Happy New Year!

I hope your new year is filled with more happy days than sad.

I hope your new year is filled with kindness and love.

I hope your new year is filled with family and friends.

I hope your new year is filled with good health.

I hope your new year is filled with prosperity.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas - (way late!)

Merry Christmas everyone! Yes, I know I'm way behind on posting. I've been quite busy - as usual. So, here's a recap.

We spent Christmas Eve at my Mom and her husband, Howard's house. It's our tradition to go there that night for dinner. Here's my mom - adorable as ever.

Rominal and Bailey are looking pretty cute as well.

Bailey is especially cute and polite. She thinks there are presents for her under the tree.

Here's me and Rominal, right before we start opening presents.

And another one of Bailey - she's playing Santa by handing out the gifts.

Each year my Mom has given Bailey a challenge to find her final "big" gift. In the past Mom would write a poem or lyric that would lead Bailey from one part of the house to the other, each time finding more clues.

This year she gave Bailey a couple of lines from two popular songs (that Bailey knows well) and gave Bailey the option of which song she would sing for her gift. It was quite fun to watch.

Bailey sang the song, "1,2,3,4" by the Plain White T's. In case you are not familiar with it, here it is:



Of course, Bailey did it without any music and she was quite good.

Well, Mom didn't let me slide on this new tradition.

Bailey and I had to sing our rendition of "Single Ladies" before I could get my last present. Luckily for me, Rominal's cell phone video of this event was lost.

Trust me, it's a good thing.

Rominal was not spared from the singing either. He had to sing the first song we danced to at our wedding, 21 years ago, before he could get his present. It was "Forever in My Life" by Prince.

Here's Rominal serenading me.

I would certainly understand if many of you out there are not familiar with this song. After all - it is pretty old now. Just in case you can't quite remember it, here it is for you.

I should say that there isn't really a video to this - just the song from the album.


After Rominal had successfully completed his task, he was rewarded with his gift.

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and everyone got to spend time with their loved ones.

Mavericks Basketball Game

Last Saturday, the 3 Girl Scouts in my troop and their families got together for dinner at Babe's Restaurant and then we went to the Dallas Mavericks Basketball game. It was a special night for the Girl Scouts since the Mavericks offered discount tickets to us.

If you ever get the chance to go to Babe's, you must go. The food is fantastic.

This was on the ceiling above our heads. It just made me giggle. Those are the bottom of ducks swimming in a lake, in case you can't tell from the picture.


We rode the Dallas Area Rapid Transit or DART to get to the game. That was fun as well.

Here's the three girls, Elizabeth, Bailey and Tiffany.


Here we are all lined up in our seats. Melissa is ready for the game to start.

This is the look I get from Tiffany when she's tired of me taking so many pictures. I know she will appreciate them when she gets older, but she doesn't right now.

Here's the Mav's guy, jumping over a bunch of service men.

And he made the basket!

The pictures above are a bit more impressive when you see where we were sitting.

There was only 1 row behind us.

We were as high up in the building as you could get.

We were beyond the nosebleed section.

Am I making myself clear? We were WAY up there. I was scared!

On to another night from last week.

On Wednesday, the Girl Scouts got together for dinner and a holiday celebration.

They have all earned their Silver Award and we are so proud of them. They worked very hard for this award.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

A Holiday Song for you!

Mery Christmas!

The Muppets always put me in a good mood. Hope you like them too.

My new ride!

For the last 7 years, this has been my ride.


It's been a great car/van. We have made many wonderful trips and memories in this van. It has served us very well.

But, Bailey is getting older and will be driving soon. We will eventually let Bailey drive our Honda CR-V and Rominal will drive the van. So, that meant I needed to get a new car.

Meet my new Honda Pilot!

We brought it home last night.

One of the things I wanted was to be up a bit higher than my van, and you can see the Pilot is slightly higher up.

I have the next 7 years to learn what all of these buttons do. It also responds to voice commands, should I get tired of pushing buttons. Hee hee - love that!

Rominal is checking out the cargo area.

Bailey will appreciate the window shades during Texas summers.

My van had seats for 7 people, while the Pilot has seats for 8. The people in the third row have to be really small or really good friends though.

I often have that many people in my car for work lunches, so that was important to me.

Here's Rominal checking out the third row seats.

I actually woke up really early this morning, just to go for a ride in my new car. Of course, I made good use of my trip and got Starbucks while I was out too.

Have a great day!

A weekend in Paris (Paris, Texas that is)

This last weekend, me and Bailey (above) went to a Leader-Daughter Girl Scout camp. We had the best time together.

The camp was near a small town - Paris, Texas. Saturday morning we did a scavenger hunt through their old cemetery. The girls were looking for unusual items on the headstones.

It was a beautiful day and some of the headstones were amazing. Here's a baby lamb.

Another monument.

The statue below has an interesting story. It's of Jesus and the person carving the statue passed away before the monument was finished. The person who finished the monument didn't know how to carve sandals or feet so he put Jesus wearing cowboy boots.

I liked these headstones. They say a lot without saying much.

This wasn't part of the scavenger hunt, but we did find Waldo.

The headstones for children broke my heart.

Such detail.

These date back to 1887 in the case of the one below.

They have held up very well over time.

I thought this tree was interesting as well.

Here's the camp site where we stayed.

Here's the inside of our building.

The property had a very small lake as well.

Bailey made for a good subject as I practice taking pictures.

There were tons of leaves around to play in. There are 4 girls in the picture below - can you find them all?

Bailey made this blanket while we were there. It kept her very warm that night.

Bailey was the oldest girl there, and she enjoyed playing with the younger girls. She was so good with the younger kids and very helpful. I was so proud of her.

The kids played tag among other things.

Saturday night was a big parade through Paris. The Chamber of Commerce had arranged for us to ride on an old trolley in the parade. Here we are on the back of it.

The younger brother of a Girl Scout was on the trip too. Ethan and Bailey really had a good time together.

There was room for some of the girls to sit in the front window of the trolley as well.

These local girls were all dressed up for the parade as well.

I was amazed at how big this parade was. The picture below is from the staging area where all of the cars, trucks, and motorcycles were getting ready to start the parade.

Even the Grinch was there.

The fire engine was all decked out too. There were so many people in the parade that I couldn't believe that there would be anyone left to watch the parade!

All of the cars below are part of the parade.

Finally it was time for the parade to start. A high school band followed us during the parade.

People lined the parade route the entire way, despite how cold it was outside.

Bailey and Kendal were having a blast.

This is Beth, the Girl Scout leader who had made this weekend possible. She's amazing. I honestly don't think she ever sleeps. She wanted the Girl Scout leaders to be able to spend a special weekend with their daughters and that's exactly what we did. I can't thank her enough.

The girls dressed as Whooville people walked a bit of the parade behind our trolley.

Our kids were having a blast inside the trolley.

The parade lasted at least an hour. It was very special to be a part of this small town tradition.