Special Events: Our Horses • House Addition • Mustangs 2008/09 • Mustangs 2007/08 • Mustangs 2006/07 • Summer Vacation 2011 • Family Traditions

1st Stanley Cup game in San Jose - and its a must win. Sharks are in a hole and need to sweep to have a shot at getting the series. New players stepped up this game and the Sharks were able to capture their first win 3-2 in overtime. Watching these games puts me on pins and needles, I'm hopeful they can pull off a sweep at home and tie this thing up - keep the faith and shut down Crosby! Note the light show in the area - everyone has a lighted wrist band which is controlled wirelessly so they can do different light things in the stadium - neat idea, haven't see that anywhere else before in the NHL...

Tonight we put the chicks in the closet hutch for the first time - this will be their new home for the next few weeks while they grow and get ready to integrate in with the older/larger chickens. They seem to get the idea of the ramp pretty quickly and can get up and down from the two levels. They are always fun to watch and see them grow.

Very tight game tonight - low scoring, hard hitting game. Sharks held their own against them and tied 1-1 the game went into overtime. But it only took 2-3 mins and the Penguins got one past Jones to win the game and take a 2-0 lead in the series. Not a great position to be in, but the Sharks are heading home and hopefully they can sweep at home and make this a series. I know history is not in their favor, but this is a resilient bunch - they can do it. Go Sharks!

And so it begins - the Sharks are playing in their first Stanley Cup. The series started tonight in Pittsburgh and it was a good game. Right from the start its pretty obvious that the Penguins are a fast team - the Sharks defense had some issues with them getting into the zone quickly and needing to scramble to defend against them. But somehow the Sharks got out to a 2-0 lead. The couldn't hold it and the Penguins were grinding it out, taking advantage of the speed factor and came away with the 3-2 victory.

I can't believe it - Bit strips is going bye bye! I had so much fun with some of these drawings, I'm sorry to see this go - I know they will still have the Bit Emojis but the Bit Strips was too much fun - #SaveBitStrips... Here's the collection of the Bit strips I made while the app was available...

Today we went to Fair Park to see Ragtime at the DSM. It was a really good show. I wandered around in the lobby and took pictures of some of the displays they have around the the building to celebrate past plays and memorabilia. The roving accordion player was a nice touch for the show as well. It was an enjoyable afternoon for sure.

So I put our latest batch of chicks out in the yard for the day to get some air and grass. This is going to be a good looking bunch of chickens - they are so cute when they are this age. Getting some exprience with grass and scratching in the yard is a good thing - won' be too long and we'll be able to add them to the rest of the flock.

Katie graduated from Van HS tonight - the ceremony was held in Tyler, TX to fit everyone in. Very proud of her to finish off school! As well, Autumn was there with the new twins (Xander and Tex) so we got to see them for the first time. So cute. Congratulations Katie and good wishes for your next en devour whatever that may be!

They did it! The Sharks are going to the Stanley Cup for the first time. ON home ice, they dominated the Blues and controlled the game winning 5-2. This is so exciting to see them finally break through and make it to the cup - wish I was in San Jose to celebrate, but I'll take the long distance fandom and enjoy the moment. This team is on a roll, hoping they can carry the momentum into the series against the dreaded Penguins and Sidney Crosby - its going to be a tough series but I'm looking forward to it - Go Sharks! Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!

Things continue to grow and bloom so the yard is filling up with color. Garden is doing good with lots of blooms on the squash, the lettuce and cauliflower is almost finished (I think) and the summer vegetables will take over. We've got bees and humming birds flying around, makes it enjoyable to spend the evening on the porch.

Back in St Louis, Sharks are on fire and gave the Blues payback for Game 4 winning 6-3 and taking control of the series. Great performance by the Sharks showing a lot of grit to control the game and shut the Blues down. Pavalski was huge in this game, and Martin Jones bounced back to keep things under control. Now the Sharks just need to come home and take care of business - then we're off to the Stanley Cup! Go Sharks!.

The Sharks and Blues played a tough game tonight with the Blues prevailing 6-3 to tie the series back up. The Blues changed goalies which seemed to give them some extra spark tonight. Martin Jones got pulled after giving up several goals - he's been on a roll so the let down was surprising. Now things shift back to St Louis so we'll need to buckle down and steal one on their home ice.

On Saturday we had the local Texas based reception for Kelly and Rick for all the family who couldn't travel to Las Vegas for the ceremony. Everyone came over for some pulled pork tacos and BBQ. We had a special cake made for the event and Melody ordered some special trinkets as reception give aways ( personalized dice and poker chips). Kelly and Rick opened their gifts and we all got to spend some quality time together celebrating. Can't beat that. Congrats Rick and Kelly!

Game 3 was another domination by the Sharks - they controlled the game throughout and now have the Blues on their heels with a 2-1 advantage. I like what I am seeing from the Sharks, they look hungry and seem to be quicker than the Blues. Martin Jones continues to play well, which really gives the Sharks an advantage. Let's see how the rest of the series goes. http://www.espn.com/nhl/recap?gameId=400876759

So we got our first cauliflower out of the garden this week, never grown this before so it was pretty neat to see how it grows in the plant. Melody harvested some of it and prepared it for freezing so we can cook it up later on in the year. She threw some of the broccoli in with is so this should be good later in the summer!

Haley and Charlie are naturals with the new chicks - they love to hold and pet them. One of these days I'll teach them to be chicken ranchers - maybe :-)

Game 2 was all Sharks, they dominated play throughout the game and really took it to the Blues. Martin Jones had a great game getting the shutout. Bret Burns was a beast in this game scoring two goals. So the series is tied 1-1 heading back to San Jose. This is going to be a good series, and the Sharks are in a good position heading to home ice. http://www.espn.com/nhl/recap?gameId=400876758

Autumn went into the hospital today and delivered twin boys via cesarian. Meet Tex and Xander Kelly. They weighed in at ## lbs. ## oz. and ## lbs. and ## oz. Although a little small (Autumn is small so not a surprise). They ended up staying at the hosptal for several days before going home, I believe because of their size. Our first sighting of the boys was at Katie's graduation - they are so tiny! The entire family is very excited (especially Katie) as you can see. Congratulations Autumn - good job!

NHL Conference Finals finally start and the Sharks meet up with the Blues. The Blues took out the Dallas Stars which was a tough series but the Sharks had to go 7 games against the Predators so we'll wee which team is fresher. First 2 games are in St Louis so it will be interesting to see if the Sharks can steal one of the games and gain home ice advantage. In this game, the sharks didn't get off to such a good start - the Blues seemed to have the speed and were attacking constantly. The game stayed tight throughout and was 2-1 going into the third. The sharks tried to keep the pressure on in the 3rd and get the equalizer but St Louis' defense wouldn't let them through. St Louis takes game 1 - 2-1. http://www.espn.com/nhl/recap?gameId=400876757

Se a few weeks back when we returned from Las Vegas, I took some eggs that hadn't been collected in a few days before we returned and put them in my incubator, just to see if I could hatch some chicks. Here we are 3 weeks later, and we are seeing some eggs hatching! Very cool. I watched overnight as we ended up getting 6 out of the 13 eggs I put in the incubator. A day later, I moved them from the incubator to the brooding pen we built from a storage box. We have several different colors as you can see, and they are a cross breed between a Americana and Barred Rock or Rhode Island Reds which make for an interesting mix. The rooster that produced these was our blond rooster. We got one chick that's entirely black which I thought was somewhat unique. Charlie calls it Ninja, but I call it Eddie Murphy. The kids came over and checked the chicks all out and held them, and we've been monitoring them closely. I put all the first few week of the chicks in this album so you can see how they grow. Unclear at the moment if we're going to keep these or not, time will tell...

Saturday morning Ken and Hadie called and said they were heading towards Broken Bow, OK to scout out camping sites for the upcoming June outing we've planned with the grandkids. We met them up past Emory and car-pooled up to Beaver's Bend State Park. We checked out the camp ground and chose the targeted site we want to get when we come back up in June. You can't reserve these sites so you just have to take your chances on availability. We drove around the park to get an idea/refresher of what's there to do (Its been a few years since we were up here). We also stopped in at the diner right outside the camping area to have a late lunch/dinner which was nice. I think we'll end up having t a good camping outing up here, it should be fun, looking forward to June!

So we broke in the smoker this week with a pork brisket - it took about 7-9 hours I think (Rodie montitored it) to get the meat fully cooked and ready. He used some mequite wood and charcoal to stoke the fire and keep it going. This slab of meat is targeted for Rick and Kelly's reception at home later this month - we're planning on having pulled pork soft tacos and fixings - should be good!

The ACPA (Athens Christian Preparatory Academy) awards are the end of the school year awards/acknowledgments for the arts at Haley's school. They had different art projects on display, the different musical groups performed, and they handed out awards/participation certificates for all the kids who were in the art classes this year. Haley participated in culinary arts and learned about cooking. I'm hoping she'll do a couple of the other classes next year in either horticulture or straight art. I thought some of the art project they had on display were pretty cool. After the awards presentations, they had light finger food reception in the dining hall and a tasting contest where all the culinary arts kids had to come up with their own signature drink. Haley's drink concoction won! As recognition for this, her drink blend (of juices) was featured at a local soda fountain in Athens for a month! Way to go Haley! We'll have to go try it at Gibson's Pharmacy in Athens next month!

Ok - game 7 is here - winner take all in San Jose. I've got goose bumps - do the sharks take a dive and get booted from the 2nd round again like in the past or will they bury their demons and move onto the conference championship? So - from the start - the Sharks had this one in control. They looked fresher and hungrier that the Predators. I'm thinking after 2 7 game series, Nashville just ran out of gas. 2 goals in the first period, 1 in the second, and 2 empty net goals in the 3 sealed the game for the Sharks. The seem to be hitting on all cylinders at the moment which is great given their next opponent (the Blues) just finished off a tough Dallas team this is going to be a good Western Conference final - sorry that we won't get to see any games in Dallas though. Go Sharks!

So last weekend while at Lowes we looked at smokers. Melody has been thinking about this for a while so we took a good look. I was not impressed with the electric models, so we looked at the stand versions and found one that looked good. Built out of Oklahoma, its a Oklahoma Joe. Sturdy metal, and a good fire box with plenty of grill space to hold a couple good pieces of meat. I think this is going to work for us well - we don't smoke much meat but everyone seems to like it and we have some outdoor events coming up so maybe we'll fit smoking more into our summer BBQ routine going forward...

Back in Nashville, its do or die for the Predators as the Sharks try and close this one out up 3-2 games in the series. The Sharks came out quick scored 2 goals in the first 15 mins. But Nashville clawed their way back and showed they won't go down without a fight and took control of the game in the second. Sharks tied it in the 3rd and it went to Overtime with Nashville scoring to even the series and send it back to San Jose for a final winner take all game. This has been a really good series - no road team has beat the other team on their ice - so Game 7 it is...

On Sunday we and all the other kids met over at Marty's to celebrate Mother's Day since there's so many mother's in the family now. We had presents for the Mothers, and some cup cakes which got out of control of course and ended up on Haley's face, and then somehow on mine. We all went in on a nice stone necklace for Mom which I think she enjoyed. What would we do without our Mother's anyway? Happy Mother's Day to all!

Tonight the Sharks are back home for Game 5 - this is usually the pivotal game in a series since its a best out of 3 situation now. The Sharks took control of this one fairly quickly and cruised to a 5-1 victory. Things got a little chippy at the end and the Preds pulled their goalie early. Martin Jones is really having a good series and is turning into a solid playoff goalie. Defense is not always working as hard in front of him but he's saved their bacon many times so far. He was a great investment last off season. Back to Nashville to try and close this thing out.

Charlie completed another season of soccer with the Canton Hawks so its time for the trophy celebration. I like the fact that the league takes an afternoon and sets up a party for all the kinds to meet and celebrate. The set up in one of the arbors at 1st Monday, bring in bounce houses, food vendors, and have some games for the kids to have fun. Then they give away all the trophies and say goodbye until the next season. We had a bull dog in front of us this day which was pretty cool. Charlie's team did pretty well this season - these kids have been playing together for the last 3 soccer sessions so they are getting more experienced and beginning to play like a team, not just kids running all around chasing a ball. Good to see. Congratulations Charlie on another successful season!

Karen has been planning on locating a bunch of old pictures of Lee for his upcoming 60th birthday. So she started going through old photo albums and pulled out some oldies but goodies from days gone by. Some this images were over 25 years ago - its amazing how much can change in 25-30 years. Most of these pictures were from before I moved to San Jose and met Melody. I had hair at one time! And there's a picture from New Jersey where its me and the Twin Towers (obviously pre-9/11 - kinda moving). We were back there for Lee and Karen's wedding going to visit the Statue of Liberty. Some of the picts are from Lee and Karen's puppies, Christmas at their house, camping, etc. Brings back a lot of memories. Thank you Karen for digging this up - will do the same for you with my old pictures soon.

On my drive home from work, Melody texted me about eating dinner in town. I said sure, and we chose to go to the new Jalapeño Tree that opened in Canton. I'd never been to this one so we needed to check it out. I like all the neon out front anyway so this was a chance to see it at night. Food was ok (how can you go wrong with Mexican food) and the restaurant is ok on the inside, quite different that it used to be when it was Papadales. So, now we have about the 10th Mexican restaurant in town... As you can see from the pictures, the neon out front is pretty cool...

On Friday, we had an off site at work to go see a movie (Captain America). it was a pretty good movie. Afterwards, some of our team went over to the local World of Beer to hang out for part of the afternoon. This has become somewhat of a tradition and we're picking up more attendees each time we do it. The have a nice patio, the drinks are good and the bar food isn't too bad so - all in all its a good tradition starting with this group.

Game 4 was very close and hard fought. The game went into overtime and it looked like the Sharks were going to steal one but on a goal review, the refs reversed the call against the sharks. I thought Joe P. scored (controversial play - lots of review was needed) and we would have been up 3-1 going home, but as it worked out, Nashville scored in Overtime to win 4-3 and tie the series up heading back to the west coast. Ugh.

Ok - Nashville on home ice is a different beast. The Predators came out fast and got the early jump on the Sharks and never let up. They seemed faster and hungrier to get back in the series. The Sharks didn't play as desperate as they should have and couldn't catch up - the Nashville goalie had a good game. More hitting and checking needed by the Sharks defense. Nashville wins 4-1. Series is 2-1 in favor of the Sharks.

The Sharks played game 2 tonight of their Conf. Semi-final round with the Nashville Predators. I missed Game 1 for some reason although I thought i watched it (Sharks won 5-2) but I have no photos of it. This game was another good game for the Sharks - they dominated play and showed they could keep up with the Predators and play some steady defense. The final score was 3-2 and the Sharks head to Nashville with a 2-0 series lead - not a bad way to start the second round of play.

On Sunday we went to Fair Park to see Wicked at the music hall. Jacquelyn and Kalyn went, ad well as Ken and Hadie. The play was great, its the 2nd time we've seen it. For this play, they had more concession stands than I've ever seen at one of the DSM plays. Wicked is really popular and brings in a lot of money. After the show, we went down to the West End and had dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse which was great. Kalyn recently was in a car accident and totaled the Red Corolla. She now has a white Subaru SUV which is really nice. Now to head home for some hockey.

So we got home and I guess Socks must have really missed me. He was very clingy all afternoon and when we went to bed, he had to be right there on the pillow with me. He's my buddy, what can I say. I missed you too Socks, but you have to share the bed with the dogs!

This is a rough collection of picts I collected from Moments and wedding picts of some of the activities Rick and Kelly did with their friends during their week long stay in Vegas. They did a lot of different activities, it was good to see so many people who were willing to make the trip and spend time with them. Congrats Rick and Kelly - let the memories begin!

Saturday morning we all met for breakfast at the Excalibur Buffet. Rick and Kelly were able to join us and spend some time catching up with Lee and Karen and Lindsey. Kelly had come down with pink eye in the last couple days, which wasn't good - it was really bothering her. We ate breakfast and spent the time chatting. I got a lesson in how to use Snap Chat, and we all experimented with animated selfies and such. Rick and Kelly left to find a urgent care for Kelly's eye, and we all said our goodbyes after breakfast since Lee and Karen were going to meet up with some old friends, Sean went with Rick and his friends to do some activities, and Kalyn and Lindsey planned to go sight seeing. We ended up walking across the street to the New York New York to check out things inside of the hotel and Hershey shop. We then moseyed across the walking bridge to the MGM, and started down the other side to the M&M shop and such. 4 floors of M&Ms, can't beat that. We wrapped up our sight seeing, and headed out of town for home. We drove for a few hours and then stopped at a Denny's in New Mexico for dinner. After that, we drove the rest of the night next morning to get home, arriving a little after noon. Quite an end to a great trip.

We taxied down to Fremont Street to check things out. I haven't been to Fremont Street in decades, so I've heard about the changes, but haven't seen it first hand. So the whole street is now covered with a roof that is a screen and displays advertisements, pictures, etc. They have a stage for shows, and zip lining the length of the street. It was a Friday night so it was pretty crowded, and there were several questionable persons out there (like Kiss in thongs and women in police lingerie). We walked the street and ended up at the Plaza. Its a shame that the old classic neon signs aren't more well taken care of and I really don't like the fact that there's big advertisements about strip clubs around those landmarks. Things have really changed down there - not sure its for the best. We didn't stay long but got to see what things look like today.

In the evening all the McCullough's got together for dinner at Buca de Pepo's in the Excalibur. Fine family dining. We were lucky enough that we were put in the Pope room - and got to eat with the pontiff, none the less. It was good to get to spend some time with the extended family, we surely don't get together enough and need to do more things like this. Dinner was great, and some of the photos they took weren't too bad either. So what do you do after eating a big Italian dinner? Go walking of course - off to Fremont Street and old downtown Vegas!

There were about 50-60 people who attended the wedding, and also the reception. Saw several people I haven't seen in years from Rick's mom's side of the family. The suite was really nice, and had great views of the strip down below (I think we were on the 30th floor?) There was a lot of catching up with Lee, Karen, and Lindsey, old family and friends, awaiting Rick and Kelly to arrive. They finally made it and immediately headed for cake (must have been hungry?) We spent a good 1-2 hours up there and things started winding down. Rick and Kelly had dinner plans with their friends so we said our goodbye's and well wishes and headed back to our hotel. It was a nice event - very enjoyable. We planned a McCullough dinner back at Excalibur.

So the day is finally here for Rick and Kelly's wedding. We got up and had some quick breakfast, then started getting ready for the big event. Everyone looked pretty snazzy all dressed up. We took taxis over to Planet Hollywood and browsed around a little bit. We found a Gordon Ramsey restaurant called Burgr which had a cool facade on it. We then went and found the wedding chapel area and waited around. We met up with Sean and Kalyn, and Lee, Karen and Lindsey showed up shortly after. We ran into Rick and his best men heading up stairs so they were all ready. Before too long everyone was there and it was Go Time. There was a red carpet interview area where we you could drop well wishes to the bride and groom - it was all part of the wedding package they bought - makes for a good wedding video. The ceremony was simple and traditional, very nice. Afterwards, we took the standard family pictures, spent some time mingling outside the chapel and then headed up to the reception suite to await the bride and groom after they finished their photo shoot with the photographer. Welcome to the family Kelly!

OK - at Planet Hollywood they have a attached mall area like at Caesar's. We were walking around and ran across this Presidential theme shop - they had a White House podium and backdrop just like the one the prez does the press conferences from. I had a little fun with this and announced I was throwing my hat in the ring for the nomination. The next day, I annouced my running mate - Charlie. He promptly attempted to steal the show from me by stating he was going to take the nomination. I'm telling you, politics are cut throat!

Thursday we got up and went over to Planet Hollywood to drop off Kelly's wedding gown. Afterwards, we started walking down the strip looking for somewhere to eat. We ended up at the Belagio and ate at the cafe in the Atrium area. I love the atrium and the way they put together a theme in there. This time its a Japanese Garden - really neat. The food was pretty good at the cafe as well. We walked around the atrium and went in some of the gift shops, and then we continued down the strip to the Caesar's mall. We walked around the mall to find the Animated Greek Gods show thought the kids would enjoy seeing that. We had to wait around about 45 mins to see it so we relaxed at one of the eateries need the show area. They have some pretty cool shops in this mall, I especially like the sports memorabilia shops of course. After the show, we headed out and back to the hotel to rest. Jack took the kids down to the midway and had dinner. Kalyn and Sean arrived in the evening and they hadn't eaten, so we went downstairs and had dinner at the Steak house. Everyone is here now - lets get on with this wedding!

After the show and Sharks game, Jack and I walked back to Excalibur. I took advantage and tried to catch some night shots of the strip all lit up - I love all the neon signs and hotel fronts. Its quite a sight to see. There have been so many changes to the strip over the years, its amazing the difference from when I used to come here as a kid. Anyway, night lights are always on in Vegas!

We checked in to Excalibur in the afternoon and settled in. Jaquelyn and I headed over to Planet Hollywood so she could meet up with Kelly and the girls to go to the Brittany Spears concert and I met up with Rick and some of his friends in the sports lounge to watch the Sharks and Stars in playoff hockey. There was a Pin Up Pizza joint attached to the lounge that served really big slices of pizza. Of course, had to try that - it was pretty good. The Sharks beat the Kings which clinched the 1st round series for them in 5 games (finally got some revenge against the Kings) so they move onto the next round. The Stars are struggling with the Wild so they may need to go deeper into their series. After the game, the girls got out of the Brittany show which they said was really good. 2 wins in one night it looks like!

The next morning we got up and had breakfast, then checked out of the hotel and headed back to the Canyon for some more sightseeing. We went to the visitor center and Charlie signed up for the Jr. Ranger program. We boarded a bus and went on a Ranger led fossil hike along a lookout point. Great views abound from this location. We saw some fossils and took our picture at a overlook - really neat. Haley got to meet a basset hound that was hiking in the area as well which made her day. We ended up going to the Gift shop and did some shopping, then we headed out to continue the drive to Vegas - plan was to get there by 3-4pm. Jacquelyn is to meet up with Kelly and her entourage to take in a Brittany Spears concert at Planet Hollywood tonight - oh boy!

After checking in at the Holiday Inn Express, we headed for the canyon for some late afternoon/sunset viewing of the west rim. The Canyon always amazes me, its quite a sight to see. We also got to see a California Condor up close on the point of a lookout spot. He was tagged for tracking and we got some good pictures of him. Charlie is turning into the next family photographer it seems, he took a lot of pictures. I just have to teach him not to take pictures of the back of my head! On our way back to the car we encounter an Elk drinking at the water spout in the visitor area - it wasn't phased by the people walking by and just continued to drink - pretty neat! Jack got within 4-5 feet of her (I think it was a female). In the evening we ate dinner and visited the gift shop in town (of course) and picked up a few items. Then we hit the sack for a good night's rest.

After work this evening we loaded up the van and headed for Vegas to attend Rick and Kelly's wedding. We plan to stop along the way at the Grand Canyon so my expectation was that we would drive as far as possible this night and get to the Grand Canyon on Tuesday afternoon. We headed north towards Amarillo since I planned to take the I-40 route across. We stopped in Denton for some ice cream and continued driving until we got to the west side of Amarillo where we stopped at a rest stop for th night. It was raining, and a cold front was coming through (temps got down to near freezing!). We got a few hours sleep and then continued on driving west in the early morning. We stopped at the famous Cline's Corner for a break and did some shopping, then continued on. We stopped at an Indian Center for lunch and saw the metal dinosaurs out in their field - pretty cool. We got back on the road and made it to our hotel outside of the Grand Canyon in the early afternoon. Now for some sightseeing!

So my two roosters are now old enough that they are starting to fight over the females which is not good. I've had to move Blondie into the green house to separate him from Red so they don't kill one another. I spent some quality time in the house with Blondie, and he insisted that he take some selfies for his friends out there. Here's some of the best of Blondie the rooster... Eat your hearts out all you hens out there... Also, we've collected quite a stash of eggs the last few days - production is going well from the hen house :-)

Rick and Kelly's wedding is only a week away so Melody needed to go dress shopping. We headed into Mesquite and started the search. Right off the bat we found a couple that looked pretty good for the occasion so Melody jumped on them. Kelly met us as well to drop off her wedding dress so we can transport it with us in the car when we drive out to Vegas. Hope we don't loose it along the way. Anyway, Melody got her dress so I think we're now ready for this wedding - bring it on!

So after our visit in Ennis at the Bluebonnet festival, we headed for Arlington to go to the Rangers game vs. the Orioles. Ken got us some seats in the Lexus Terrace which was pretty good seats. Matt was able to join us as well for the game. Rodie ran into the television roving reporter for Fox Southwest and got his picture with him, they had a really cool motorcycle at the entrance as well, and Charlie got his picture taken at bat in the Lowe's Home Plate booth. it was a pretty good game and the Rangers won so that makes it even better. Good way to end a long day...

Kalyn and Sean adopted a dog today! Her name is Vardy, and she's a spaniel mix (so Kalyn thinks).She's named after a soccer player I believe (Jamie Vardy - leading goal scorer this season?), not sure on the whole back story on this. They adopted her at a Petsmart, and Kalyn spent time with her in the socializing room to take her for a test drive. She's a pretty smart dog I think and should be a good fit for Kalyn and Sean. Congratulations for the the new addition to the family! Hope you checked with Winnie before bringing Vardy home!

This weekend we traveled back to Ennis to attend the Bluebonnet Festival. They had live music, and vendor booths, a car show, kids water games, and a petting zoo with some exotic animals. The whole town square was taken up with the event which was pretty cool. Afterwards, we stopped in at Dairy Queen and had some lunch before heading out to attend a Rangers game in the evening.

Its that time of year again - NHL Playoffs start and the Sharks are in. Given their track record, the hopes are running mixed given there's alot of talent on the team, but they always seem to underperform. Hoping this playoff run will be different. So, I bought my Teal City scarf and I'm ready to get this show on the road. Fogers crossed everyone stays healthy and they play their best hockey pf the year. I did my brackets and I have the Sharks playing the Stars for the Western Conference finals so hopefullty we could go to some playoff games here in Dallas. Go Sharks!

After dinner it was a short walk across the streets to Toyota Stadium to watch a soccer game between FC Dallas and the San Jose Earthquakes. It had rained a little before we got there but the skies were clearing and there was no more rain the rest of the evening. We got there early enough to see the teams warm up and we had some great seats this game. Half way through the game we found out that Rick and Kelly and some of their friends were at the game as well. We were almost in the same section! The game was close and ended up in a 2-2 draw. After the game, we met up with Rick and Kelly and their friends and went to a Whataburger in Frisco for taquitoes at 11pm. It wss a good way to end the day before the long drive home.

After the zoo we headed north to Frisco to try and find a street festival I had seen on Facebook where they brought in different kinds of food trucks for the public. We were planning on going the the FC Dallas game that night so I thought this would be a good place to eat prior to the game. We parked and walked over to the parking lot/city block where they were all set up and we started checking out the food options. There were all kinds of different ethnic foods, specialty foods, deserts, and drinks. I ended up buying a refillable tin mug from a soda vendor - the root beer was fabulous! Some of the different trucks were already sold out for the day (the festival opened at noon) so Melody ended up trying some Cuban food and I had some Vietnamese food I believe, and we tried a local beer along the way. The BBQ truck was the most popular and had the longest line. They had some other vendor booths as well to check out but we didn't stay long after eating - had to head for the game!

This weekend was the last weekend to see the Lego animals at the Dallas Zoo so I had to go. They had several different scenes around the grounds that were pretty amazing and tooks hundreds of hours to build. They had a snow lepard, a peacock, deer, a tortiouse, butterfies, polar bears, spider, - and they were all really cool. We started walking around the zoo some more after watching the cheetah show but it started to rain so we called it a day and headed to the car. We still haven't see the other side of the zoo where all the african animals are on display. Gotta go back again!

On Sunday morning we got up and headed for Ennis TX to travel down the Bluebonnet Trail. We stopped in downtown Ennis to eat lunch at Hilda's Kitchen which was interesting. Then we took off and headed out for the Trail. The Bluebonnet Trail is a old country road which roams through the back country outside Ennis where there's farms and fields full of blue bonnets. We came across a small stop in the middle of the Trail where they sold a variety of antique items, and they had an old car and barn/corn silo which was a pretty neat background for a picture. As we traveled father down the trail we stopped and took pictures with the flowers, we saw long horns, and we stopped at a small winery called Spring Hills and bought some libations. As we got farther down the trail near the end, we found some large Welsh Horses (I believe) where the owners put out barrels of oats for you to feed the horses. They are huge! We also fed a lonely donkey on the other side of the road. When we got off the trail, we saw the other end of the property that the horses were on - and there was a mare and her colt, sleeping in the pasture. What a way to end the day!

After the birthday party at Marty's, Melody and I headed for Aledo to meet up with Hadie and Ken for dinner and to spend the night. We went to a restaurant in Weatherford called Vintage, where as part of the restaurant building they have a car museum. The food was pretty good, and the cars were as well. Of note they had a Lincoln Continental that belonged to LBJ and a few other interesting old cars. It was a pretty cool themed eatery - I'd like to go back again! Afterwards, we searched for somewhere for desert and ended up at AppleBee's for chocolate lava cake and ice cream - Yum!

Joe and Marie stopped in for a few days to visit as part of their most recent journeys. We went to Marty's house on Saturday for a BBQ and to celebrate Ethan's 7th Birthday and Brooklyn's 2nd. There was a pretty good gathering of friends and family, with plenty of kids running around playing. There were plenty of cup cakes and food to go around. The kids are growing up fast - don't blink! It was nice that Joe and Marie were able to join in the festivities - its always fun to spend time with them.

The garden is off to a slow start this season due to all rain - we haven't been able to plant all the vegatables that we normally do. Our broccili and Caulaflower are doing well and we've started harvesting. The lettuce continues to grow well and we're having fresh salad. This is the first time we've grown caulaflower, I didn't even realize we had a head growing until Melody showed me one day. The flowers around the yard are starting to blossom out and the Wysteria is going crazy again this year. Hoping we can get the full garden planted soon and get things going!

I was up early this morning and while feeding the chickens, I was able to capture them crowing. These two try to outdo each other quite a bit, its like a competition. They are fun to watch when they get going...

So Toni got to spend a week with us visiting, and touring, and shopping. Really she came to see all of us - that's what's important to her. Here are the pictures we took with her while she visited. I hope you hads a good time Toni! We're glad you could make the trip to see us!

After celebrating Easter, we switched gears and set up for Chris' birthday since he was going to be in town. Mamaw went a had a special Dallas Cowboys cake made for him and we got Dallas Cowboy themed party supplies for the occasion. Its not often we get to celebrate Chris' birthday down here anymore, when he was a kid he had his birthday at Mamaw's quite a few times. Happy Birthday Chris!

Easter was at home this year, and almost everyone came out to our house. Jack took eggs home Saturday night and had the kids color them, while we waited for the Easter Bunny to arrive. We planned to have 10 great grand kids over during the day - so we needed to be prepared. Chris and Lisa and the kids came down from NE for the weekend which was nice, everyone else local came by. We had quite a spread of food, and the easter bunny left baskets for all the kids, mom made her easter cakes (continuing what Grandma Schaefer used to do). We then had a easter egg hunt around the house which was cool, played some basketball and the kids drew all over the driveway in chalk. it was quite an afternoon. I'm glad everyone was able to make it.

Next we stopped at Pioneer Square right down the street from the Omni. This park area has a really cool status layout of a long horn cattle drive built in a diorama fashion crossing a small river bank. There's something like 30 bronze statues of the long horns, each detailed like a real cow and the cowboys driving them. Its part of Texas Heritage in this area, cattle used to be brought to Dallas and Fort Worth - I believe the Chisholm trail was right around the metroplex area (I'd need to check my history on that). Anyway, its a cool display of what it was like back in the cattle drive days.

When we got done with Spaghetti Warehouse, we drove to downtown and showed Toni some of the sights. Our first stop was at the Omni Hotel and the original Mobile Oil Flying Pegasus out front. Its a Dallas landmark from days gone by (great story about how they found it and restored it - click here). Its a must see for anyone visiting Dallas (I think). Wish we could have seen it at night with the neon all lit up.

After Charlie's soccer today we all loaded up in the car and headed into Dallas to meet all the kids for our b-annual Birthday dinner celebration. We have so many people now we bunch birthday dinners together twice a year - more economical :-). We met in our usual spot - Spaghetti Warehouse in Dallas - this year was a little special since Toni was her to help us celebrate. We had a good dinner with everyone and had our usual waiter (he's a nice guy). Presents and cake were on the agenda as usual as well. It was a nice outing - always fun to get everyone together. Happy Birthday to the Spring family members!

Its Saturday and time for soccer again. Toni came in from Alaska on Thursday for a visit so she got to go along and watch as well. Charlie had a good game but I got distracted by a couple geese at the city lake that were wandering around. Really neat, and not too aggressive. Boy can they honk! I split my time being taking pictures of the game when Charlie was in and the geese, couldn't decide which was more interesting today :-)

Mom turned 79 this year and we celebrated by taking her to brunch on Saturday at Cracker Barrel with Ken and Hadie (her favorite restaurant). On Sunday evening we all got together at the house for cake and presents with the rest of family. Mom had her eyes worked on a short period of time ago to help correct cataracts and such. She had her left eye done one month and the right eye the next month. Hoping this works for her. Happy Birthday Mom!

Charlie's spring soccer season is in full swing now and more kids enrolled that ever this season. The league expanded to several teams in Charlie's division so they don't need to travel to play other teams as much which is a nice change. The kids are getting old enough now to understand the concepts and actually work together as a team to play their positions for the most part and organize and drive for scores with passes and such - great progress over past seasons. Charlie does well at this soccer and seems to really like it. The coach he has is pretty good, switches the kids around so they all play the different positions both offense and defense. This should be a good season for the kids. It was a little chilly this morning, especially for March, but we persevered through it - what troopers we are!

Winter garden is still growing - the lettuce we planted earlier in the year is going well - looking forward to eating some of this before we have to pull these out. Its also time to turn the dirt in the big containers and get ready for planting. I bought some fertilizer with peat moss in it to try and help the dirt. We've been getting a lot of rain this year so I hope this will help replenish the dirt we have in the buckets. We've been putting coffee grounds and such in there all winter - I hope this will make some good growing dirt. We'll see...

This weekend was daylight savings so I got to spend some additional daylight with the chickens. Up until now Its dark by the time I get home from work at night and the chickens are in the coop for the night. Now I can check on them when I get home before the sun goes down. I should be able to put chickens in the new coop sometime soon - haven't quite decided who will go in here yet...

Kalyn and Sean headed up to Taos NM for a late honeymoon skiing trip - a present from the Maloney's. They drove up and stayed in the nice Chalet for a week. This was Kalyn's first time skiing, Sean has skied previously and is pretty good at it. Kalyn took some lessons, and then they hit the trails from what I hear. I think it even snowed one night while they were there. I have limited pictures from the trip - when they got home Sean lost his phone which had most of the pictures on it - and it wasn't backed up to the cloud! Lesson learned :-) Overall I think they had a great time - very happy for them.

We met up with Rick and Kelly in Dallas to have dinner at a French restaurant called Rise n1. The restaurant was very cozy, and we were seated at an outdoor patio area. I haven't been exposed to much French food but the key item we targeted was the soufflé. We tried different things from the menu and all ended up ordering the soufflé which was really good. I was impressed. Then for desert we ordered a apple tart with ice cream - very yummy. The big hit of the night was that the restaurant sells handmade fabric napkins which were really neat and this bread slicer. Melody and I bought one it was so cool. Looking forward to slicing some bread! Great idea for dinner guys!

I spent my birthday at home just piddling around the house and not doing anything special. All the kids came over for dinner which was good. Melody made a special Jello salad with pretzels, cheesecake, and fruit and a green salad with fruits and blue cheese, and to top it off, Ms. Stouffer's Lasagna which is everyone's favorite. I got a crazy idea of doing a them birthday cake this year, so I chose to have the theme "Area 51" - the secret base in the Nevada dessert where the stealth planes and alien ships are kept. I had the Cherry Laurel bakery make it and it turned out pretty neat. I got some cool presents and a new chicken coop - looks like we'll be expanding the flock soon! I really enjoy getting everyone together, wish we could do it more often. It was a good birthday, already thinking about the them for next year - 52!

I spent some time in the chicken pen today to try and get some pictures of the roosters today in the sunlight. They have feathered out completely and are really colorful. I modified some of the pictures blowing out the saturation which really emphasizes the different colors.

Rodie started working up at lake Tawakoni a couple weeks ago working for a fishing tournament organizer. They have a monkey which Rodie has befriended - its a capuchin monkey and seems to be very friendly. Now all we need is an organ grinder...

We sent Charlie out to inspect the coop for eggs this afternoon. As you can see, he harvested a good haul today. We're getting about 6-8 eggs a day on average, so not all chickens are laying every day. The aricanas should be starting to lay their eggs in March so our haul should be increasing - we'll see how they do...

For Valentines Day Melody and I went and bought plants to start the spring garden. We picked up lettuce, spinach, broccoli and brussel sprouts. We had to clean out the planters to get the winter weeds out and used this new weed tool that cultivates and loosens the weeds in the process - works pretty well. Looking forward to harvesting this crop in the next 4-6 weeks before we switch to the summer crop of zucchinis and melons in these containers.

So Friday night we went up to Fort Worth to spend the night with Kalyn and Sean and take Kalyn to dinner for her Birthday and spend the night at their new house. Hadie stopped by at Kalyn's in the afternoon so we all ended up meeting for dinner. Afterwards, we went to Central Market and had some cake and deserts to celebrate Kalyn's birthday from earlier in the week. We stayed over night and ended up staying for dinner on Saturday with Sean's family who stopped by - Sean and Kalyn are getting settled in and getting the house set up - looking forward to the next visit to see what they've done to the place.

Super Bowl sunday we had a usual get together. We invited over the local family to watch the game and have some finger foods, barbeque, and goodies. We also celebrated Mickey's birthday while everyone was together. The game was pretty good, the food was pretty good, and I think everyone had a good time - always fun to get everyone together for an event.

So today we put the new Aracana's in with the older chickens to let them mingle and start to establish the new pecking order. There's about a 4 month difference in age between the different sets of birds so this could be interesting to see how it works out. So far, the Aricanas are sticking together (there's strength in numbers) but the reds and barred rocks are rulling the roost so to speak. We'll see how it works out.

Our Airicana Chickens have grown quite a bit now - they are over 3 months old. Out of the 5 chicks we got, 2 tuned out be roosters, and the other 3 are hens. They are completely random colors, with the roosters having slightly more colorful features. They are still living in the green house but they are getting big enough they should be ready to fend for themselves so I think if we get some warm weather in the next week or so, I'm going to transfer them to the chicken play yard with the other birds and let them decide the pecking order. They won't start laying eggs until they are 5 months old so we still have a little ways to go before they start producing.

We've had some pretty large rain storms coming through our area over the past couple of months - some storms dumping almost 6 inches of rain a day. At some point with one of these storms, we noticed a brown water spot developing in the ceiling in the living room. I called out a roofer this week to take a look at yes, we have a water problem up there with some wood rot. They estimated the damage, and came back this week to do the repairs. They had to rip up the wood decking in the joint where the new construction and the old house roof line come together - the rain gutter up there was not draining properly and water was running back under the eves and getting to the roof decking. The fixed it by putting up additional flashing behind the gutter which should divert a majority of the rain to the gutters without allowing it to flow back to the roof joint where the two parts of the house come together. We'll see when the next big rain hits if this does the trick and keeps the rain from getting to the wood deck again.

For Haley's birthday back in December, we promised her to take her to a Movie grill with a friend so they could eat dinner and watch a movie - you know, the latest fad. So with the holidays, we postponed doing this until after the new year. We scouted out advanced tickets at a theater in Mesquite but to reserve seating, there would be a 1.50 surcharge per ticket. Melody says to me, the movie she wants to see has been out for quite a while (Mocking Jay Part II), I'm sure we can just get tickets when we go there - we'll wing it. OK, so advance to the night we plan to go. Haley's friend can't go at the last minute, so we decide to go anyway. We get to theater, its freezing cold outside and I'm waiting in line - I get to the window and of course, the show we want to see (mind you we got there 45 mins early) is sold out! And the only other dinner show available for the evening is also sold out! Total failure! OK, so we quickly scan local theaters to see if we can find something else and we find Maze Runners down the street at a different theater - we quickly head over there to see the show. Really cheap price so that was a win. After the movie, we stopped in Forney at the Tokyo Harbor Sushi and Grill - which is great food and entertainment. Haley got a big plate of Chicken Fried Rice and watched the dinner show on the grill with plenty of fire. We then went to Starbucks and called it a night. Pulled that one out of the fire so to speak - Happy Birthday Haley!

It was bound to happen sometime. Yes, Charlie has hit double digits in age now. He celebrated a quiet 10th birthday at home with family, cake and presents. Of course, He received several Star Wars themed presents - that seems to be his favorite these days given the new movie came out last month. He is growing up so fast, time is flying by! Happy Birthday Charlie!