Road Trip

We traveled to Natchitoches, Louisiana this weekend to watch my nephew play football for his college team, Southeastern Oklahoma. They got beat, unfortunately, 63-12. It was good to see Brad play with the "big boys" though! This picture is of Brad #54, his girlfriend Phylicia, my niece Allyson, Kera & Kyla. So despite the score of the game, the road trip will be a memory we'll always cherish! I had my girls and my niece in the van with me, and we followed my sister in her car with her husband (who was sleeping in the backseat) and my mom. We left Sheridan about 11:30 Saturday morning and met them in Hope about 1:15, ate a bite of lunch and hit the road again about 2:30! Paula and I had been mapping out the best route we thought we should take all week. We originally thought we would cut down from Hope and go through Lewisville and Bradley. But all the online maps were steering us toward Texarkana, so that's the route we decided on. I had borrowed a TomTom (GPS gadget) from a friend of ours, and it had also picked the Texarkana route. So we were armed with a TomTom and 2 or 3 printouts of Google directions!! We did fine until we got to Shreveport. FYI--apparently the shortest route from Texarkana to Natchitoches is through downtown Shreveport!! We were right in the middle of the 256 bridges that lead to everywhere but home when we missed our exit. We were communicating via walkie talkie between our vehicles. My sister is in front of me. I have the TomTom in my car. Did I mention that I'm afraid of heights and bridges?!! So while I am "white-knuckling" the steering wheel trying not to look anywhere but my lane, my sister is yelling, "WHICH WAY DO WE GO???" Almost immediate when we got on the first bridge, the highway split! We had to choose to go East or West. So I'm trying to grab my print out directions, watch the TomTom, use the walkie talkie and DRIVE!! You guessed it--we chose the wrong direction! Never fear though, I regained my bearings and let TomTom turn us around to the correct highway! We made it safely to the campus of Northwestern at 5:30pm for the 6:00 kickoff! One missed highway was all we had the whole trip though! We did get a little nervous on the way home when we had to come back through downtown Shreveport, but we were stayed headed in the right direction! Mom rode home with me and my girls. She helped me stay awake! We arrived back at her house about 2:30 Sunday morning. You can always count on a good time anytime my sister is around. So here's a picture of me and my sis after the game. (Ok, now that I've uploaded the picture, I realize this is an AWEFUL picture of me!!)

Brad was pretty upset with the game, but I thought he played hard. If things work out, we hope to make one of his home games in Durant later in the season.

August in review

August 9 our whole family went to SW Arkansas to visit the rest of our family. We went to McCaskill for lunch to see Matt's family. His parents, his brother and sister and their kids, and his grandmother were there. It was good to see them. Matt doesn't get to see them but a couple of times a year. His work schedule usually doesn't enough time for him to get down there.

Then that evening we went to Murfreesboro to visit my parents. It was my mom's birthday so I talked my dad into cooking for us, and we invited the rest of the family to come too. My dad purchased a gas smoker earlier in the summer and has used it nearly every weekend. When he cooks, there is a enough food to feed a family of five for a week!! So through the summer when he would could cook they would usually invite my brother and sister and their families over for dinner. Since I live an hour and half away, I missed many meals with them. My nephew, Brad, made a comment to his mom, my sister, about what a shame it was that I moved away and was missing out on good cooking. Well, this night he had already left to go back to college, 4 hours away. I took a picture of all the food and texted him a message to let him know how much he was missing out on since he was so far, far away! :) I think Daddy had smoked a brisket, 2 or 3 racks of ribs, a boston butt or 2, and leg quarters. Plus all the sides we had to go with it: boiled potatoes, baked beans, cole slaw, etc. And then to top it off we had homemade ice cream!! Yummy, yum, delicious!!

Here is Daddy watching the temperature gauge on his smoker. He nearly has his smoking technique perfected!! ;) This picture was actually taken just a few weeks ago on another trip made down there. It was an impromptu trip. We were invited just days before to a birthday party for our niece Savanah. She was celebrating her 8th birthday at Meme & Pepaw's house in McCaskill. Afterwards, the girls and I slipped over to Granny & Pop's for the night.

Ok, back to August...

August 14 Matt's dad had a bad motorcycle accident. He was enroute to the hospital in Hot Springs to check on a church member of his that had a heartattack. He came upon a road crew that had traffic stopped, and when he topped the hill he had no where to go but to lay it down! He made it to hospital alright--via ambulance! He had a pretty bad gash on his head, and lost a lot of blood. His whole left side was beat and bruised up! He was very lucky though. He had no broken bones and no internal injuries. After a 4 or 5 day hospital stay and 6 units of blood later, he went home with 32 staples in his head, a hematoma on his left side and lots of road rash! He was very sore, but I think he will probably heal with only a couple of scars to show for it! Here's a picture-3 weeks later-that shows much improvement!

School started the 18th. Both girls seem to be off to a good start. They are both enjoying their new teachers and classes. I have already subbed all but 6 days that they have been in session. Subbing is working out to be a pretty good gig for me!

The 30th we went up to Fayetteville for Hogs first game. They won, but just barely. It was really not a good game. I told Kyla that I thought her and me could have played better than they did. Matt didn't appreciate the comment at all! LOL! We got to visit with our friends Dale & Lisa that in Rogers. We tailgated with them for a while before the game started. It's always good to see them. After the game we grabbed a bite to eat and headed to our hotel in Rogers. Matt & Kera got to swim the next morning before we left. Other than Kyla just getting over a cold, and Kera and I starting to get a cold, we had a pretty good weekend. We got back Sunday afternoon in time to spend the evening at DJ & Liz's. They had a cookout for Labor Day weekend. DJ is a master smoker too and it's always a privilege to get to eat with them!

Here's the game in pictures:

This is Matt and the girls waiting for the football team to arrive.

The team entering the field through the smoking Hog!

Kyla didn't want to be in my picture so she stuck her cup in front of her face. And as I was uploading these picture I was thinking that a picture of the scoreboard and final score would have a been a great addition this photo collection, but...I didn't take one!! Oh well! We won.

And that's most of August's action!