February

February (2012) started and ended with me being sick.  I have never had such a bad and continuous cold!!!  The first weekend was my Mom's birthday.  My brother came down from Oklahoma with his family, including his grandson.  We all went to Babe's and I attended, in spite of being sick, but tried to stay away from the baby.  It was really, really hard, though, because he is so darn cute!!!

I thought I was just about over my cold when I walked in to a fellow-manager's office to say goodbye before I left on vacation and I started coughing.  Sigh...  Oh well...  We went on vacation anyway, and that adventure is coming up next!

Isn't it great how I just randomly make posts 4 months after the last one and over a year behind???

Grand Canyon

We were good out of the gate, but we quickly lost momentum until it finally dwindled down to nothing.  So, on February 1st, I called and rescheduled our trip to the Grand Canyon for February 2013.  Sadly, we are 3 months out from our RESCHEDULED trip and we haven't done much better.  I'm still hopeful, but must admit, at this time last year I was still hopeful, too.  Wish us luck!!! 

January

January was another bittersweet month for us.  The dawning of a new year is always exciting and promising.  I actually started the year out cooking - probably the most shocking thing I'll ever type.  LOL!!!  I saw a recipe on Live with Regis and Kelly that I thought Joe would like - pork cooked in Guinness Beer.  It turned out to be really good, but for the record, I haven't made it again.  Maybe I should put that on my to-do list.  Hahaha!!  My mom made some apple dumplings for us and I managed to cook those and buy ice cream to go with them!  They were quite delicious so I'm hoping for another good apple season this year.

We tried out a new restaurant with my parents - The Italian Inn - in Fort Worth.  I had heard about this place for years, but it turned out to be a bit of a bust to us.  We got to sit in one of the booths (they're completely private), but we didn't think the food was very good at all.

January also brought the first time Paul wouldn't be here for his birthday.  Joe and I decided to go see a movie that day, but I picked a horrible one - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  I didn't really know what it was about - I just knew it had Tom Hanks in it and we both love Tom Hanks.  However, the movie turned out to be about a boy whose dad was killed on 9/11.  He finds a key and is convinced that his dad purposely left it for him to have an adventure.  So....not the perfect movie for the day.  The weekend after his birthday, we traveled to Illinois for a mass in honor of those who had passed away at St. Joseph's Medical Center in October through December.  We thought it would be nice to take Barb to see a movie, so we went to see The Descendents.  Yes, another movie that we had no idea what it was really about - but, it had George Clooney in it.  How bad could it be?  Well....the movie is about a man whose wife is in a boat accident and he is trying to decide whether or not to pull the plug.  In the meantime, he finds out that she has had an affair and tries to find out whether or not she was in love with the man she was involved with.  A good movie, but again, not the perfect movie for the day.  One more strike and we would clearly have been out!!!

And so there were some fun times and some sad times.  Much like life itself, I suppose.

Illinois for Christmas

On December 23rd, we flew to Illinois to spend the Christmas holidays with Joe's family.  It was a bittersweet journey - exciting to spend time with family, but sad because it was the first Christmas without Paul.

We were able to see almost everyone while we were there.  I was a little surprised that we didn't have one, big family get together (not intended as criticism, just surprise).  On Christmas Eve, Nick and Mary came to Barb's with Sam and Emily.  On Christmas Day, Mike and Amy came over with Lilly.  And on the 26th, Matt brought Tristan, Alaina, and Jordan down to visit.  Joe's Aunt Barb made us breakfast one day and we went down and spent time with her and Uncle Keith, Christi, Travis, and their 3 boys - Cameron, Carson, and Caden.  We even met Al in Gardner for pizza one night.

On Thursday, we took Barb and ventured down to Springfield for a day all about Lincoln.  We started out with breakfast at Charlie Parker's Diner.  Then we headed over to the Lincoln Home for a tour.  The home is where the Lincoln's lived when "Honest Abe" was a lawyer in Springfield.

After seeing where Lincoln lived, we visited his final resting place.  The Lincoln Tomb is in Oak Ridge Cemetery.  Beside the President, his wife, Mary Todd and 3 of their sons are buried there.  Their only son who lived to adulthood is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.  Joe and I saw his grave several years ago when we stopped in DC on our way to Ireland.  The tomb is also filled with statues of Lincoln through the years and has a replica of the Daniel Chester French statue from the Lincoln Memorial as well as a sculpture by Gutzon Borglum who is most famous for his rendition of Lincoln on Mount Rushmore.

Our final stop on the Lincoln Parade was the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.  We got there only an hour before closing, so we didn't get to see the whole thing.  It was really great, though.  I would love to go back and have a re-do.  It's just so well done and interesting.

Joe with the Lincoln Family

We finished our week in Illinois with dinner at Hooter's.  It was a sad farewell.  I supposed as time passes, it will get easier, but we will always miss Paul.  The first Christmas without him was heartbreaking, but we made it through and managed to have some fun, too.

December

And so December passed without much fanfare.  I had a couple of vacation days to burn so I took a couple of Fridays off and did some Christmas shopping.  Even though we made plans to go to Illinois for Christmas, we decided to ship our gifts north instead of trying to pack them in our suitcases, so we managed to get that done on the weekend of the 17th. 

Other than Christmas shopping and shipping, we caught up on the "Twilight" movies.  My nephew, Joshua, loaned us the 3 movies that, at the time, were out on DVD.  Then, I went to see the 4th movie with my friend, Debbie.  They were good, but I guess I missed what all the hubbub was about.  I guess I'm either old, or I expected too much.  Still, it was a dedication of time to get in the know on the vampire movies!!!  I later read the 1st book.  It was also good - and followed the movie pretty closely - but, I guess since I already knew what was going to happen, I didn't love it like most people either.  The last installment comes out this month.  Debbie has already asked me to see it with her.  Meanwhile, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison broke up after she cheated on him, so now I'll have that running through my head as I watch them play Edward and Bella.  LOL!!!

One other thing we did was babysit my friend, Amy's twin boys, Grayson and Bryson.  They are so darn cute and are always good when we sit for them.  Here they are:

They - oh so badly - wanted to play with that Christmas tree!!!

Up next - our trip to Illinois for Christmas!

Bankruptcy

So, after our road trip down south, we returned to work on Monday morning (bright and early, I'm sure!).  It must have been uneventful because I have no recollection of it.  However, Tuesday morning was quite memorable!!!  I was in the shower and Joe comes bursting in to the bathroom yelling, "Did you know we were filing for bankruptcy today?!?"  Well, no, as a matter of fact, I did not know that!!!

On November 29, 2011, AA threw in the towel and filed for bankruptcy.  I can't say I was surprised it happened, but I was admittedly surprised at the timing.  With almost a year under the belt, I can say that it's been harder than I ever imagined to go through this, that is, being the employee of a company in Chapter 11.  The good news is that Joe and I both made it through the "management reorganization" with jobs intact.  The next hurdle is a potential merger with US Airways.  We'll see what happens.  I can honestly say that I do have faith in the future of the company.  The hard part is just knowing that the priority is not me. 

Houston & Galveston

Well, it isn't that I've finished reading my stacks of books or my stacks of magazines, but since I'm approaching a year behind, I thought I would take some time to catch up my blog.

Last year on Thanksgiving weekend, Joe and I decided to take a road trip to "break-in" the new car.  We had our traditional Thanksgiving dinner with Mom & Dad in Ponder, then we headed south to Houston.  Bad weather was in the forecast and we didn't want to take a chance on flights.  Plus, there are quite a few things in and around Houston that we hadn't seen.  So with our bellies full, we headed south on I-45.

Our first stop was scheduled to be the Battleship Texas, so we drove all the way to a Holiday Inn Express in La Porte.  I think we were two of about five people staying there that night.  It was actually kind of funny.  The next morning we got up and there wasn't much breakfast, but that was okay, we understood.  I filled a bowl with Frosted Flakes and poured the milk on.  I took a bite and I thought something didn't taste quite right, but I took another bite.  About that time, Joe is spewing milk back in his bowl and exclaiming, "THE MILK IS SOUR!  THE MILK IS SOUR! DON'T DRINK THE MILK!!!!!"  Oops.  I guess that's the disadvantage of not liking milk that much.  Fortunately, it never made me sick that I had a couple of bites of sour milk. 

With a little breakfast, we headed back towards Houston to the Battleship Texas.  The USS Texas was commissioned on March 12, 1914.  According to the Texas Parks & Wildlife website, "she was the most powerful weapon in the world..."  She served in both World Wars and never suffered a fatality.  We climbed up and around and through the Battleship.  It was quite interesting!!

 

From the Battleship, we headed across the street to get a little more information on Texas history at the San Jacinto Monument. The monument marks the site of the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive battle in the Texas Revolution.  Inscriptions on the monument tell the story of the "birth of Texas."  We rode the elevator to the top and looked out over the actual battlefield and could also see downtown Houston.

From La Porte, we decided it was time for lunch so we headed to a barbecue place that I had read about in Texas Highways several times - Goode Company.  The sauce tasted more like spaghetti sauce to me and I didn't care for it.  But it was sustenance and after lunch, we continued on our tour of Houston, stopping at some whacky houses.  The most notable, The Beer Can House, but also Pigdom and The Orange Show.

We wrapped up Day 1 at Moody Gardens in Galveston.  We visited the aquarium and the Christmas light show.  Not to sound "snooty" but I guess once you've been to some of the best aquariums in the country, Moody Gardens doesn't really measure up.  The light show was kind of fun and it gave us something to do.  After our visit, we headed to Seawall Boulevard for dinner.

The next day, we went to the Johnson Space Center.  We have been to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, so we thought it would be fun to visit Johnson as well.  Johnson Space Center was a little like a theme park with a space theme.  We took the 2 tram tours as soon as we got there because there was weather moving in.  The tram tours take you to Mission Control, the Training Center, and the Rocket Garden where you can also visit the Saturn V Rocket.  The big rocket is housed in a building to protect it from the elements.  It was huge!!!  After the tram ride, we explored the rest of the space center, while it stormed outside!

Our final stop before heading north was back to Galveston Island to see the tree sculptures.  After Hurricane Ike destroyed many of the city's trees, artists decided to make something beautiful out of what nature tried to destroy.  It was getting dark towards the end of our tour, but they were really interesting and fun!  Here's my favorite:

We would make a couple of stops on our way home.  The first was the Big Thicket National Preserve.  It was a beautiful day, so we decided to take in the Kirby Nature Trail - an easy walk close to the visitor center.  It was fun, but we left a lot of the Big Thicket unexeplored and will surely need a re-do.  

Finally, we stopped in Hemphill, Texas at the Patricia Huffman Smith Museum remembering Columbia.  When the space shuttle, Columbia, disintegrated upon re-entry, a lot of the debris was recovered in East Texas.  This museum tells the story of the town and its citizens and how everyone pulled together to join or assist in the recovery effort.  

Unfortunately, from there, we had to head home and back to work on Monday, but we enjoyed our weekend road trip.  I'm sure it won't be our last!