Smorgasboard

I am signed up for google ads on my blog. How it works is ads are places on my blog that related to the words in my posts. For example when I was pregnant, I always had pregnancy related posts, and pregnancy related ads. Today I just happened to notice the ad, and this is what it said:


Camille
Huge selection, great deals on Camille items.
Yahoo.com



I'm imagining little bobble head dolls with my head on them, and keychains, plates with my face and blog address printed on... That would just be great! I think I'll make some of these items and use them for blog giveaways. Sweet.





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Today Andy and I were cleaning the garage and we found this old girls bike basket. Andy was messing with the kids by trying to attach it to his motorcycle. Then we decided it would be so awsome if we could get it on our neighbors motocycle...





...He's a motorcylce police officer.

So we peek over and their garage is open and no one is outside.

Perfect.

So we snuck over and put it on, and then snuck back home and got the camera.. then snuck back over and took pictures.

Here's now cool my neighboor is... He comes out and sees the basket and gets a bunch of snacks and puts them in! Then he calls us and tells the kids thank you, he's been looking for something to carry snacks and candy in. (I think he thought the kids put it on his bike, not Andy and I.) Hehe..

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Aaron has a new key phrase that we're all using now. It's this:

"Snap it out" with an emphasis on the 'p'.

Nobody knows what it means, but it's fun to say.




Snap it out...

My Crazy Cat

I know I've already posted a novel today, but I have to add this.

This is what happens when the cat is outside and I turn on the sprinklers and she wants to come in, but doesn't want to walk through the water to get to the door.

Crappy family pictures by The Picture People NE Mall.

While we were in Texas we had family picture taken. They really did a pretty bad job. The contrast is just a mess and some of the poses...


Everything pretty much speaks for it's self, but I just want to make it clear that Spencer, who is Jason's 13 yr old son, is NOT Dave and Jason's love child, nor is he the reason we were all gathered together. Also, I did not crop the pictures at all... This is how the 'professionals' cropped the pictures.


Don't ask me what the photographer was thinking...

Look out Texas, Here we come!

I know, I'm late posting. I decided to post all my pictures for the whole trip today, so there is a lot to look at.

Starting off with our flights down. Aaron was so cute. We had a really fun time traveling together. He behaved himself so well on the plane in during our long 4 hour layover in SLC. He had this little bee movie toy and a toy airplane that he carried with him everywhere. Our flights were uneventful and pretty smooth.

We arrived in Dallas at about 10:00 pm. Andy's mom Anne, and his sister Jenn picked up up at the airport. when I saw them waiting for us outside the security area I said to Aaron, "whose that?" and pointed. He says, "I don't know??" There was a gal that over heard us and just started laughing. It had only been about 6 months since we had last seen Andy's parents, but to Aaron's credit, Anne had lost about 40 lbs in those 6 months. Way to go Anne!

Andy, Noah, and Jennica were flying a different airline so they didn't get in, and make it back to the house till about 1 am.

We stayed with Andy's sister Bonnie and her family. The kids had so much fun and it was way better than being at a hotel.

The Fort Worth Zoo

At the Zoo I did not take any pictures of animals because who wants to look at animals panting in the shade.

It was really hot the first day we were there and the humidity was just thick and heavy. I don't know what we were thinking heading off to the zoo before our bodies had a chance to acclimate.


Lunch time! A shaded pavilion with ceiling fans. Fantastic.

Three is actually a komodo dragon under all those kids. Who knew they could be so docile.

Sierra and Preston making out with the large lizard. Yummy.

The zoo, for some reason, has a "wild west" town area. Not sure what it's there for except to maybe get more gift shops, restaurants and ice cream parlors into the zoo.

Aaron is the same size as the swanson's hawk... or was it the peregrine falcon?

Afterwards we went for ice cream, then home to shower for the retirement dinner.

Congratulations Rick!

On Tuesday, July 11th, My Father in Law Rick had his IBM retirement dinner at Reata Restaurant in Fort Worth.

It's this really high class restaurant that serves western/ Texas style "wagon train" food. I had buffalo, and it was FAN-TASTIC. They also make this chocolate bread pudding in a tamale served with carmel ice cream. Doesn't sound all that great, but it was really amazing. We also had this appetizer called "Calf Fries". The waiter described it as this, "there's the sirloin, and the tenderloin... well, this is the LOIN, loin... if you catch my drift."

The two lovely ladies in the center are Rick's boss and supervisor.

Fort Worth Water Gardens and Billy Bob's

Fort Worth has this really amazing park with 5 or 6 different architectural water features. The last time we were in Texas, in 2005, several tourists had just died here, and it had been closed until just a few weeks before we arrived this trip. People are not suppose to actually get into the water, but they had to make a lot of changes so that when people did get in, they would not drowned.

Noah was at cub scout day camp with his cousin, so you won't see him in any pictures.





The water use to run all the way round this bowl shaped water fall. It was really cool to walk down into the center had the water rushing all around you. Now it only comes down on one side.





This next area is down below street level. Water runs down all the walls in a courtyard full of trees and a large shallow pool. It's my favorite spot.



After we left the water gardens we grabbed some lunch and then headed over to Billy Bob's Texas. Billy Bob's is the worlds largest honky tonk bar in the world. It use to actually be livestock stockyards. Then during WWII they manufactured airplane stuff there. Later it was turned into a department store, and then it became Billy Bobs. The interior of the building is about 3 acres, and has a capacity of 6,028 people at any one time.

We went at about 2:00 in the afternoon so it was really empty and a pretty safe environment for the kids. The bars were open, but we didn't see anyone ordering or drinking. We'll probably wait until the kids are grown up to tell them we took them to a bar.


Firs we went to the indoor bull riding arena. There were no bulls but the kids really liked seeing it anyway.

Then we headed down to the dance floor. The kids had a blast on the cool air conditioned dance floor after being out in the heat for so long.

Notice the famous sequined saddle disco light. Every inch of this real saddle is covered with tiny mirrors and it rotates above the dance floor like a disco ball.

Gotta love Billy Bob's.