday, I headed to Sam's for some netting for my wreaths. I needed some other colors besides what HL had. Clints nephew and his wife went with us and we ended up running into two other couples we know inside! We got there about 30 minutes before it closed so I was running through the isles trying to gather what I needed! I know that employees were glaring at us because we were in a big group talking and laughing. I got what I needed and enjoyed the visit too! We then ran to Target and the boys stayed in the car! Ray and I headed straight to the baby dept, they are expecting a baby in the Spring so we looked at all the cute stuff Target has for little ones, and there were some cute stuff!!! We wanted to grab something to eat before we went to a movie so Cheddars was our choice! It was delicious. I have been watching my carbs so I had the veggie plate with tortilla soup(ok, it had a few carbs) with steamed broccoli, green beans, and carrots. Yummy! It felt good to not "over-stuff."
Today, I am catching up with my house! I have a list to get through today, I am currently working on a "home-keeping" notebook with weekly lists of things I want to do. I think that will help me get ready for the holidays and not be over-stressed.

Little trip to the South

Clint and I celebrated our 10th anniversary in September! We put together a little trip with my parents, who will be celebrating their 41st in November.
We decided we wanted to get in the truck and drive - East. We landed in Mississippi. We spent 2 days visiting Vicksburg and touring the battlefields, cruising down the Mississippi River and just relaxing. One day for lunch we stopped at this little hole in the wall place. It was literally 3 "shacks" in a row. One was the cookshack, one the ?storage? and one was where you ate and paid.
It was so whimsical and quirky. There were fresh produce bins lined on every table. It was a place you could look for hours and see something new all the time! I took some pictures, actually a lot of pics! Everything was so bright.







We drove down the Natchez Trace Parkway and spent the next 2 days in beautiful Natchez! We loved it. We ate, walked, ate, shopped, and ate! Fat Mamas Tamales while watching some SEC football on Saturday, that was fun! We toured several plantations while there. We toured Rosalie, Longwood and Stanton Hall. We had brunch Sunday at Stanton Hall, fried chicken, seafood gumbo, andouille dressing, itty bitty biscuits and jelly, creole cheesecake (to die for!) and sweet tea. Oh, it was SOOO good. We had a wonderful vacation. It was so nice to get away for a few days!

My newest obsession! (new post just for Sherri!)

I always love a new challenge! A few weeks ago I helped host a baby shower for a dear friend. We had decided we wanted those cute little decorated cookies for our guests to take home as favors. I piped up that I would make them! Have I ever made a decorated cookie, you ask? Well, no, but I am sure I can figure it out!!! So, I made a trip to Hobby Lobby, looked at a few blogs on-line and off I go! I invited my bestie over to help. She is my confidence booster! We made up the cookie dough and had to do a little taste test! It was wonderful!!!
As some of the cookies were baking, the icing got started. It posed more of a challenge in the fact that we had to quadruple the recipe and we decided it definately DID NOT have enough liquid in the recipe. So, a little of this and a little of that later, we had a perfect royal icing. LET THE DECORATING BEGIN.........

5 hours later, we had a finished project!!! They turned out so cute and they were delicious!!!

AND.... as for the title of this post, we are decorating Halloween cookies this Sunday afternoon! And I have basketball cookies to do, and Thanksgiving cookies to fix, and Christmas cookies to decorate....well, you get the picture!

Babe Ruth Southwest Regional baseball tournament

My summer has been filled with baseball, baseball, baseball. And, I wouldn't have it any other way! McKenna, my stepson, at one point, was playing on 3 different teams. We were practicing everyday for one team or another.
But, as of this weekend, we are officially down to 1 team!! YEAH!!
McK was a part of the Southeast Oklahoma All Star team that went to the Babe Ruth Southwest Regional Tourney. The tournament was this past weekend and we had a blast, didn't win it, but had a blast. We started with the opening ceremonies on Friday morning, then we played our 1st game Friday night. A lot of family came out to watch McK play. He was the only player from our town to be selected for the All-star team. My niece, Macey, came out to watch. She is leaving this weekend for college, where she will be playing softball. She gave McK a lucky bracelet that she wore in the State Softball tourney this year!
She is such a sweet girl! We are going to miss her. Unfortunately, we lost. Our second game was on Saturday at 2 p.m.
I don't know if any of you have caught the weather lately, but the entire state of Oklahoma was under a heat advisory! It was 105 degrees when we got to the field on Saturday. Hot was a mild word. Very mild. We lost this game too. SO, we are spectaturs we became! It was a very nice experience though. There were teams there from Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma. It was a wonderful put together tournament too, lots of extra stuff to do. Thursday night there was a dinner and banquet, kinda a meet and greet.