Merry Christmas from Aransas Pass Texas

This is the first and according to Twila the last Christmas we will spend in Texas.  We plan on leaving Sunday Morning the 27th and drive the Jeep back to Oklahoma.  We will then have our Christmas with the kids in the Cushing area.  I think we couldn’t have picked a better time not to be in Oklahoma for Christmas since they had about 10 to 11 inches of snow Christmas eve but Twila says it just doesn’t seem like Christmas not being there.  We got down to 41F this morning so I’m sure most native Aransas Pass people are freezing to death.  It is chilly but all I have to do is check the weather in the Cushing and it seems a lot warmer.  Weather Bug said it got down to 21F in Cushing last night and is predicting 14F tonight.  Not my kind of weather!!!!!

We went to the Club house for the Christmas Dinner today.  The camp ground furnished the turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, and dressing and everyone else brought a dish or two.  Twila took a Waldorf Salad and baked rolls.  As usual it was a wonderful meal.  Of course I ate too much, it’s expected.

Twila and I have gotten into making microwave peanut brittle and microwave pecan pralines.  Both have turned out really good after we got the timing figured out.  You really have to move fast on the peanut brittle and the timing on the pralines is crucial so it will pour but not be to thin or too thick and be lumpy.  The really good part is you get to eat your mistakes!!!!

I think I have mentioned that Twila’s brothers and sisters are going to get together on Saturday the 2nd of January.  They are going to be fixing dishes that their mother made when they were growing up.  We will be leaving Oklahoma and headed back on Monday the 4th.

Twila and I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

Dirty Santa

It has rained and rained and rained.  They had a drought all summer long but it isn’t a problem anymore.  Remember the nice picture of our Christmas decorations I put in the last entry?  Well now we have a wet and dirty Santa and one of the rain deer just laid over and I hope it hasn’t drowned.

 

Also remember the nice picture we had of our screened tent?  The wind blew it down so I took the side legs out so it wouldn’t blow away.  I noticed the next day that one of the top panels had a tear in it and I thought it must have been where a pole had cut it but the next day it was huge and another panel was cut.  Long story, short, we came home the other day and caught a mother cat and her 3 half grown kittens playing in the torn up areas.  Needless to say we no longer have a tent.  We may get another one after we get back from Alaska next summer.

I have cut my Santa clause beard back to my normal length and thought you might want to see a comparison of the two.

 

Sorry that’s as good as it gets.

We went to the local Nursing Home today with a group from the campground and sang Christmas Songs.  They all seemed to like it except one lady that wanted to argue with everyone.  She did sing along with us on a couple of songs.  Tonight is pot luck at the recreation building but we have decided not to go.  We are planning on going to the “Big Fisherman” Restaurant tonight.

Getting chilly

I know our friends in Oklahoma will call us sissies but for us its getting a little chilly.  It is suppose to get down to 38F tonight and there is a lot of humidity in the air.  The high tomorrow is only going to be 55F.  We didn’t do a lot today, went to Wal-Mart and Walgreens and had a cheeseburger at Whataburger.  Wow, that’s a lot of W’s.  It was our first trip to Whataburger since we got here and we haven't even gone to Dairy Queen yet.

I have been reading a blog this evening on a trip a couple took to Alaska this summer and Twila is watching TV so nothing exciting is going on at this time, just the way we like it most of the time.  Tomorrow night is the “Dirty Santa” party at the recreation center here at the park.  It is always fun.  Everyone draws a number and that is the order that you get to choose a gift.  Everyone brings a gift for a person the same sex as they are.  I don’t think we have anyone down here that hasn’t decided which sex they really are.  Anyway, the fun part is anyone can just go over when it’s their turn and take someone else’s gift and then that person has to get a gift from someone else or unwrap another one off the table.  It can really get funny.

They have a contest down here every year for the best decorated yard.  Last year we, us and Mattie and Gary, got second place in the contest but we had to compete against the permanent residents.  This year they have broken it into two categories, residents and RV’s so maybe we will have a better chance, although we didn’t have as much decorations as last year.  We have a couple of deer that move their necks and heads and an inflated Santa.  Kind of Cute.

San Antonio

We went to San Antonio yesterday.  Mattie gets points for the motel rooms on the bus trips that she organizes and she used some of them to get us, Gary and Mattie and Twila and I, rooms at the Hampton Inn in downtown San Antonio.  The motel was within walking distance of the river walk.  We went to Macys and then got tickets to ride one of the river barges.  I got some pictures but it was dark I wasn’t real happy with the quality.

 

The first seven

As most of you know Twila and I had our seven year anniversary yesterday.  We had originally planned to go to a nice restaurant named Charlotte Plummers but Mattie had left over mashed potatoes and dressing and Betty made a green bean casserole, so we had another Thanksgiving Dinner.  Twila bought an 8 pound Honeysuckle White Turkey breast and she had the cranberry orange salad left from the Thanksgiving Dinner.  She also baked some hot rolls.  It was a really good supper.  The weather was great and we ate in the screened tent and talked till well after dark

We didn’t even leave the motor home today.  Well I didn’t anyway.  Twila went up to the office and picked up the mail.  We had a cold front move in today and at 9:40pm it is 53F with a light rain.  It’s suppose to rain all night and most of tomorrow.  If we don’t change our minds we are planning on going to the restaurant tomorrow night. 

New Trailer

I finally took a picture of Gary and Mattie’s new trailer.  As you can see, its a Montana and it’s really nice.  It has a 4 four door refrigerator, a ceiling fan in the living room and all the slides work off a remote control as do the jacks.  Cool.

I also got around to putting the screened tent up but you may notice the awning is down.  Even with the claws holding it down, I couldn’t sleep good for worrying about the wind tearing it up.  I guess I will put it out in the day and put it up at night.

Gary and Mattie bought a new trailer

Gary and Mattie House, our next door neighbors, bought a new trailer.  They bought it from Camper Clinic in Rockport, Texas.  They had to get everything out of the storage area of their old trailer and put it on the ground around their pad and then take it to Rockport and put everything from inside the old trailer into the new trailer.

Been there, done that, lots of work.  They had to be there by 8am and they got back just before dark.

Getting set up for the winter

Twila just loves to tell everyone that she knows we have an awning cause she saw it once.  I, like a lot of RVers, have a problem with putting the awning out.  I had to replace an awning on a 5th wheel trailer years ago because I left it out when I left.  A strong wind came up and bent the arm on one side.  Well I bought an item called a claw at the “Rally” in Albuquerque last spring and it is to help hold down the awning in the wind.  I got it out and actually put the awning up today.

 

Twila couldn’t believe it.  The orange straps are attached to the Claws which have 3 spikes about 12 inches long that are driven into the ground.

Playing catch up

Man!  How easy it is to get behind when your having fun and being lazy.  I will try to fill in the gaps as best my memory will let me.

9-14-09

Tonight was a night for playing games and as you can see most everyone was busy at it.

 

The boy is our grandson/great nephew Justin.  He is playing Skip Bo with the “Old People”.  He had never played the game before but with a little help from Margie (left side of picture below) he managed to win 3 out of 4 games.  Twila finally won one and said she was quitting while she was a winner.

9-15-09

This morning we all loaded up our RV’s and left for our homes or in our case, we left for Texas. But we didn’t quite get there, but that was planned, it just wasn’t my plan.  We dry camped overnight at the Winstar Casino in Oklahoma at the Texas border.  The camping was free except for what Twila gave the Casino, but I’m not suppose to talk about that.

They have done a lot of face lifting at the Casino since we were there last.  They are now calling it a “World Class Casino” and have put different fronts on the different sections of the casino.

This is probably a famous pagoda but I don’t know what it is called or where it is located.

We actually saw this tower in Florence, Italy when we took our trip to Italy in 2006.

Here’s a picture Gary House took of the tower when we were there.

The building below on the right is in Venice, Italy and I think it is the palace of the Dodgy.

Actual building taken in 2006-

Of course the building on the left (second picture up) is the Coliseum in Rome and yes we just happen to have an actual picture of it also.

 

Needless to say this was the best part of the casino for me.

9-16-09

Today we drove to Weatherford, Texas to stay with Dale and Lue Prior for a couple of nights.  We just parked the motor home in their driveway and stayed in their spare bedroom.  Guess I was too busy having fun cause I didn’t get any pictures but we sure had a good time.  We went to a Mexican Restaurant and I can’t remember the name but it was gooooood!!!! 

9-17-09

Today Dale, Twila and I met Dale’s long-time friend Max for breakfast.  We visited quite a while and heard lots of stories about Dale and Max’s younger days and some not so younger days.  They really have a good time and we enjoyed meeting him and hearing their stories.  In the afternoon, Lue and Twila went to Sam Moons and Dale and I went to Cabello’s.  Sam Moons was a new experience for Twila and she will be looking forward to finding another one in the future.  Cabello’s is like Bass Pro, only bigger.  There were lots of stuffed animals, not just the usual deer, elk, and moose but also African animals.  Then they took us to downtown Fort Worth which we had never seen or even heard about.  It is the area of town where the cattle were brought to the packing houses for processing.  Several of the packing houses have been turned into shops and there are several restaurants.  We ended up at Boo Rays which is a seafood restaurant.  Really Great.  They are talking about coming down to Aransas Pass this winter, January or February, we will be looking forward to their visit.

9-18-09

We left Weatherford this morning heading for Aransas Pass but with the intention of stopping somewhere along the way to stay overnight.  We ended up stopping at a roadside park for lunch about 3pm.  We started thinking about getting an RV park about 4:30pm but Twila said we might just drive in and stay at Wal-Mart overnight so we did.  We got to the Wal-Mart at Aransas Pass about 6 to 6:30pm.

9-19-09

We got up this morning, went into Wal-Mart to the Mc Donald’s for breakfast, then to the Murphy’s Station to fill up with Diesel, then pulled into Portobelo Village RV about 9:30am.  When we left last year I told Larry, the park manager, that I would pay an extra $200 if I had a slab on my site.  We had already heard from Gary and Mattie House that the slab had been installed.

As you can see by the date on the picture I didn’t take this picture until the 22nd but it does show the slab.  We were sure glad we had the slab by this time since we had a 10 to 11 inch rain and ended up with our usual lake where we normally park the car.

9-26-09

We went to our annual Thanksgiving Dinner today at noon.  The park furnished the turkey and rolls and everyone brought a dish or two.  Twila made a cranberry orange salad with pecans in it and cheese grits.

Sim-er-on Sams

That’s the name of our Good Sam chapter.  We have 10 rigs parked at the Chandler City Park.  It is an unusual park.  They have an open building with a cement floor that is around 240 feet long and maybe 40 feet wide.  The RV hook ups our on the outside of the building and the rigs are backed up to the building but not inside it.  We have 50 amp electric and water faucets.

They also have an enclosed building across the road, about 2 blocks away, that we use to play mexican Train and other games.  It has a kitchen and we use it for our meals when we eat together.  Tonight we had soup in which everyone brought something to put in it.  We had two electric roaster that we had all kinds of vegetables, stew meat, and hamburger with tomatoes and tomato juice.  It may not sound good the way I described it but it always turns out good.  Of course we had some cornbread and crackers and several different kinds of desserts.  We will have a pot luck dinner at noon tomorrow.  I took some pictures today when we were eating.

 

Starting South

We left out today heading to our Good Sam Chapter Campout at Chandler, Oklahoma.  I had to stop in Cushing to fill up with diesel and propane.  I couldn’t believe it when I got to Cushing and the price of diesel was $2.629.  I had checked the Flying J in Oklahoma City and it was $2.659.  Since I had to stop for diesel and propane we didn’t even hook the car to the motor home.  Twila just followed me to Chandler.  It was really good to see the club members that we hadn’t seen since our May campout at Pawnee, Oklahoma.  Jerry and Sharon Sloan came down in the evening and we meet at the “Boomerang” restaurant for supper.  Really good hamburgers.  After supper they came by the motor home and we played “Jokers” till about 10:30pm

Bill, Pat, and Bre

My brother Bill, his wife Pat, and their Grand daughter Bre came over this evening to see us.  They are planning on going to Branson over the Thanksgiving Holiday and we had some coupons for 1/2 price on a one day ticket to Silver dollar City.  Since it was a school night they couldn’t stay long but we did have a good time visiting.

Jerry and Sharon

Wow!! How good can it get?  Twila and I went to Tryon, Oklahoma to have supper with our good friends Jerry and Sharon Sloan.  Sharon and Twila both worked at the Payne County Bank for umpteen years and Sharon retired just shortly after Twila.  Jerry cooked some really good steaks on his grill and Sharon made baked potatoes and salad.  The salad was real good too, it had everything in it.  You know tomato, cucumber, onions, ect.  Just like we like it.  She also had rolls and a chocolate cake for dessert.

After the wonderful supper, she gave us a tour of their home.  They had added a second floor since we had been there.  It is really beautiful and they have a really nice ‘suite’ upstairs.  Sharon is a fantastic decorator and everything looked like a picture in a magazine.

I forgot to take my camera so I had to take this picture later.  That certainly gave it away that I am posting this a little late.  Anyway, after supper we played a game called Sequence.  This was a new game for Twila and I but it wasn’t too hard to learn.  Sharon and I were partners and Jerry and Twila were partners.  I don’t thing Jerry and Twila want to talk about who won. We played until 11:30 pm.  We made plans to meet them at Chandler, Oklahoma when we go to our Good Sam Chapter Campout Thursday night.  Yes that’s where the picture came from.

Angel and Justin

Well probably everyone reading my blog knows Twila and I have an unusual family tie in our marriage but I will explain it a little in this post.  Angel and Justin are Twila’s grandchildren so of course they are also mine, however Justin also happens to be a great nephew of mine since his daddy is my brothers youngest son and his mother is Twila’s oldest daughter.  Angel is Twila’s youngest daughter’s daughter.  They are almost the same age with Justin being 4 months older than Angel.

 

They both spent Saturday night with us and then went to church with us this morning. Needless to say they are a “hoot”.  Most of the time they really get along with each other, in fact, last night they giggled themselves to sleep but by the time Justin’s mother picked him up about 6:30pm they were at each others throats.  The picture above was taken just before we left for church this morning and that is the way I like to think about them. 

Jokers

Richard and Alice McEwen came over for supper tonight.  Alice is Twila’s youngest sister.  They live in Perry, Oklahoma.

No, the blog entry title isn’t named for them but …… well that’s another story.  It’s named after the board game that’s on the table.  I charcoaled some steaks and Twila made baked potatoes, a salad, hot rolls, and a wonderful cake.  It was a really good supper.  Then we played “Jokers” till after 11pm.  We played 3 games and the girls beat the boys 2 out of 3 games.  By that time “Max” was getting pretty tired.  Max is their dog, but I hope he can’t read cause he doesn’t know he’s a dog.  He’s a real cutie as you can see in the picture although his eyes aren’t really yellow.  I know how to remove red eye from a picture but I don’t have a clue how to get out yellow.

Birthday Party

We went to a Birthday Party for Sam Koble and Lawrence Carrier at Joseph’s Steak House in Drumright, Oklahoma tonight.  They are both elders in the church and I have known them for years.  Sam is 11 years older than me and I have known him since I was a child.  My first memory is when I was probably in the 8th grade and he was dating the preachers daughter at our church.  That would be Kay, formally Kay Smith.  She and my older brother Hap were the same age and her younger bother, David, and I were the same age.

I first met Lawrence when my oldest son, Thad was just a baby.  He was the song leader at the Ninth Avenue Christian Church in Stillwater, Oklahoma.  Guess what, he is now the song leader at our church in Cushing, Oklahoma.  He is now married to Delois since his first wife passed away.

Here’s Twila and I doing what we do best.

This is my brother Bill, his wife Pat, and his granddaughter/daughter Bre.  That is Bre behind the fork and I’m not sure what Bill is doing, maybe sneezing.

We really had a good turn out and everyone had a good time.

Not sick or not dead

Just being lazy.  We are now back at our pad between Yale and Cushing, Oklahoma.  Since my last posting we had a couple from Fort Worth, Texas come up to Branson.  We met them in the Castle Lakes Campground in Colorado this summer.  They are the ones that I talked about that were having the party that they invited us to when we were just walking by.  Their names are Dale and Lue Prior and their cute little dog Harley, yes he was named after the motorcycle.  They camped at Treasure Lake under our membership.  We did most of the usual things that you do at Branson, shop and eat.  We went to one of the Outlet Malls and took them to Branson’s Landing.

We had used our Jeep for some of the running around so Dale wanted to use theirs to drive around and look at the foliage.  He has a Jeep Wrangler.

You may have noticed it doesn’t have any running boards.  Twila sure did.

It’s hard to do the foliage justice with a picture but I tried with a few.

Thought I had better put in a picture of Harley.  He’s the little one.

We got in from Branson Tuesday the 20th and have just been resting up since then.  We are going over to Mike and Terri Prough’s house tomorrow since the grandkids will be out of school.

Day of fun

We took off this morning about 10:30 with Jack and Barbara Miller and Dewayne and Vicki Jackson.  We were headed for the Mountain Man Nut and Fruit Company but when we got there they were closed.  The sign said for inventory and licensing and that it was temporary but they didn’t have a date when they would be open again.  This is one of the best places in Branson to shop for coffee and candy so I hope it is temporary.

 

Since we couldn’t go there we headed for the Craft Mall which is next door.  The girls had a really good time.  I looked at all the wood carvings.  Found one booth that really caught my attention.  It had some really good deep relief carvings.

I think this one was $3500.  After the Craft Mall we went down the street about a block to the Amish Store.  Lots of good stuff there too.

By this time it was time to eat so we headed to the College of the Ozarks for lunch.  We were suppose to have a 40 minute wait which turned into close to an hour.  It was worth the wait.  The College of the Ozarks is a college where students can get an education by working at the college.  They raise flowers, milk cows, bake fruit cakes, and make jelly to mention a few.  They also work at the restaurant where we ate, cooking and serving.  They even have a water mill where they grind grains into flour, cornmeal, and other products like pancake mix.  the mill was built in 1972 but looks like it could have been built a hundred years earlier.

I took a picture of everyone (except me) at the back of the mill.

Here are some pictures of some of the flowers at the college.

 

We went by the Tractor Museum which mostly has John Deer’s with a few other brands.  They also had a Jeep that I have never seen before.  They didn’t have any information on it so I don’t know what year it was made or what it was used for.