Honky Tonking It!

Hello friends!
We just got back from Ft. Worth. We headed to Kincaid's. The most awesome hamburger place ever .We all smell pretty smokey, because we just got back from the largest honky tonk in the world, Billy Bob's! If you've ever seen the movie Urban Cowboy, it reminds me of that place so much! That's my favorite movie of all time!! And yes, we even took Anderson. Actually there were lots of kids and families there(during the daytime). This better be the last time Anderson is in a bar for a long time!!:)
Billy Bob's is located at the Ft. Worth Stockyards.
We saw all kinds of shops carrying western wear near the Stockyards. I thought about going in and getting an outfit for Adam and me, so we could look like this. ;)Anderson, Adam, Mom and me all danced on the dance floor. Anderson and I were two stepping!

They played our favorite song...click here and we added some words Roll Tide Roll. And we danced so much and did so many spins until we were dizzy!
They taped the movie Rhinestone Cowboy at Billy Bob's. The disco ball on the dance floor is a rhinestone horse saddle from the movie!

They even have a rodeo arena for Friday and Saturday nights. It's $2.50 to get in!
Hope you are having a great Saturday too!

RFC

Hello friends!

Mom is still here! We are loving spending time with her! She and Anderson and I headed to the mall and to Rainforest Cafe yesterday. This has ALWAYS been one of Anderson's favorite places to eat, because of the animals. Uh...not so much this time. When we got there, we walked right in and were seated facing towards this guy.Anderson really was loving the animals and mom and I were excited to have taken him there. All of a sudden, the gorillas start to move and make...well gorilla noises. Anderson FREAKED OUT and starts saying "no, you're not" and practically climbs up me. I tried to settle him down, but he was so scared by that time, I couldn't calm him down.

We ended up eating our lunch outside the restaurant on the bench! Which was just fine with Anderson!

I managed to get him to sit down so I could take his picture with the tree frog, but he kept looking around, just making sure no gorillas were going to attack us!We had been telling A that he was going to get to ride on the carousel. And darn it, if it wasn't "under repair" when we got to it.

He settled for this instead.Boy am I glad he's 2 and thinks this is just as cool as the carousel!

We've really been enjoying mom being here. Adam and I went on a date to the movie last night.We went to see Inception. You really have to be totally paying attention the WHOLE time, but an AWESOME movie!! The best I've seen in a long time.

Mom's Here!

Hello friends!

I'm sorry, I've been missing in action, but my momma is here! Anderson and I picked her up from the airport on Monday! A was so excited to see her!

We haven't been doing too much, just all hanging out together. Which is the best by the way. :) There is just something cool about having your mom with you. She's a good help to me and she's has always been a great validator. I don't think I used that word correctly in the sentence, but you get the idea, she makes me feel like I'm a great mom!
Today, we asked Anderson did he want to go to the zoo in Ft. Worth or Cabela's. He picked Cabela's!! He has no idea, that the animals aren't alive.
Which brings me to this...

Seriously, is this legal? Hunting elephants and taxiderming them? Cause I'm kinda thinkin' there is some law against it, but we don't have wild elephants running around, so how would I know anyway?
I kinda get a little creeped out when I see taxidermed things. My cousin bought a taximermed dog in an estate sale...and he was the ladies' pet at one time. People are just kinda odd sometimes.

We are heading out to Grapevine Mills tomorrow to do a little shopping and eat at Rainforest Cafe(for Anderson, of course) cause the food isn't that fabulous. He just loves to check out the animals.

See you soon!

A traditional Mexican dinner

Hello friends!
Last night, our neighbors across the street invited us to dinner. They are Mexican. Clemente the husband was born in Mexico, but his wife Clara was born in California. I usually LOVE Mexican food, but I was a little worried that this traditional Mexican dinner would not be...to my liking.
When we got there, Clara was making tacos. I asked her, "what kind of meat are you using". She looked at me crazy and said " I don't use meat, I used potatoes". Hmmmm, I thought. She used corn tortillas and boiled the potatoes and then smashed them up. She fried the tortillas in olive oil until they were brown on both sides.
Ya'll OH MY GOODNESS!! The potato tacos were SO GOOD! I have no idea, what I was worried about. Adam and I both ate 4!!

Clemente made the salsa, from tomatoes and green chili peppers. It was delicious too!

This is Samantha their middle daughter, she was pouring the kool-aid, she and her older sister had made. They were so proud of it!! Anderson sat down with Becca their youngest daughter for just a minute and ate a quick few bites.
He and Becca had more important things to do...like playing horses. ;)
It was very neat experience to us. I have grown up in Alabama and lived there all my life, until now. We truly loved our dinner and company last night!

16 days until...

Hello friends!

Do you know it's only 16 days until Alabama's first football game of the year? Come on September 4th!

ROLL TIDE!!!!!

Anderson wanted to give you a message

I got these precious shoes for Anderson last year and I will be ordering them this year too. They are squeaky shoes, but you can take the squeaker out for older kids. He wore them every game, and we were National Champions! Get your UA shoes here.

Does anybody know where I can find a cute boys smocked Alabama short john john? A website would really help. You know how I am about smocked clothes!!

A birthday dinner

Hello friends!

Our sweet friend/neighbor across the street, Casey, had her birthday yesterday. We went to Olive Garden to celebrate with her and her family. She is a great friend. She makes me feel like my family isn't 12 hours away.

Anderson just LOVES her kids Castin and Jaycie!Today, we haven't done anything except go to Goodwill to get books. When you have a little boy who prefers books over toys, it's awesome to go there to get 75 cent books!

Only 6 days until Momma will be here! I'm trying to think of fun things to do in this heat. Well...actually inside things to do...hmmm.....

Monday Monday

Hello friends!

Anderson had to get his ear rechecked this morning by the ENT. He had to do a follow up hearing test after his tubes had been put in. He did great, much better than the first time!And, he has been cleared to go swimming again, but with ear plugs in. Oh good, cause that's not gonna be a fight or anything. :)

Would you believe that I have NO pictures from Friday night when we cooked out with our neighbors? It was a lot of fun and Anderson had a great time. In fact, at one point when I checked on him, he was jumping on his bed as high as he could go!! He didn't go to sleep until 11p.m that night...he was so hyper!

And yesterday our car air-conditioner went out and that's been pretty fun, especially in the 105 degrees temperatures! Ugh...getting that fixed tomorrow, with a hefty price tag, I might add.

A has been playing by himself lately. This has just started. I can hear him talking to himself and it just delights me! His favorite is putting all of his animal puzzle pieces into the laundry basket and then getting in there too with the blanket.
My Momma is coming to stay in one week! Hooray!

Surprise from Nunna!

Hello friends!
Anderson and I got a nice surprise yesterday from the mailman. Nunna(my mom) had sent a huge care package to us. That's one of the perks about living 12 hours from your family in Alabama. I have mentioned that I really love getting real mail, other than bills. We were excited when we saw what was inside!!!A purse for me! Yep...my momma knows what I like :)Puzzles for Anderson,with animals of course
Adam got a couple of Alabama shirts....ROLL TIDE!!! These are impossible to find out here in Longhorn country...ugh.

Wet dog food for the Annabelle and Gus. We make them eat just dry dog food and so they love it, when they go to their Nunna's house and get something besides dry food.

Mom also got these cute shirts for Anderson and they all have shorts that match. If you like them and you're in Dothan. You can find them at the store Yard Youngans on Main Street. Caroline Henderson has a new section on the side of the consignment store, where she appliques and monograms.
I've gotta run clean.We are cooking out tonight with some of our neighbors. Hope you have a great weekend!

Thursday!

Hello friends! Following up from yesterday(a good teacher always reviews what you did the day before) my question to you was who opened the first library in the U.S. and my friend Laura got it. It's Benjamin Franklin! P.S. She's also a history teacher too, like I was...so don't feel bad if you didn't get it.

We got up this morning and I decided to make Anderson some grits and bacon. When I was little, I would beg my momma and Mimi(my step-mom) for grits...starting as early as 5a.m.! A LOVED the grits and bacon and ate three plate fulls of grits!! Can you believe that some people have never heard of grits?!! When we went to NYC, my aunt couldn't believe that we ate them.She thought they looked so gross, but oh... they are so stinkin' good! ;)

I am so sick of this heat. I was ready for it to get warm, but now it's too warm...103 today with the heat index it feels like 108! ugh.... I'm really ready to dress like this...again. Oh well. I'm sure come this winter, I'll be wishing for warmer temps again...and so it goes :)Since, we can't swim until A sees the doctor again for his tubes, we went to the mall and played a bit and rode the carousel. Fun, fun! Anderson always wants to know everybody's name. Any animals he sees, he says "name"? And we name them, whatever name we can think of. If you don't name them, he keeps saying "name, name, name" until he drives you crazy and you give in. My mom always tells me not to name people if we don't know them. Today, when we were riding on the carousel, a little girl was waving to A. He wanted to know her name. I told him it was Jessica. As soon as we get off the ride, he makes a bee-line for the girl and says "hey Jessica"...I was so embarrassed!!! We had to find out her real name....OOOPS!

I'm so awful at printing out pictures from our digital camera. But I found this site and you get 40 free prints and 6 cents prints with no limits. Check it out here.

Story Time...Scmory Time

Hello friends!I really don't know we are ever going to get Anderson to sit still in kindergarten. We tried story time again today and it was a FAILED attempt. Although pretty funny, but I'm pretty sure I'm the ONLY one who thought that ;) They were reading some story about a monkey and it was completely too old for him(the literature) and the brought out these stuffed monkey. Anderson said "monkey, hold him"? And I said "no bud" then he said "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" kinda loud-ish! Who am I kidding super loud-ish! I escorted him out to the bench in the hall and the whole time we are walking out, he saying "momma, I sorry" then I felt terrible, like these people probably think I beat him. I can count the times that I have spanked him on one hand.
We invited our friends/neighbors Casey and her kids and Clara and her kiddos. After story time, we hung out in the library for an hour and a half. It's amazing, how much fun you can have in a library for free! (Casey and Anderson reading;) The kids had fun and so did us girls!

And cause I'm feeling kinda teacher-y today, here's some homework for you or maybe you already know. Who started the first library in the U.S.?? Do you know??