Happenings

One thing I love about being right here by some of the kids is that I get to take part in their every day lives.  Beck attends Pre-K at a Lutheran Church (with a female pastor, I might add!) so I went with Sarah and Jack to watch his Christmas program.  So cute!

 Beck really got into doing sign language during "Silent Night."  Adorable!

 And belting out "We Wish You a Merry Christmas!"

 We made Christmas cookies

 Jack is always happy!

 Rich and I went to the reopened Dallas Farmer's Market a few weeks ago.  This stuff was not actually at the market, though, but at a little produce store down the street.  Pretty!

 Walking around downtown

 My girl and me

I guess it's official--I received my TX driver's license and my voter registration in the mail!  Going to the DMV was quite the experience. We were there for FOUR hours.  Yes, four hours.  I am just not used to the big city, I guess!  I had read all the regulations on line and discovered that we didn't have to take a written or a driving test if we had a valid, unexpired license from another state, and we brought lots of documentation of identity and residence.  Sweet!  So we finally get called and we go up to the desk and OMG it was such a hassle!  I brought my SS card and my passport for ID and the clerk said she didn't know if she could take them because my SS card has my given middle name on it and my passport has my maiden name for my middle name.  She said I needed to get it changed so they would match. I just flat out lied spontaneously and said, "Oh, I used my SS card to get my passport and they said it was fine."  She did ask another staff member, who luckily backed me up. Whew. Then I needed two documents to prove our residency. Unfortunately, I somehow managed to bring an unsigned copy of our apartment lease. What the heck.  So that was immediately no good.  Thankfully I am somewhat overzealous at times and I had brought extra documentation in case we needed it.  One of the rules was that if you have a car, you have to bring your registration but it can also be used to establish residency.  We hadn't received our tags, etc., yet, but I took the bill of sale which had our address on it and they accepted that.  Then I had brought our paperwork from healthcare.gov where we'd been accepted for insurance and it had our address on it. She kinda sneered at me and said, "I don't know if we can even take THIS."  I am so thankful for the other staff member (who was actually the one assisting Rich) who was more senior and kept overriding my clerk. She said that was fine. Then they realized I was in the system from when I lived in Texas before but my name had changed.  Good grief, then she wanted my marriage certificate. Did I have it with me?  I said no, it's been so long I didn't think my old license was even relevant any more.  Once again, the other clerk saved my skin and said it was fine. Then I had to sign some sort of affirmation that I was sponsoring Rich because it was only my name in the address line on the health care document, even though both our names were inside.

The whole time I was there, I kept wondering HOW IN THE WORLD people who don't speak good English or who are not well educated or have any other kind of issues could make it through this gauntlet!  Crazy! There were several individuals who were obviously from other countries there at the same time as us and I just felt sorry for them.  Hopefully they got through it all!

Of course, we are in Texas, where pretty much anyone can get a gun and I wonder why getting a driver's license is so much harder!  LOL

PS I was sad to "surrender" my Alaska license!

Soccer Tournament

Elle's a great little soccer player and played in a 3 on 3 tournament a few weekends ago.  Her team won all four of their games and won their division!

She's getting so tall and grown up!

Motocross in Graham

 

We took another road trip to Graham, TX, about 3 hours away, to watch Aidan ride in an indoor motocross event.  He is used to riding outdoors and only rides on an indoor track very rarely. Despite having little experience indoors and riding on an unfamiliar track, he got two 3rd places and two 5th places in his races. Good job, Aidan!

Although I don't know much about motocross and it used to scare me to death, he loves it and seems to know what he's doing!  His dad Corey and Corey's dad Tommy are big supporters and give Aidan lots of tips and advice.  It's cool that they have something that they all like to do together.

 At the starting gate

 The cheering section:Tommy, Corey, Susan and Rich with Aidan

 Gigi and her cute girl, Ally

Rich and I had a late night drive back to Dallas but spent the time talking about all kinds of stuff, including some of our funny and not so funny family memories.  :)  I was on the lookout for deer on the road--always a little scary. We made it just fine and tumbled right into bed.  So glad we are close enough that we can take a little trip like this to support one of the grandkids!

Day Trip to Duncan, OK

We met our friends from California, Linda and Martin,  on the cruise we took to Australia several years ago and we've stayed in touch ever since. They came to see us once in San Francisco and we had a lot of fun hanging out there.  Linda messaged me and asked if we were going to be in Amarillo on a certain date,  as they were traveling through.  We weren't going to be able to go to Amarillo but as we chatted back and forth, I realized that they would actually be closer to us when they got to Oklahoma, where they were visiting Martin's daughter and fiancé.  We decided to take a quick little road trip to Duncan and meet them for the day.

We had a nice lunch at a barbecue place where Martin's daughter and her fiancé both work, and caught up on news.

There's not a lot to do in Duncan!  We wandered the main street and learned lots of trivia about the town from these tiles in the sidewalk.  Did you know "Ronnie" Howard was born there?  :)

We stepped into this used bookstore and browsed for awhile. It was quite a mess with shelves stacked high with books crammed together!  We talked with the owner for a few minutes, who told us that a friend had owned it for many years but had died and the store had sat empty for about three years.  He was living in CA but decided to come home and do something he felt good about.  I asked him if he could make a living at it and he said "I eat."  I would think it would be tough in a small town, and we were definitely the only people there.  We bought some books to support an independent seller and wished him well.

 The "oldest escalator in Oklahoma" is in an antique shop downtown.  But it doesn't work.  :)

 Martin found the Village People.

The "world's largest pig show" was going on so we went to check it out.  Apparently all of these pigs were for sale and we couldn't get too close because the farmers thought we were interested in buying. One guy told me, "Your pig is right here!   You just have to point it out to me!"   Linda and I felt bad for the pigs and wanted to let them loose.  I said I wondered how quickly someone would pull out a gun and start shooting at us if we did!

I guess it's an expensive hobby/profession!

After the pig show, we said our goodbyes and began the drive back to Dallas. It's only about three hours and we talked and played music along the way so it wasn't bad.  Well, not till we got to  Dallas, and the traffic was really backed up. We decided to get off the highway at not our usual exit and later wished we hadn't!  Oh, I never mentioned that one of our first purchases when we moved to Dallas was to get both of us new smart phones.  I have to say we love the GPS and it's helping us learn our way around Dallas as well as making travel easier!

It was great to see Linda and Martin again--they are both really nice people and we always have a lot to talk about.  I hope we we get to see them again soon!

To San Antonio! And Mom goes home.

We had planned to take Mom and go to San Antonio to visit my sister and her family.  We were having lots of rain and winds again, and were unsure till the last minute if we were going to make the trip.  We decided to go for it with the caveat that if it seemed too bad, we'd turn around and come home.  It seemed to take forever to get out of the metroplex and I was willing to give it up when it looked like this but Rich persevered and we were fine.

We stopped in West and got some of their world famous kolaches for a snack.  Yum!

 Out for Mexican food the first night with my sis and brother in law, some of their kids and grandkids.   It was great seeing everyone and meeting some of the grandkids I hadn't met before!

The rest of the photos I took on my phone and made collages with on Instagram so here's a hodgepodge! Above Top L: my brother in law Alan, his son in law Greg and grandson Aden, Top R: My sister Kathi and her daughter Rachel (married to Greg, mom to Aden), Bottom L: Rachel and Greg's sons Khalil and Abram, middle: Greg, Rich and Mom, Bottom R: My niece Alana, her husband Paul, and Rachel's daughter Rena

Kathi and Khalil, my nephew Eli with HIS nephews Oren, Asher and Alden, Mom with Aden, Khalil, Abram and Asher,  Rachel and Khalil

A crowd on the stairs,  Rachel and Abram, Alden, Alana and Khalil, Mom, Vicki and Alden

The weather was miserable while we were there so we really didn't get out again after the first night. We spent a lot of time at the dining room table talking, laughing and telling stories.  We also played a hilarious game of "heads up."

Clockwise: My niece Jordan, Mom, Kathi and me; Alan and Eli; Rich and my nephew Ryan, Rena, Abram, Ryan and  his wife Vicki

Then it was time for Mom to head back home to New Jersey. She really enjoyed staying with Sarah and Miles and getting to know their kids a little better. We had lots of fun chatting and laughing and playing games with the kids.

 Our cute little Jack!

Christmas tree is up!  Sarah, Mom and me

We're really glad she came down to spend some time with us.  Hopefully we will get to go to New Jersey in the near future!  Love you, Mom!

Our ship came in!

"Fun" day unloading five giant totes full of boxes! Whew!

We ended up renting a storage unit at the apartment complex.  Too much "stuff!"  Then we get to move it again in July!  We got all of the last minute boxes we mailed from Unalaska, too.  Unfortunately, we wasted quite a bit of money on shipping those since many of the breakable items were ... yes... broken.  I don't know why we didn't just sell it all and start over. Lesson learned!

Thanksgiving

We are thankful for so much!

Miles' parents were very gracious to invite Rich, me and Mom to join their family for Thanksgiving this year.  They have a beautiful new home out in Cleburne, about an hour and a half away.  A lovely time was had by all.