Fun with Mary, Gracie and Zach

As previously mentioned, Mary, Gracie and Zach came for a visit this month and of course we had a great time!
We enjoyed playing with our Wii, watching the Olympics, playing with Play Dough and Disney movies with Gracie as well as watching Zach perfect his walking skills. His favorite toy became an empty milk jug of all things and he was fascinated by our garbage can - it has a lid! Thankfully we quickly discovered he was putting things in there; unfortunately we lost his sippy cup and probaby some kitchen magnets first. Thank you Papa - as they insist on calling Roy - for putting it up on a large box much to Zach's dismay!



















The weather cooperated somewhat and we were able to enjoy a day at the Zoo and a very fun evening at the Children's museum.














Good dog Rio again put up with more grandchildren crawling all over him; he drew the line at Gracie chasing him with the baby doll stroller though and retreated to hide upstairs.















We did our best to turn Gracie into a Texan.
I managed to sew the binding on Gracie's quilt so she could take it home with her.
We were glad to able to celebrate Gracie's 3rd birthday with her one day early. Ice cream, a cherry and a balloon = one happy little girl.




























Mary is a great cook and always trying new recipes; she made us this new cookie and man-o-man, it is wonderful! I decided I had to share it ya'll. (a Texan favorite term). Enjoy!

Mary and Paula Deen’s Monster Cookies
3 eggs
1 ¼ C brown sugar
1 C granulated sugar
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. vanilla
1 12 oz. Peanut Butter – crunchy or creamy
1 stick butter
½ C chocolate candies (M&M’s)
½ C chocolate chips
¼ C raisins (optional)
2 tsp. baking soda
4 ½ C quick cooking oatmeal

Preheat oven to 350*. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or non stick baking mats OR spray cookie sheets with non stick spray.

Combine and mix well:
Eggs and sugars

Add:
Salt, vanilla, peanut butter and butter
Mix well.

Stir in:
Baking soda, Chocolate chips, candy, raisins and oatmeal

Drop by Tbsp. onto cookie sheets.
Bake 8 – 10 minutes. DO NOT OVER BAKE!
Let stand 3 minutes on cookie sheets before transferring to cooling racks.

Some Winter thoughts.......

We talked to our oldest daughter, Becky, who lives in Northern Virginia last Saturday (Feb 6th, in the middle of the first storm); this is a picture out her front door she had just sent me.
So I've been thinking......
I like snow when:
- I can watch it fall from inside a warm living room with a fireplace crackling and a mug of hot chocolate in my hands.
- I tromped through fresh new snow in my warm Sorrel boots or snowshoes with Rio, ( who loves snow anytime! ) in the fields and woods behind our house in Wisconsin or walked Deny (our beloved old yellow Lab) up to the lake in New Hampshire. It's so quiet and beautiful.
- I can cross country ski in it. Thank you again Feltus and Ruth Ann for teaching me to CC ski in New Hampshire. I would like to do more of that sometime.
I do not like snow when:
- you have to shovel or use the snowblower to clear driveways and sidewalks.
- having to drive in it.
- having to walk on slippery icy sidewalks and parking lots.
- the cleared roads that freeze overnight and you worry about black ice.
- after several days and it's all dirty and slushy.
- the snowplow roars down your street and buries the bottom of your freshly cleared driveway with heavy wet snow that you have to shovel by hand because it clogs the snowblower.
Do we miss it? The beauty? Yes. The shoveling? heck NO!!
It has been unseasonably chilly here in Houston the last several weeks but last Saturday was a beautiful day here; sunny and down right warm. So after we talked to Becky we took Mary and the grandkids down to Galveston to the beach. Needless to say, we had a great time! Ok, so it wasn't exactly swimsuit weather - note the sweatshirts but the kids got their feet wet and Zach especially loved it. Of course Rio probably had the best time of anyone. Anytime there is water and a tennis ball, he is the happiest of Labs.
Quite a difference from the first picture. LOL! I know, I know; I'll be singing a different tune come July and August. But last Sat. we were glad to be living in the Southern part of the US.

January projects

How do you like our new look? Mary is here for a visit (more about that later) and has been helping me find all these fun free backgrounds.
January was quiet after the holidays and down right chilly outside so I thought - what a great time for another jigsaw puzzle - and we've had this one kicking around for awhile....... now I know why! This was the hardest puzzle we've ever done! 1000 pieces. Our 2nd granddaughter Gracie has a birthday in February so I needed to get busy on her big-girl bed quilt if I was going to be able to send it home with her after their visit. Found some great fabric on our San Antonio trip so in between the puzzle and teaching Young Women's, (the 12 year old girls in our Church's youth group) I managed to get this done. I think it turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself.













Will be making another quilt for Isaak next month; I feel bad; his will be a little tardy for his also February birthday. Hopefully it'll be worth the wait as I designed it myself to include a lot of his favorite things.

Remember the Alamo!

We recently took a weekend trip 3 hours southwest to San Antonio (with several interesting side trips planned by Roy) to show us and our visiting Aussie friends Dave & Adele more of Texas.
We made a brief stop in the small town of Gonzales, just east of San Antonio; where the first shots of the Texas Revolution or the Texan War for Independence, were fired. In 1831 the Mexican government had given the town a small (and I mean small!) cannon to defend themselves against Indian attacks. On 2 October 1835 they sent a contingent of soldiers to retrieve the cannon and they were met by some unhappy Texans who had made a flag that stated: Come and Take It. The Texans successfully resisted those Mexicans soldiers in what has come to be known as The Battle of Gonzales. (the war would end 6 months later with the Battle of San Jacinto just outside of Houston, more about that at a later date).
San Antonio is home to the beautiful River Walk which wanders through downtown and is lined with great little shops and restaurants. And, of course, The Alamo is the main attraction.
The Alamo is a former Catholic mission and fortress; it is sure a lot smaller in person than the idea you get from the movies. The famous battle took place after a thirteen day siege before dawn on March 6, 1835 and by the time the sun rose it was over. 200 men against the Mexican Army of nearly 6,000; their bravery astounds me. The Chapel is known as The Shrine of Texan Liberty and at the time of the battle, the knob at the top of the front mission wall that makes it so distinctive had not been added. In 1905 The Daughters of the Republic of Texas bought the Alamo from the State of Texas and continue to preserve and maintain it to this day without government assistance. There is no fee to tour the site. Wow! We history buffs had a great morning!
We then wandered north into the Texas Hill Country to visit the town of Fredericksburg, but on the way made another side trip into what is literally a loop off the highway to see the town of Luckenbach. Now you may be asking, as I did, what in the heck is in Luckenbach Texas? Well, if you are a fan of country music, you might know. Anybody who is anybody of older classic Country music has played there and continues to attract well known singers as well as locals who perform every weekend. Willie Nelson, Robert Earl Keen, Guy Clark or Lyle Lovett have been known to just drop in. Have I mentioned that Luckenbach consists of a General Store combination Bar, a dance hall and picnic grounds? No hard liquor is allowed in "town". Later that day we spent a fun afternoon wandering through the shops of Fredericksburg, which was settled by German settlers around 1850. Well, I window shopped, Roy happily settled himself at an outdoor cafe and listened to a local singer (Rodney Joe Smith). He later mildly regretted it, as I found a small quilt shop :) We ate dinner at the Auslander where I sampled my first taste of the food of my forebears: Jagerschmitzel - YUM!! (it's a breaded pork loin cutlet).
The next day on our way home we made our last detour of the trip - to the out-skirts of La Grange, county seat of Fayette County, just west of Austin Texas; former home of The Chicken Ranch. I'll let you check that out on Wikipedia. I'll be back there next month to attend the "Best Little Quilt Show in Texas". LOL!!! Ya gotta love Texas!

Granpa, Mee-Maw, Scout, Isaak and Ellie

Ok, not quite sure what happened, but we lost half of a picture in the last blog. Here is the whole thing. Grandparenting is so much fun (and sometimes exhausting). I've heard it said, it's the reward for not killing your kids! LOL!

Christmas 2009

We had a great time over the Christmas holidays; the best of both worlds. Alex came home safe and sound from BYU-Idaho, so we were able to spend a few quiet days with him upholding some family holiday traditions: a huge jigsaw puzzle and a movie on Christmas afternoon - we saw the new "Sherlock Holmes" and really enjoyed it. Roy bought his own Christmas present - said he's always wanted a some kudu horns. Ok! and I thought after 33 years I knew the man..... Santa brought me a clock that climes the hour and quarter horn - something I've wanted for years. :)

















Becky, Gerald, Scout, Isaak and Ellie flew in later Christmas night and the quiet was gone but we loved that too. We had a fun time showing them Houston. We went:
-looking for alligators and although the weather was chilly, we did manage to see two.
- to the Aquarium, which we discovered is more restaurant than aquarium.- Uncle Alex was a great sport to take Scout and Isaak to see the new Chipmunk movie that neither grandparents or parents wanted to see. They all loved it!
- shopped the after-Christmas sales for white shirts for Alex - his mission papers are almost done, hopefully next week!
- to the Houston Zoo, which is a cute little zoo.





We played and played with the grandkids
and Scout and Isaak especially loved throwing the ball in our big backyard for Rio. Ellie made friends with Rio; and the wonderful dog that he is, let her crawl all over him, pull hair and he just laid there and took it. Aren't Labs the best!?
We also discovered that Texas has very liberal fireworks laws so we enjoyed having our own little show on New Years Eve. Well, Alex had a great time setting them all off; Scout and Isaak weren't too sure......The weather cooperated; not too cold or wet. thumbs up for Houston at Christmas!
Then Grandpa, Mee-Maw and Uncle Alex got to keep Scout for an extra 3 days, which was the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae!
She helped me make her a fuzzy blanket with my my fleece scraps and we had fun shoe shopping one afternoon. We also went to the Houston Childrens Museum. We were so very proud of her being so brave to fly home all by herself on the airplane.

So we took a little drive........

I know I am a little behind, so am trying to start 2010 right and get caught up......
Ok, to be honest, we took a BIG drive. Houston to Milwaukee Wisconsin and back in 8 days; 3100 miles. Yes, YIKES! are we crazy? well...... maybe (hey, watch the wise cracks!) LOL. But don't they say that necessity is the mother of all invention? We had to go because we still had some stuff in a storage unit where we used to live just outside of Milwaukee; so with several prayers for good traveling weather, Roy, Rio and I pointed Moby, our white Ford truck north one early one Friday morning. Yes, we took the dumb dog, can you believe it? Roy really couldn't either but I couldn't bear to put him in a kennel for a week. Too much like his horrible time in Auz quarantine. He is better traveled than many people I know. Under duress, running low on gas and hungry, we had lunch in Hope, Arkansas; which if you don't know is the birthplace of a certain Mr. Bill Clinton: a man that I have absolutely zero respect for. Or his wife for that matter. "And that's all I'm going to say about that." (what movie is that from?) We spent the night in Cape Girardeau, Missouri - another birthplace of: "anyone, anyone"? (another movie quote. Do you feel like you're playing "Scene It" ?) Rush Limbaugh. We didn't see any statutes or anything; cute little town though southeast of St. Louis.
We arrived safe and sound in Franklin/Oak Creek WI and had a great reunion with many wonderful friends there. Oh, and we picked up Alex who had flown in from Rexburg/Salt Lake City to help us load and drive back. Great to see him! Many thanks to Gayle and Georgia for hosting us for wonderful dinners. Extra huge thanks to Troy and John for helping us load our ABF trailer. Where did all this stuff come from?
We then sprinted south through Illinois and Indiana and caught our only rain of the entire trip. We were so blessed with great traveling weather for late November considering the terrible blizzard that hit the Midwest 10 days later. We did make a brief stop for some sight seeing in Kentucky - it was too good for us history buffs to pass up.








The farm is actually called "Sinking Spring Farm" because the nearby spring was sunk in the ground. Must have been a wicked climb down to fetch water in the early days. Pretty nifty that it is still trickling away today.
The picture below is a memorial they built to Pres. Lincoln in 1911; there are as many steps as years of his life - 56. It houses a small log cabin that is very similar but not the original Lincoln home.This very large granite and marble building seems a little out of place but the Lincoln Farm Association wanted to do something to memorize this great man. Unfortunately we didn't have time to wander down the road to see his boyhood home - the farm on Knob Creek.
We had a nice, albeit quick visit and wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with my sister Marilyn, hubby John and visiting sister Judy in southern Tennessee. Thanks again!
Coming home through Mississippi just before we crossed that great river into Louisiana, we just had to make a brief stop at the Vicksburg National Military Park. Only had time to see the Visitor's Center - but it's is on our short list for get-back-and-see-it-soon!




Now you may be asking; did the Woodward's set out with a historical agenda? No, it just seemed to have worked out that way.
We arrived home in Houston safe and sound late, later that night, Friday. Didn't believe me when I told you one week, did ya? I seriously doubt we will ever do that kind of trip again. whewww! Man-o-man were we sick of driving!

Oh, the first movie mentioned is "Forest Gump" and the second one is "Ferris Bueller's Day off"; the line is Ben Stein's in Economics class.
With this trip Roy and I were able to add new states to our "states visited" list. Three for me and two for Roy, I think. We both now only need New Mexico and North Dakota to have visited all 50 states in this incredible beautiful nation of ours.