Today is 1 week before our daughter and her husband (we call him SIL for son-in-law) comes to visit us before boarding a plane and heading to their new home in Phoenix, via California. SIL’s job is taking them to this new adventure, away from Texas for the first time. Our new baby boy (7th grandchild) will not be born a Texas unless he rebels and comes early before the moving van gets there. So we are getting excited about not only getting to see them, but getting to love on them and pamper them in the good ole southern way. Randy has already warned me  that I cannot cook like I want because they will be here only 3 days, so I am having to think about that and cook only enough to be eaten, as Randy does not eat left overs and I will be leaving with the kids to help them unpack since Jodi is 8 mo pg. This is just what I love. Having our kids here and getting to cook for them. The menu is already planned and so today I began to clean. 

Found some pictures that had not been hung up behind clothes that were in a closet. So that made me rearrange some things, which is right up my alley. The sun is shinning today and I am also going to Houston’s with a friend for lunch to have Key Lime Pie, which I have written about before,my favorite Key Lime Pie….no one makes it like Houston’s. 

So back to cooking! Jodi has requested Smothered steak with scalloped potatoes and chocolate cream pie. Eric will want a fried chicken dinner with mashed potatoes and of course, they both will drool over the Heavenly Hots for breakfast with fresh blueberries. Jaden and FIL (which will be Randy’s name for the week when they are here, stands for….you guessed it, father-in-law and yes, I am called MIL for….mother-in-law) will be taking us downtown Pasadena to their favorite ice cream parlor, 21 Choices which we went to every night when Jaden came in the summer. So next week will be so much fun, getting to show them around our home town and cooking and visiting. It will be fun to make some new memories with them here, as we don’t have any memories with them yet in our new home. So now, the adventure is on, not only for them, but for us, as we watch them enter a new season of their lives and settle into their new home. What a special week it will be. I hope Jodi found out if there was a Whataburger in Phoenix before they actually move in…that might change the whole picture if not. I honestly don’t think she could live anywhere there was not a Whataburger.   I thought the same thing about living where there was no fried okra or Sister Schubert rolls, but I am alive and well and enjoying so many things here that I didn’t have back in Texas. Jodi and Eric, Jaden and Caleb, when the door closes on the plane, sit back, relax, get out that last Whataburger you have stuffed in your carry-on and get ready for a whole new life. You have allowed God to direct your paths and taking this new position, now get ready to see what all He is going to do in your lives and be excited for the new blessings that will follow…God will be faithful to fulfill His purpose in your lives. We love you all, MIL and SIL

Well, we were up and ready to head out this morning. Randy was feeling good after having gone back to work after his surgery this past week and life was good. We were excited to be having a “normal” Saturday in front of us as we headed out to storage to take some winter items and bring out new spring bedspreads, etc. We left storage feeling good that the storage unit did look like maybe there were getting less and less boxes to have to go through each season. Maybe the prior visits of us going through and refining really was working. Well, we load up our car, you know the one, the new one with the navigation system which, by the way, I have totally mastered.

We have arrived at Wal Mart and am just visiting and talking about how fast Randy’s head is healing after the surgery and how fast his hair is growing back when we get out of the car and begin to walk into the store. Randy begins to nudge me and point with his head toward a lady walking into the store. We cannot believe what we are seeing. She is actually plucking hair from under her arms. Yes, you read me correctly, she is plucking hair from under her arms. Now, maybe this doesn’t seem like a big deal to you, but this little southern girl, who was taught never to ever even think about wearing short sleeves, white shoes or linen before Easter, is now watching a lady, not only wearing short sleeves, but is “plucking”? hair from under her arms. I instantly called 711 for the Fashion Police, but I was told that they don’t go on calls to WalMart, so I would just have to look the other way and take a chill pill. Ok….we were now in the store and we bought all the items, plus more, that we came for. We head to the car and are so excited that we know that loading all these items, which does include a new toaster oven, will now be so easy, as we now have a hatch back which opens by itself when I press a button under the dashboard. I leave Randy behind the car, waiting for me to go unlock the car, where I proceed to push the open button for the hatch back. Unbeknownst to me, Randy had already pushed it with his key chain and by the time I head to the back of the car, all I see are Randy’s legs sticking out from the back of our SUV, yelling at me to push the button to open the hatch door. When I pushed it, because he had already had it opened, it closed on him, as he had crawled up inside  to push our storage items so he could now load $200 worth of groceries.

Just seeing his legs sticking out from under the “hatch door” ,well, let’s just say, that I should have used better judgement. I couldn’t quit laughing. Now I know that he did just have surgery and I should be a little more sensitive, but seeing this picture now in my mind ,it will be a memory we won’t soon forget. As soon as his legs get over being sore from where the door closed on them, I’m sure he will see the humorous side to this story. Something happened on the way home that took his mind off his sore legs. Upon looking in the mirror on the sun visor, he discovered that his hair is growing back a different color and in different directions. We got so tickled about it growing in a little crooked, that he decided that he needs to hold his head lopsided hoping that that will make his hair grow back in correctly. So, if you see us in a restaurant or at church and he is walking with his head to the side and his knees are bent sideways, you won’t have to ask what happened.  you will already know the rest of the story.

As most of you know, my sweet husband has had to be in the hospital a couple of days last week and then today for some follow-up procedures. We are so grateful to family and friends who have sent us cards, emails, phone calls and prayed for us. Thank you for your love and caring of us. We truly realized how blessed and loved we are.

Knowing that we were in for another day of being in the hospital today, we both decided to go have a last great mexican food meal last night before being subjected to hospital food today, so off we go to Mijeras for enchiladas. Now, normally this would give us the little bit of sunshine that we needed to send us off to a dreaded situation, but last night, well, it was just too much and too loud. As we tried to order our meal, we had to repeat what we wanted three times to the waiter because the mariaches were walking around playing, are you ready for this? “It’s A Small World After All” the only way a mariache band can play, LOUD! It was just awful. We left as fast as we could, but not soon enough. Trying to go to sleep early knowing that we had to get up at 4:30 to head to the hospital, we both ended up sitting up in bed humming “It’s A Small World After all” and sleeping in our Disney T-shirts. We decided that we were going to be finding a new mexican restaurant. When I went to Ebay and ordered Micky Ears, Randy knew it was time to change restaurants. After our evening of eating Mexican food all the while humming you know what, we just could not let several issues go by without commenting on them. Last week when Randy was being prepped for surgery, they have us in “pre-op” and the questions that they ask are just unbelievable. Neither of us have been in the hospital in years (it’s been 35 yrs for me and about 20 for him), so we didn’t have a clue how things were done now. When we looked over at the table at the “folder” that they had for Randy (this was only going to be an overnight stay), it was about 3″ thick. We kept wondering what in the world was in that booklet and my goodness, how thick would it be if he was going to be in for a week or so? But while we were waiting for the nurse to come to us, we could not help but hear the patient in the next bed, with only a curtain between us, answer his questions. We learned in a few short minutes, if he smoked, how much he drank, the drugs (both illegal and legal he took, what type of surgery he would be having, and the clincher, when was his last bowl movement. Now I don’t know about you, but there are a few things that should just remain a little private and that is one of them. We kept looking at each other as they proceeded to ask more and more questions and we began to giggle, thinking of how we use to laugh when our parents, as they aged, would feel that they had to tell you if they had a good BM. The nurse ended up sticking her head around the corner and telling us we were having too much fun. We knew that was her way of telling us to quiet down a little or we would be next to be playing 50 questions. Next, because the other patient next to us was having open heart surgery, we listened as they shaved his body. Randy begins to laugh because the amount of time it was taking them to shave him told us that he must have had enough hair to make a rug…but needless to say, we were just glad that our nurse had told us that Randy  would only have to shave a part of his head where they would make the incision. Whew…….OK, now it’s our turn, here she comes, around the mountain…oops, I mean the curtain……now we are playing the question game and he was getting prepared to have to list how many showers he had last week, how many   times he has been in the hospital when we remember, “didn’t we answer all these same questions when we came to register last week?” “why are we having to answer all the same questions all over again. What was the purpose of the Pre-registration?” By the way, the nurse lied….they shaved his whole head!

Then one of the numerous Dr’s comes to talk with us about signing a waiver in case he has to be given blood during the surgery. He explains that it is almost never necessary, but if he did, his chances of getting HIV or ADHD, or LTIC or PMAS, etc…was only 1 in a million….but wait, we heard a different dr tell the man next door “HIS” chances of contracting any or all of the above was only one in two million. We wanted the other guys odds…why couldn’t we get his odds….so we negotiated and settled for one in one and a half in a million. The medical mediator worked that out for us, no cost, we were told.

So now we are ready for them to whisk him off to surgery but he decides that maybe he needs to make one more little pit stop before they knock him out, so he climbs out of the roll away stretcher, which, by the way does roll away if the brakes are not on, but that is for another story…and we find out, with about 3 nurses looking on that those cute little “one size fits all” gowns are really not “one size fits all”….I start to laugh and since Randy knows what I am laughing at, he starts to laugh and we get so tickled that they decide that they are going to separate us, so I am sent to the waiting room.

Well, today, we are back in the same exact room, same bed and same nurse, same Dr, hopefully, different sheets, and look and lo and behold there is the infamous red binder, but now instead of 3″ it is about 6” and the questions begin all over again. I suggested that they look at the answers we gave last Fri, but Nancy Nurse didn’t like that suggestion so I see her pull a sheet out of the back of the binder that has even more questions. Guess I should have kept my mouth shut. Randy glares at me. But, they now know our most intimate details and could blackmail us in an instant. I get run out of the room again but not before we get Dr. Liu telling us Randy’s odds again are one in a million…..so I’m off to go find the medical mediator to get his odds up to at least 1.5  million…..as we get older and more surgeries, I think we’re going to need that extra 1/2 million…..

This weekend we decided to take a day trip in our new car. We wanted to adventure to someplace we had never been and also to give us time to “learn” our pretty little car that I have already affectionately named, “Callie” since we bought her in California! So we wake up early, bake some Trader Joe blueberry scones and set out on our first road trip in our new “wheels”….we are both excited to learn about the navigation system which we have never had before and I tell Randy that we have got to come up with just the right name for her, (yes, “her” if it’s a girl car, then the navigation has got to be a her also)…so with great excitement we back out of the garage with the owner’s manual in my lap and a Dr Pepper in my cup holder, just knowing that this is going to be a most exciting day.

We read the manual and insert the town we are headed toward, Solvang, a dutch little community about 130 miles north of LA and already think to ourselves, that was just so easy….this Navigation thing is the best and easiest thing since disposable diapers (yes, for our kids, no, we aren’t in Depends yet)…..so we are headed out, listening to that sweet, nice little voice telling us which way to turn on which highway, when all of a sudden we decide that it would be a great idea to stop at a Starbucks to get a Mocha latte to wash down the scones, so we decide to take a side trip in Santa Barbara looking for a Starbucks. It has taken us about an 1 1/2 hrs to reach Santa Barbara, all the while throwing out names for Navi and finally deciding on Nelli Navi as that just sounded perfect…so now Nelli has been thrown for a loop in the fact that we altered out route……she keeps telling us to “make a u-turn at the next available intersection” but we don’t want to make a u turn…we want to find a Starbucks. So we decide that we can put up with her repeated instructions, after all, she did have our best interests at heart, trying to be sure we get to our destination and we had not yet learned how to turn Nelli off, so we laugh and just ignore her and stop at Starbucks and enjoy our scone and latte.

We now head north towards Solvang and yes, we allow Nelli to get us back on track and we end up at Anderson’s Pea Soup restaurant where Randy downs two huge bowls of Pea Soup….actually I am gagging just thinking about it, but that was one thing he had on his bucket list. Eating at this famous landmark which has been serving Pea soup since 1924…so we check that off our lists and head back to Solvang. We have now turned up the volumn to the CD’s we are playing to  drown out Nelli as she insists that we take the next exit to our “intended destination” that I guess we are not suppose to ever change or take any side stops. Nelli is getting a little obnoxious…..

We find the center of Solvang and are just so excited to be in a town that already is showing us that apparently you are suppose to eat your way through, as it is hard to find anyone walking around that doesn’t have food in their hands…so we are excited now…we park Calli and say goodbye to Nelli for a few hours and begin to go in and out of stores that are packed with salt and pepper shakers of every shape and size……literally, every shape and size. If you are ever in need of salt and pepper shakers, Solvang is the place to go…..plus lace doilies…..I didn’t even know you could buy a lace tablecloth with a picture of your favorite animal right smack in the middle of the lace….Facinating, really, but not quite our style. So instead of buying lace doilies or salt and pepper shakers we decide to just sit awhile and people watch and snack on these cute little pastries that has raspberry sauce and powdered sugar poured over them…Yum…..well, we have now seen as many salt and pepper shakers that we would ever want to see and decide that maybe we will just head home but take a different route, maybe along Highway 1 which takes you right by the water. So we excitedly turn the car on and Randy says, “here let me edit our route home to go down Highway 1” OK, Mr. Smartie Pants, go right ahead and see if you can talk Nelli into taking us a different route…well, Mr. SP couldn’t quite figure out how to edit our original destination, which was Solvang, so for 2 hours, we listen to a now, quite obnoxious and tiresome voice telling us ever few minutes to “turn around at next available intersection.”  We both would try clicking the “off” button thinking that would turn Nelli off, but no such luck….Who installed these stupid navigation systems anyhow? We don’t need her to tell us where to go…..we are hating “Nelli” by now and wishing we wouldn’t have opted for the Premium Package with the Wonderful Navigation System. We were now listening to the CD so loudly that the guys at the stop lights with the boom boxes in their low riders were giving us the thumbs up sign……We couldn’t take it anymore, even though we had eaten our fill of danish pastry and pea soup, we stopped to eat dinner just to have some peace and quiet…..Ah! the sounds of a restaurant were soothing to our ears…..but we have to go, the restaurant is closing, so we decide to make a concentrated effort…together, one for all and all for one…..we can, we must , figure out how to turn this stupid system off and let us go where we want to go without Nelli telling us otherwise…..we once again get the book out and reading it from just the over head light, (it is now 8:30 pm) we decide that we won’t leave the parking lot until we figure out how to turn this awful invention off, never again imputing a destination in….so WE finally (actually I did, but since he is paying for the car, I will give him the credit) learn how to turn that horrible little voice off……

Well,the last 30 minutes of our first day trip in our new car, was ridden in total silence……it was wonderful, no music, no Nelli Navigation trying to tell us where she thought we should be going, just the sound of the flash light turning on to look at the map to see which road we should be on….I’ve had some time to think now, it’s amazing how easy it is to think when you have quietness in the car, no smart alex Navigation screaming at you. Maybe those salt and pepper shakers would make some nice Christmas presents. We might just need to go back there to stock up on frog shakers or poodle shakers, or shakers in the shape of California or shakers in the shapes of Marilyn Monroe or Ted Kennedy……but if we do go back, we are going without Nellie, she can rest her voice and be ready for our next day trip to San Diego! Maybe by then, she will have learned her lesson that we now now how to turn her off and if she doesn’t go our way, we won’t go hers!

I know, I know, a couple of days ago, I said that I was going to go green at least on the blog home page, but I just couldn’t do it. Everytime I looked at the stark green page, all I could think about was how it just didn’t look like my blog, so came back to the chocolate themed look. Made me want to cook more than the green. Sorry guys, guess I’m more into chocolate than “going green”. But I promise I will try harder to recycle and turn the lights out when leaving the kitchen.

Most of the visitors to my blog are probably from Texas and I wanted to share something that you will be enjoying very soon, if you have not already. I hear from friends in Dallas that they are putting a Trader Joes at Park and Preston with two more stores located on Greenville and Ft Worth. If you have never experienced one of these stores, can I just tell you that you are in for a wonderful surprise! I have learned to appreciate the store for what it is and that is this: it is a small store that is so reasonable on prices and has a great collection of foods from all over the world. They are truly top notch and every thing that we have tried from there has been very good. They have lots of prepared frozen foods, which are really great and I have already served many of these new dishes for get togethers here at the house, which is rare for me to do. I usually home make what I serve, but the foods that I have had rave reviews are these:

The Gingerbread mix, which is seasonal, so you will have to wait until the holidays next year to probably find this.

Trader Joe  Jo-Joe’s, which is an oreo cookie with a peppermint filling. I bought these and got addicted to them immediately.Next year when they come back to the store I am going to make a cake with these delightful little gems with them chopped up in the batter and then the pink peppermint crumbs sprinkled on top.  This year, I dipped this cookie in melted chocolate just to give it an extra punch of chocolate. Their chocolate hazelnut biscotti is awesome!

Their line of frozen entrees are truly as good as what you would find in resturants.

I hope I have encouraged you to try them as soon as they open there in Dallas. You will not be sorry. See, California has sent you In and Out Burger and now….Trader Joe’s…….If we could just get Sister Schubert rolls and Diet Cherry Dr Pepper out here now, life would be grand. We do now have Dillards and Hobby Lobby, so I am a happy camper.

I leave tomorrow for Dallas to the land of grandkids, mexican food and hopefully some cold weather. Am wishing it will snow one day while we are there. It has been a year since moving here to California. I have to say that it has been a year of mixed emotions. We love it here and love the people God has placed in our lives. We also miss family and friends which have been so dear to us over the years there in Dallas.
We have lost a good friend this year and also Randy’s mom. Moving away from home and family and friends was truly a bit out of my comfort zone, but God was faithful. Our youngest son was married in September and we have another grandchild on the way. We have much to be thankful for, and also some precious memories from this past year.
Merry Christmas to each of you. Thank you for reading this blog. You have been such an encouragement to me to continue writing and I love it when I see comments to the posts.
Wishing you a most glorious Christmas season and may God’s Blessings be upon you!