Sunday, June 24, 2018

Love is/was in the air


  

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So what did you do for Father's Day Weekend?
Our's started on Friday with David going to the doctor in Katy and I went to mine in Cypress. Annual check ups. David had a few hiccups but other than that He's doing okay. Or at least was. He developed this cough that every time he breaths he coughs. It's wearing him out. They think he might be having a reaction to his blood pressure meds that he's been on for years so it's time to change it. My visit went well. I was told all body parts were in the right place so that's a good thing.
We were staying home this weekend and not going to the farm. Things were a happenin and Love was in the Air I tell ya. ðŸ’˜
I called David as I was pulling out of the Doctors parking lot to see what he was doing and he had just got back home. I offered up lunch and he chose Rudy's BBQ. After his appointment he ran a couple of errands like he ordered a barn door on hinges to use for our pantry. Love it. Not much has happened at the farm in the last 2 weeks. The framing is next but the framer has been out of town on another job. Cross our fingers that maybe he can come next week in between rain drops.
The rest of the afternoon we just hung out and chilled. This is something David rarely does. He keeps saying I should be doing something.  No, no you shouldn't, I tell him he's entitled to kick back and rest sometimes.
Pamela came in town but had plans that Friday night. So she dropped her fur baby off and headed to her friends for some fun.

I got up Saturday morning and slide a breakfast casserole in the oven so David could have a hot breakfast before Pamela and I headed out to run errands and lunch at the Whistle Stop Tea Room. Traffic was terrible out that Saturday. We couldn't be gone too long because we needed to get home to get ready for a wedding. I told you, Love was in the air.
That evening Our nephew Nathan and his long time girlfriend Jordan tied the knot. It was a lovely evening and they looked so happy. Loved wittnessing these two love birds make it official. We got to see family and old neighborhood friends. The wedding was in the Bride's Aunts backyard out in Sugarland. Turned out really pretty.  I'm guessing by now you're going where's the pictures..I've written a lot and not one picture. Well Here they come....   








The Kennedy Clan
Pictured L-R My nephews Kevin and Phillip, Brother in Law Thomas and his son Sterling, Glenda. The proud parents Lynn and Gary, Then Pamela, Me and David.
Someone snapped a picture of us with more family.
Most of us must have gotten a memo to wear blue. LOL Not really but there was a lot of blue
being worn at this wedding.
L-R  Brian and Pam (My Pamela was named after her), Gary and Lynn, Groom Parents, cousin Patty and Bob, Me Pamela and David
And here comes the beautiful Bride with her Dad Richard.



The two girls on the left are our nieces Kendal and Shelby, the grooms sisters. The first young lady is Taylor, Jordan's sister.
 
To Have and To Hold                         You may kiss your bride
Introducing the new MR and MRS

Nathan and Jordan with her parents, Alice and Richard
May they be as happy as they were at the wedding for many years into the future. 

Woke up Father's Day Sunday and had breakfast with my honey. Let him open my gifts to him.  Pamela slept in and came downstairs later and gave him her presents and visited. 
Then we took him to Lupe Tortilla's for lunch. We waited about 5 minutes to long to go. LOL
We kept noticing these clouds and how dark they were saying hopefully we'll get inside before the rain comes.  Well that didn't quite happen. Pamela jumped out of the car as soon as I parked and ran. Just as David and I got out of the car it started pouring. Just awesome. By the time I got inside water was running down my face. I looked like a drenched rat, big time. David and Pamela got a good laugh. All in all we had a good lunch and I ended up with lots of left overs for lunches next week. 
Pamela snapped this picture of us before we left Lupes. Oh it had stopped raining by the we sat down to eat of course so taking a picture when we left was no problem.
Well that's it for now.
Next post will have Rock'n K update

Until then....“There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.” ~Martin Luther








Monday, June 18, 2018

Old Friends, Great Music, and Fermented Evenings

 What a great weekend! Friday (6/8) morning we dropped off Lilley at our daughter Pamela's house and we headed to 
Luckenbach, Texas
As always Thomas Michael brings in talented artists and he is an entertainer. Of course we have our favorites... Thomas Michael Riley, Max Stallings, Black Top Gypsies, Davin James, Jamie Richards to name a few.  This was actually the first time we had heard the Black Top Gypsies play in person. Heather Stallings is the fiddle player in this band. David and I were suprised when she put down her fiddle and picked up a guitar and started playing. Wow. Talented and beautiful. Her fiddle playing blows me away. It was also great to see the lead singer Andie Kay on stage singing her heart out. She was a very sick girl not long ago. I mean it was touch and go but by a miracle she pulled through it all.












This weekend was all about music, a little wine, a few beers, a couple of moonshine drinks and long time good friends.  There was a lot of laughs and great stories.  This is first time all 4 couples have been together in 3-4 years. Us girls were sorority sisters at U of H.
David and I headed to Fredericksburg via Blanco. Just a slight jog to the North West so we could go eat at the 300 BBQ place and go shop at couple of the antique stores we like there. What a joke!  When we hit Blanco we were hit by the crowds of people, no parking or if you found it you had to pay $10. Okay all we wanted to do was eat BBQ. What the heck is going on we thought. After circling around a couple of times we decided to keep going down the road. We went a new way through Luckenbach on the back roads. Saw lots of pretty sights... houses, land, views and water.  By the time we got to Fredericksburg we were starving and needed a little something to tide us over. He wanted Whataburger and get this we couldn't find a parking place and the drive thru was into the street. Holy Cow!  We ended up at McDonalds. We didn't want anything big but something. It was crazy. David found out later that Blanco was having a Lavender Festival. Awesome. 

Captured this nice picture of Tim and Gigi while listening to Max Stallings.

I took this picture with Ross and was going to post on facebook that I had traded David in on a new model but shortly after this picture I changed my mind. He's real trouble with a capital T.  Okay maybe not that bad.

You see I took this picture of us and didn't think to lock my phone so mmmm someone decided to take more pictures for me....  
He took this nice picture of Kathy and Mark.
And then took a few more....... Just a sample of what he took.



So now he has become part of my blog. LOL
I knew better the rest of the night to not leave my phone unattended and unlocked.  I did get hold of his phone and took a few return pictures.









I did take a decent picture him with his wife Sheryl. 
And one of me and my honey.
The evening was hot but fun.
Saturday morning we all met at Hilda's Tortillas. If you order taco's you get what they have left. You have to get there earlier if you want sausage and egg for sure. This place is know for it's breakfast taco's. People come in just for the breakfast taco's. Gigi got lucky because they had a potato and egg breakfast taco left. The rest of us ordered Migas. Actually David and I shared and order. They are not stingy with the quantity of food they serve. They are darn good too. We got there at 9 and between eating and talking it was almost 11:30 before we split up and went different directions for a while.  We decided to meet up later at the Bending Branch Winery then go to the Hill Country Distillery. Some woman came in around 11:30 and got real mad when she was told they were sold out.

David and I headed out to Kerrville for some antique shopping. We ended up at the Sunrise Antique Mall. We saw lots of cool things. Sometimes I buy old wooden spindles to wind scrap strips of fabric around to save for a later project. But David found this little cutie. No fabric will be put on this one. Someone painted this cute bunny on it.  This will be purely a display spindle. Can't cover up the bunny.



 We realized it was nearly 1pm and we had a 30 minute drive to meet up at the winery. We about half way to Bending Branch when my phone rang,...Sheryl and Ross were already there.
Mark and Kathy said they'd pass on the winery and meet us at Hill Country Distillery for a little moonshine. Right after I took this picture of Sheryl and I, the Ragan's showed up.  We all had a glass of wine and a little conversation before heading out for the next stop.



At the distillery I had a bloody shiner which is a bloody Mary with a punch. It's made with jalapeno moonshine. and I add about 5 dashes of Tabasco. mmm so good. I tried a new drink for me any way called the Bushwacker. YUM. 
1 oz Texas Dulce Coffee Liqueur
1/2 oz Texas Prickly Pear Cactus Spirits
1 oz Crème de Cocoa   3/4 oz Cream Coconut
Shake with ice, pour in a tall glass, add ice and fill with milk


Here's us girls. Normally we sit in a row but mixed it up this time. LOL  Came out pretty good.
Gigi   Me   Kathy and Sheryl sitting. 
Such a good time.
I guess we should have taken a picture of all the guys too.  Too late now.

After leaving the distillery we headed off to Hondo's in Fredericksburg for dinner before Davin James went on stage at 6. Tim and Gigi passed on Hondo's so we just met them in Luckenbach. Had a great grilled poblano chicken sandwich with sweet potato fries and a jalapeno margarita. Oh Yeah. The jalapeno cuts the sweetness of the margarita with a slight punch. So good. You could eat the jalapenos if you wanted but I'm not into the possible burning pain so I don't.
When we got to Luckenbach Davin James was already singing, pickin and  rockin the stage.  No seats were inside the dance hall so we found a shady spot outside which actually seemed to be a bit cooler since there was a breeze. I had snapped this picture of us before Tim and Gigi came out of the sponsor area to join us. Should have snapped another. I guess I was talking too much. 

Fun Fun times. Hope we can do it again next year.

Sunday David and I got up to try and have a quick bite at Whataburger and not spend a lot of money but now we see why the lines were so bad Friday.  No one was up front to take our order. We stood there maybe 5 minutes or so. Plus this guy stepped up to the pick up area and goes " Can you tell me how much longer it's gonna be, I've been here almost 20 minutes"  At that point we walked out and went to the Sunrise Grill. Not as cheap but the food is really good. I don't think we'll try Whataburger again when in Fredericksburg. Anyway at the Sunrise Grill there's a bit of a wait sometimes and their parking sucks. It's small and tight but that day we got luck and slide into a parking spot right in front and sat at a table outside in the shade with no wait.  We don't tend to wait around if the anywhere if the wait is over 30.
After breakfast we made our annual stop at the Wildseed Farms. We wanted to see if they had any bluebonnet seeds to spread this fall at the farm but, nope not yet. So we wandered thru the stores and grounds. 

This Red Cardinal greeted me as I walked into the Butterfly Garden. He was just a singing.





We came up on this flowering bush. Aren't the blooms just beautiful?  A friend asked if it was a Camilla bush but I'm not sure, Maybe.  What do you think?
The more I look at the leaves I think Barbara just might be right.. a Camilla bush....
 Next we saw a desert  willow tree. It was tall. Over 15 maybe. We had never seen one this tall. Somewhere in that foliage is a hummingbird. I want this tree at the farm if it'll grow and the Camilla bush if that's what it is.
On the way the way out of the garden I saw a black panther napping on the rocks. Okay just kidding it was just a plain ole kitty cat. I didn't disturb him. I let the sleeping cat lie. Well maybe I did call him but he never opened his eyes and just barely twitched his ear. He was hot and tired.
So ended our great weekend of music, old friends, and Fermented Evenings. 
It was time to head back home to reality via Pamela's to pick up our fur baby.


Until next blog post   "On these fermented evenings

When the night comes pressing down
That's when the wine comes out" Song verse by Max Stallings





Monday, June 4, 2018

Moving Along and Babies everywhere

So on May 15th they finally broke ground at the Rock'n K and 4 days later on Saturday they put the forms up. Nothing more to be done until the following week. 
On Sunday while sitting on the mini mansion porch looking to the west we saw this dark line of clouds coming towards us. Yay we might get some badly needed rain.That line looks a little angry.

At the same time Bubba our builder said he was coming our way to do some marking off and measuring. David told him we'd call if it started raining.

Then in minutes that line of rain hit. A minute later Bubba called back and said never mind that he'd just come up early Monday morning to make sure the forms were done right and measurements were okay. He ran into that line of rain 8 miles down the road.
As bad we needed this rain I didn't want it to interfere with the next phase of the building process. I was wondering what it would be like at the mini mansion in the rain. Now I know ...relaxing.


Of course now that we're making some progress the weather has decided to give us rain for every day for the 5-7 days.





But have no fear the guys came in between Monday and Tuesday to lay the re bar. 
Then plumber and the electrician came in and stubbed up before the guys got there to pour the concrete. Bubba sent us a picture of the rebar and stub ups on Thursday May 24th then at 3:41 AM Friday the 25th, yes I meant AM they started pouring the concrete.  The foundation, garage and car port are poured. Yahoo.
Wish we could have been there. Bubba tells us normally they send about 8 trucks at a  time but they had 22 cement trucks lined up and ready. No waiting for trucks. They were all there at once.  That would have been a sight to see.

They finished the pour by about 7:30 am I'm told. WOW

David went up Saturday the 26th while I went on a mission looking for a door to use for the pantry. Damn Pinterest and the ideas you get in your head. I was thinking I wanted a door with a half window that I could frost and then put the word "pantry" on it. Pamela was off that day so she was my co-pilot. The doors I was finding were only 32" or smaller but I needed  36" or the doors had too much rot. Grrrr. We've picked out our doors and windows thus far for the interior and exterior but we still have time to change or tweak our choices. I'm sure that will happen. 
So while I'm at work Friday I get this text from my Nephew Zachariah in Missouri saying "It's a boy!"  Umm what's a boy.. Yes his son Carson is a boy who is already 7 but then I scroll down and see this picture.  I'm thinking Wait! What?! So text back going did I miss something? I've only seen a couple pictures of his wife and didn't notice her being PG but guess what she is. Bad Zachariah forgot to mention to me and his cousin Pamela that they were even expecting. How Rude. I guess I still love him. LOL



It must be something in the air. His older brother Jeremiah and wife Melissa had a Baby Girl on May 27th
She's so sweet looking. In this picture looks like her Momma.  Her big brother Becket who looks his Dad seems to be pleased with his new sister   So Precious.
It's raining great Great Nieces and Nephews.  LOL. We found out a couple of months ago my Nephew Nathan here in Houston is having a baby too. They found out they're having a boy.

Everyone is growing up and having babies. 

So Back to my door search. Pamela and I hit a couple more antique shops in College Station that my friend told me about but still no worthy door. Our next stop is about 50 minutes away. Pamela knew of a shop called Leon's in Mart, TX. She's always wanted to go in but never had the chance. OK this place could get me in trouble.  Lots of neat things and the pricing doesn't seem too bad either. There seems to be a little wiggle room in their pricing.
I saw this cool piece. I had to take a picture of it to send to a co-worker Michelle. She really likes this stuff too. She just bought something like this to hang in her house. I need to bring David back here that's for sure when we get the house built.

Then as I walk down the aisles I see my kind of eye candy. Sewing items. Oh boy I could be in trouble. Actually Pamela saw the sewing machine first and pointed it out. And buttons, scissors and spools oh my!
I even saw a small dresser just down the aisle that would look really nice in a guest room at the farm house that isn't even built yet. LOL
Then something else caught my eye. It was a Singer sewing machine in a box with the machine inside.
The young man said he thought it still worked.

I'm bad. I can't tell you the year or anything like that but I liked the looks. I don't plan on using it except to display. I liked it well enough to just buy it right then.   It looks something like this.  I left it at Pamela's and didn't take a picture of any kind of it.  I'll have to do that this weekend when we drop Lilley off for stay. Maybe even look a little harder for a year it was made.

So it was getting late in the day and I still hadn't seen what the foundation looks like. I mean I know concrete is concrete but this concrete is the foundation to our house to be.
WOW.. Really is this gonna be big enough to have 3 rooms across the front of the house? LOL David got frustrated with me when I said that because we did measure a couple of times. I'm pretty sure Bubba knows what he's doing. That's why we chose him.
Did you know you have to water your concrete to make it grow?  LOL Just kidding. Actually you water to help it cure and keep from cracking as it drys. It seems crazy doesn't. You water something so it will dry/cure. 



I took this picture standing at the end of will be the car port. It's starting to feel real. I might have stepped off the car port pad and sink in mud up over my ankle. I was aiming for the spot where I had stepped up originally but that didn't happen.  David had to hose me off. I thought Pamela was gonna fall over laughing at me. Brat. LOL


Friday night we started June off with dinner with our friends Larry and Sylvia at Crossroads Tavern for all you can eat catfish and all the fixin's.  Yum Yum
Time flies when you're having fun. We got there at about 6:15 and before we knew it, it was after 8. We didn't get home until 9:30. We're rebels out so late. Just kidding.





David got up early on Saturday to go to the farm. He had trees to water and things he wanted to get done. He's a busy man.
I stayed home and went to visit my Mom and Joe. 
She and I went to lunch and shopping. Needed to get her out of the house for a while.  

We went to the 105 Cafe in Conroe on none other than Hwy 105. This is small little cafe where we've been to before for lunch and so far we've never been disappointed. This trip I decided to try their Mexican salad. This salad was huge. And very tasty.


Our next stop was Quilters Quarters just down the road from the cafe. I needed some fabric for a backing for a little quilt I'm working on. Thanks to the help of the sales clerk I think I picked out a colorful Kaffe Fassett fabric for the backing. I also bought a pattern for a frog that Mom thought was so cute. She wants it out of my western fabric.  We'll see what I can do to accommodate her. 
Then on down the road to Kerr's Western Interiors where I found the perfect sign to put over a door to the pantry. I can stop looking for a vintage door to use and just pick something from the builder. Pamela used to use our pantry as a Grocery Store when she first graduated. Not so much any more. LOL I love this sign. It came home with me. David like it too. He approved of my purchase. Mom went home with a new necklace.
One more stop. Don't want to wear her out. I did ask how she was feeling and she said great. A lot of times she'll get tired really quick..... We stopped at the Rancher's Daughter. It's has home decor, clothing, jewelry and wine.  Yep wine. I grabbed a bottle of Sweet Red and Mom walked out with 2 new tops.
It was getting late and I needed to head home to let the pups out for a potty break and feed them. Trust me these little gals let me know when they are hungry.

Mom and I had a wonderful day out shopping and talking. Today was one of the best days since this pre-dementia stuff started. I kinda think we're in the middle if I'm honest with myself. Not impressed with this disease and dread what will come down the road. I hope it's far down the road but....
Sunday was a day for vacuuming, quilting and relaxing.

Wow I'm all caught with my adventures finally. Feels good. Now if I can just stay on top of it but Life and adventures get in the way.

So until my next blog post....