Racquetball Tournament is over!!

Yay! My partner and I took 3rd in Men's 25-30 yr old Doubles. Can you believe they put us old ladies in with the young bucks?? I took 2nd in Women's Singles. I only got hit twice which is really good considering I played 11 games in 3 evenings. Some of the players were sporting pretty big welts. Ah well, it's the price we pay for having fun!! The house is finally decorated and my Christmas letter written. Now all I have to do is sign the cards and get them addressed, stamped, and in the mail....maybe Monday since laundry is calling me. Can't someone just invent a machine that zaps your clothes clean and then folds and puts them away? Oh yeah, that's me!!

Happy Anniversary Garn!

Yeah, it's been 39 years! Who said it wouldn't last, huh? (oh, yeah, that was me!!) Actually it was last night but I had a racquetball tournament and Garn had swimming so we're going to celebrate probably tomorrow since I have more r-ball games tonight and tomorrow morn for the tourney. I want to rent Mama Mia since I didn't get to see it on our trip to Park City last July because some of my girls weren't that interested. What?? Who doesn't like ABBA? All my girls grew up singing their songs. Marin and JR come in a week from today!! We're way excited!! Not much to say except I'm REALLY tired and my shoulder is REALLY sore!! I get a cortizone shot Mon. Hope it helps cuz nothing else has.

THANKS DECKERS!

For that great card you all sent Dad and me. It made my day! This picture reminds me of our time with you: Beautiful and Sunny and Happy!

More Texas pictures

Riding the horse at La Hacienda

Looking at.......Jon?

Not the hippo's better side

Friendly parakeets

Our Thanksgiving week in Texas

Sorry about the angle don't know how to straighten it. This is La Hacienda The hippos (In the background!)

Feeding the birds

Friday Nov. 21: We left for the airport in SLC at 3pm and our flight left at 5pm. We were supposed to have only a 1/2 hr to catch our connecting flight in Denver and after running from the beginning of a concourse to the end of it we were informed that our flight had been changed to another gate that we actually had run past! After backtracking we found out that our plane coming from New York had been damaged and we were delayed 3 hrs!! Instead of arriving in Dallas at 10 pm we arrived at 1am.

Sat. Nov. 22: After about 5 hrs sleep Mandy and her 3 kids and I shopped all day for Christmas and birthday gifts while Jon and Garn stained an outdoor wooden playset for the family. Ali napped during this time. That evening Sadie, Haylie Mandy and I went to see High School Musical III at the movie. It was a great production!

Sun. Church and rest

Mon. Mandy, Garn and I shopped at antique stores for an entry way table and vintage clothing stores for some fun finds. Sadie babysat the kids. That night we went to La Hacienda to eat and had a great time!

Tue. Downtown McKinney with old fashioned shoppes. I've really started liking old stores! We got lunch at Sonic (they have the best crushed ice) and ate at Celebration Park which is a huge park in a city nearby. The kids had a great time playing on all the playground apparatus.

Wed. We went to one of only two Treasury Dept. currency making plants. The other one is in Washinton DC. They only make paper money here. After an intensive security check we went on a tour. We saw pallets of $100 bills being stacked and each pallet was worth $64 million! Then on to the Fort Worth Zoo. It's pretty spectacular! They have a bird exhibit with 100's of parakeets and small birds in a huge wire dome that you can wander around in. Just outside the enclosure you can purchase a stick with sticky bird seed attached for $1 and then go back in and hold out the stick and the birds will land on it and feed right off your stick. We looked around for Carden and found him with a man who had given him his stick. We told Carden not to take things from others. The man said it was ok. We checked on the 3 girls since it was so crowded in there and when we turned around that same man was taking Carden out of the enclosure with him. I caught them and told Carden to come back with me but the man insisted that he was just buying more bird seed for him. They were right next to the exit!! I told him no thanks and we watched Carden extra close after that and the man kept watching us so we left. There was a bad feeling about there. The rest of the zoo was uneventful and fun but it sure gave us a scare.

Turkey Day! What a great meal Jon and Mandy fixed! They had a family over that has 2 girls: Cambria 15 yrs and Siri (named for her grmother Iris) 10 yrs, same age as Sadie. We had a great time playing games.

Fri Off to the airport at 12 and flew out at 3; layed over for an hour but stayed on the plane in Phoenix and home at 8pm. Thanks Mike for driving us to and from the airport!

Guess Garn didn't have the sound on!

TEXAS here we come!!

We're down to mere days now and I can't even concentrate on work. Bytheway, Mandy, so many people have told me to say hello to you that I can't remember.....let's see Cherie Woodland, The Clawsons, Sadie's advanced Espanol class (actually the hi is to Sadie), Debbie Hansen, Chuck and Darla, Cherie Hlavaty and others from our ward.
Other news: I've been going to the training room at TOSH (The Overly Sadistic Helpers) to have my shoulder and arm worked on and I feel like a truck ran over me and backed up to see what it hit! I may have overworked it at home doing the assigned exercises and that could be the reason for all the pain. All I did in August to injure it was move my recumbant bike from the back porch to my bedroom and then move my bed to accomodate the bike. I mean, I used to move stuff all the time and nothing tore. Just cuz I'm 60 now, my body is rebelling against these things! My right side is fine, it's just the left that's out of shape. I guess I should be grateful that racquetball has kept my right arm in shape. Anybody have any cheese to go along with my whine?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAREN