Summer Recap pt. 6

It would be remiss of me, before writing about Victoria, not to mention that my Bevin is officially the Farkle Champion of the Universe... at least until we have a rematch.  All of day six was spent at sea, and we took refuge from our head colds in the game room rolling dice and sipping strong mixed drinks.  There was a rather boisterous (in EVERY sense of the word) family from Florida in there with us playing killer Uno and lamenting the over-night disappearance of the Apples-to-Apples game.  When they overheard Bevin and me "farkling" at the next table, well, let me just say that we were known as the "Farkle-people" for the rest of the trip.  It's my own fault though, I was rather outspoken about losing to my wife twice, especially when she over-came a 4000 point deficit to seal her title (I can be boisterous too).  In between games, we were able to spot grey whales- blue whales, humpbacks?- exploding out of the ocean just like you see on TV!  And those animals are HUGE!  They were easily four hundred yards from the ship but looked bigger than shrimp boats, an awesome sight to see.

Anyway, the seventh day had us pulling into Victoria.  This is where the nice lady nurse gives us both the medicine we so desperately needed.  Let me tell you, it's fun touring a foreign city with medicine head because it magnifies the disconnected feeling of being in a place you're not from.  This was the case for me, I won't speak for Bevin on that.  Victoria, like most of Canada, is very clean.  The actual city is only slightly larger than Victoria, TX but add in the metro area and it's about the size of Corpus Christi (minus the smell).  It's one of the oldest cities in the Pacific Northwest.  There are some really neat places that Bevin and I would love to go back and explore further like the Parliament building and the Empress Hotel, but we did get a chance to visit Craigdarroch Castle! (http://www.craigdarrochcastle.com/)  This place puts many of the houses in Bay Oaks and Bellaire to shame, and it was completed in 1890!  We got a lot of great pictures and video of this house.  I won't go into great detail on its history, but this castle was an engineering marvel when built.  Many of the light fixtures were dual purposed in nature- wired for electricity and burning gas, there was central heating (no one really needs an A/C unit in Victoria), a ballroom on the fourth floor, intricate wood/glasswork everywhere...  It takes the concept of "dream house" to a whole new level!  I don't think the gift store in the Kitchen was part of the original design, but it was nice to see that even the Canadians get cheap touristy crap from China too.

They also have hippy college kids!  En route to the castle, our guide drove us through the campus of the University of Victoria where people used to take their pet rabbits and abandon them to "the wild".  And we all know what rabbits are famous for, right?  So now the campus is overrun by half-wild rabbits about the same size as overweight house cats.  They're everywhere!  Our guide mentioned that many non-violent means had been used in trying to alleviate the lagomorph overpopulation, but to no avail.  Killing the rabbits outright is the most effective method of culling the population, which is of course vigorously protested by the student body.  So after the castle tour, our guide dropped us off across from the Parliament building where we began taking picture and shooting video the green lawns and totem poles.  Sure enough, just around the corner and across the street from the Empress hotel, a small group of four "students" were handing out fliers and engaging passers-by with the sorry plight of the rabbits against "state sanctioned geonocide".  I just rolled my eyes and told Bevin that the poor and homeless people in Victoria would probably love to dine on rabbit meat.

Speaking of dining, my sweet wife spotted a hot dog vendor across the way.  It was well past lunchtime and she wisely said that we should eat where the locals do.  We could have eaten in any of the places lining the street, but this particular vendor had a nice size line trailing from his stand.  I quickly agreed with her, but we stopped by a 7-11 first for drinks.  Canadian Big Gulps taste the same as American Big Gulps, go figure!  The hotdogs at this stand were FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC!  The vendor accepted American money but gave out Canadian change, so that was kind of neat too.  We sat on a street bench, eating our tasty lunch and listened to a local strum his guitar.  He was too clean to be a college student, so I threw a two dollar Canadian coin into his guitar case, my way of saying thanks.  Victoria feels alot like Austin.  We also shopped in some of the shops, got mom some unique Pacific Northwest inspired prints to hang in the living room.  There was also a tabacconist along the street that had been open for over 100 years, and I always wanted to try Canadian tobacco so I bought two ounces worth of a pretty good blend.  Can't remember the name right now, but I'm sure I'll recall it when we go back...

A few more things before ending:  We got to walk around the gardens outside of the Empress Hotel before returning to the ship.  Bevin has to post some of the pictures she took of the flowers there.  There were alot of flowers that I didn't know by name, but the roses were very beautiful.  I'm sure they were fragrant too, but the medicine was starting wear off, so all I could appreciate was their look and feel.  On our way back to the ship, we got our passports stamped!  The border agent was a walking contradiction, he was dressed like a SWAT member, but spoke like a friendly, stereotypical Canadian, eh.  At supper time in the ship's main dining hall, we bought that nice nurse and her mother their favorite drink to say thank you for medicine.  It was a wonderful day, and made us sad that the trip was basically over.

Summer Recap pt. 5

Day five of the cruise brought us to, what I personally consider, the best attraction of the trip: The Tracy Arm Fjord (http://www.alaska-cruise-advisor.com/tracy-arm.html). We'd cut the previous night short in anticipation of getting up early and finding a nice spot on the ninth deck for viewing this very unique location. The weather up to this point had been fantastic and thankfully held just through our time there.


We were on deck around 7 AM or just before since the Windjammer cafe hadn't quite opened for business yet. It was cold though! And quiet. Think library, not calm before the storm. The sun had been up and shining brightly since 4AM, no clouds were in sight. Everyone spoke more or less in hushed tones and gestures. We were all mesmerised by the view! Bevin will most certainly post pictures here since my words won't do the scenery justice. And she took some fantastic shots! The land in this particular place is truly untamed. I had to keep reminding myself that there were no people on the other sides of the surrounding mountains, just more wilderness than anyone knew what to do with. She and I were in awe of the idea that more than likely no one- Native Indian, Russian explorer, French-Canadian fur trapper, Daniel Boone- no one had set foot on these shores or explored these forests! Any mark they might have left behind to prove otherwise was long gone. There was no trash along the shoreline, no houses on the hillside, no bridges to sail under. Just rocky oceanic mountain ranges and icebergs everywhere!

We were able to spot a pack of seals laying on one particularly large, flat hunk of ice about 150 yards away. They regarded us with casual curiosity. You can't help but think of the Titanic, looking down and seeing jagged blocks of ice, many larger than 18-wheelers, floating in the opal waters of the fjord. The water in this place is loaded with glacial silt, which gives it a milky blue hue. This made the reflections from the rock walls vibrant! The silt makes it impossible for fish to live here; I suppose the seals take refuge in the cloudy waters from anything large enough to eat them and they in turn head out to cleaner water for food when hungry. Makes sense to me!

At the end of the fjord is the Sawyer glacier, a majestic wall of blue ice largely responsible for the landscape around us. This wall is enormous! I don't know the actual dimensions but imagine some of the largest buildings you know, slap several of them together, and watch as they slowly grind their way toward you. Yes, it's that big! We were told that on a good day you can actually watch the ice crumble off of the edges and hear the sounds, though we weren't able to do either from deck nine. Special pilots had flown in the night before to navigate the ship safely to this point, and they were doing a wonderful job making sure everyone could see the most of this glacier! As we came to a dead stop, they rotated the ship around- in place!- three or four times to make sure everyone on board had a chance to see it, either from the deck, observation lounges or the comfort of their cabins.  God's magnificence is reflected in this place, we can't wait to go back!

The rest of that day and all of day six had us steaming our way back through the interior passage toward Victoria.  But the exposure to the cold air in the fjord had an unpleasant affect on Bevin and me.  We tried staying warm out on the deck by drinking hot chocolate and coffee and eating steamy grits from the cafe.  But we were still breathing in cold air, and every time we went into the ship to get more drink and food, the air was, of course, warm. I believe it was this constant warm/cold air switch that landed us (especially me) with Alaskan sized head colds, the effects of which lasted well past the end of our trip!  And guess what, we hadn't thought to pack any medications that would help ease the SUFFERING that came with said cold.  Sure we had ibuprofen and antacids, but nothing to clear out the copious amounts of head fluid and mucus that hit us both, right in the noses!  So by the time we left the deck and headed back to our cabin for a mid-morning nap, the damage was done. My CPAP machine could force air into my nasal passages, but I couldn't force air back through there, which meant I had to sleep without it.  Which meant that poor Bevin, doing the best she could in the miserable circumstance, had to try to sleep with my snoring.  Needless to say, sleep didn't come well at all for either of us. 

The ship's commissary sold cold medicine at an extortionary price.  I think we figured it was close to three dollars a pill, for five pills.  My sweet wife came through for me though!   The mother of the family we dined with in the main hall was a registered nurse.  When she asked Bevin how we were and what we planned on doing when we docked in Victoria, my Bevin explained our condition to her.  True to form, this nice lady provided much needed medication for us.  Thank God for nurses, especially this one!  It's because of her, we were able to enjoy our day in Canada, which I'll write about hopefully tomorrow!

Summer Recap pt 4

The next day brought us steaming into Skagway, Alaska, famous starting point in the Yukon Gold Rush back in the late 1800's.  The name of the town is derived from the local Native American tribe's word for howling winds, or something like that.  The "city" has a population of about 1500 at the height of the tourist season, mostly made up of seasonal workers looking to make very good money from the tourist industry for the few months out of the year where this is one.  Usually only 500 or so people live there year round, conquering the howling winds and snow.  There are four main streets and a lot of connecting avenues.  At one point this was the most lawless city in any US territorial holding, and had more whor- working girls than any other as well!  The Red Onion Saloon is a lasting monument to those days (http://www.redonion1898.com/).

Geographically, Skagway sits at the end of a large valley with heavily forested mountain walls surrounding the whole town.  The nearest neighboring city is Haines, AK, which is only 19 miles away by ferry- but over 300 miles away if you tried driving between the towns!  The terrain is that impassable- rugged!- isolated!  In fact, our tour guide (Terry) for the scenic trip to the US/Canada boarder informed us that if you wanted to drive from Skagway to say, Fresno, CA (where he was from), you'd have to drive over 900 miles in the wrong direction before hitting the first road letting you head south.  If you have car trouble in Skagway, the kind your can't handle on your own, you have to call a tow truck from Whitehorse, YT (Yukon Territory, Canada- over 100 miles away) to come get your car.  You'll pay $80/hour for them to tow you over to Whitehorse; God help you if they don't have the part you need!  Terry also made a comment about the food in the grocery store: since everything was shipped into Skagway, and spent weeks in cardboard boxes, everything tasted the same.  He bet our bus that if we could tell the difference between a Skagway apple, pear, and onion- blindfolded- he'd give us ten bucks!  Believe it or not, none of us took him up on the bet.

The landscape on the way to the boarder is stunning!  Since we were there in June, there was a lot of snow run-off, so everywhere you turned there was water falling down a mountain side in a thin, silver ribbons.  We learned that the gold miners used a trail across the valley from the highway to lug their gear to the boarder.  Many carried their gear on their backs, crawling on all fours at certain points.  As it turns out, there were two laws in Skagway at that time, the one I remember was: NO STEALING!  If you were caught stealing someone else's stuff, you were shot on site.  I forget what the other law was, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the whor- girls in town.  Some of the more wealthy prospectors used horses to haul their stuff up the trail.  When a horse died, it was left where it dropped or pushed off the trail, down into the valley.  Terry said that at one point, you could climb down to the valley floor rather easily by sliding down the horse carcass pile.  Imagine that smell...

We passed over a cantilever bridge on the way to the summit (http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/worlds-scariest-bridges/17) and got our picture taken if front of the Sawtooth Mountain range.  The landscape is more beautiful than anything I ever saw in Colorado, and believe me, that says a lot!  As it turns out, the nine miles between the US/Canadian border check-points is considered a no man's land, so technically you can cross over the border as much as you want.  However, the wind up there has been clocked at over 140MPH at times, especially in the winter, so no one is likely to do that.  Because of the inhospitable landscape at the border, each country keeps their check-point further down in the valleys on their own side.  But the view at the summit is expansive!  The Yukon looks so wide open from there.  We took all kinds of pictures, one even ended up on our Christmas card this year!

After the tour, we spent the rest of the day walking around Skagway.  It's a neat place, we'd love to go back.  Bevin and I love to walk through antique shops every chance we get; souvenir shops aren't much different, except I know that I don't feel the same strong compulsion to buy anything.  Don't think for a second though that taking your money isn't what just about every shop is there for!  Cheap gold, silver, precious stones all of which you can only get in Skagway for the low, low price of... 

We did buy a fantastic sculpture by one of the local artisans.  It's a bear carved from Alaskan spruce, with a fish in it's mouth.  Bevin took one look and asked if we could buy it.  I have to admit, when I saw the bear, I just wanted to pet him and say, "Good boy!"  The title of the piece is "Catch and release my ass!"  We ate a pizza at the local Italian/Mexican restaurant and true to what Terry told us about food prices, the cost of the pizza was waaay high!  Still, it was good pizza, tasty, no cardboard after taste either.  Also, we have visited the world's smallest Radio Shack/AT&T/video store, which happened to share space with the local outfitter shop.  I took in a couple of pints at the Skagway Brewing Co. bar, where their house specialty is brewed with Juniper buds.  The beer is an acquired taste, but it's also stout which made me happy!  As it turns out, the Juniper in the brew supplies you with 300 percent of your daily Vitamin C needs, so it's actually good for you. 

One last thing to mention before I stop writing for the evening:  there's an interesting tradition for all of the ships that pull into port in Skagway.  The first time a ship pulls into port, the crew paints their colors or ship's flag on the mountain side next to the port.  This is apparently a long standing tradition, some of the dates that I read went back to the 1930's!  And the airstrip in Skagway is one of the trickiest places to land a plane in the US, if not the world.  It's an awesome place!

Summer Recap pt. 3

My wife has requested, for Christmas no less, that I finish writing about our honeymoon trip this past summer.  She's told me that my lack of telling this tale has prevented her from posting other happenings from the year.  I told her... well, I told her a lot of things, some of it was funny but all of it off point. The point is, I'm going to finish writing about our honeymoon so she can post other stuff to this page.  Merry Christmas baby!

So there we were on a floating pleasure palace with one full week to burn and ship staff at our beck and call 24 hours a day.  And on the first day, we were at sea and had nothing to do but run around taking pictures while communing with the care-free spirit that possessed the ship.  The view leaving the harbor was already beautiful, but grew gorgeous as we sailed north.  The Inside Passage is pretty calm compared to the open seas and the mountains in that area have a different kind of majesty than their land-locked cousins.  It was hard for me to get used to seeing green mountains jutting out of the sea, at least at first.  They're simply breathtaking!

By the next morning we were nearing Juneau, capital of America's last frontier.  For breakfast, we dined in the Windjammer Cafe on the ninth deck and watched other ocean liners following in our wake as we sailed down the fjord toward the city.  The Cafe is actually pretty nice with a 270 degree surrounding view of the ship.  You can get just about anything you want to eat, depending on the time of day of course.  Interesting side note, Indian food looks and smells the same at breakfast-time as it does at dinner time.  Oh, and we had our first whale sighting right off the port stern!  (For landlubbers, that's the back left side of the ship... I think.)  They bobbed through the water like over-sized dolphins and wouldn't be bullied from their path by us or anyone else.  Orca whales right in front of our eyes!  I was able to capture some of this on the cam-corder, really cool!

We docked on the outskirts of town, maybe a fifteen minute walk from downtown.  You should know, that as the third largest city in Alaska, Juneau is not big.  There are about 30,000 people living there and as our tour guide to the Mendenhall Glacier would eventually tell us, the only way into the city is either by boat, plane or birth canal- there are no roads leading to the city!  The geography of the state dominates everything in Alaska, permeates the character of the people living there.  You have to be rugged like the land, or move back down to the lower forty-eight states... or die, which isn't really much of character trait.  And get this, while on our way to the aforementioned glacier, a huge black bear ran across the road about 200 yards in front of our bus.  I've been to Yellowstone twice and lived in Colorado for five years, never once seeing any kind of bear except those in the zoo.  We're on Alaskan soil for shortly more than an hour and BAM! Bear sighting at 12 o'clock!  We couldn't get our cameras out in time to take pictures though.  Bevin did take some fantastic shots at the glacier. 

We spent the rest of the day shopping around Juneau.  I bought James, Bevin's dad, a whale-bone sculpture.  I told him that it was from a whale's penis bone, no one at the store could tell me otherwise!  ;)  There's also a bar, the Red Dog saloon (http://www.reddogsaloon.com/), that has a gun hanging above the bar that used to belong to Wyatt Earp.  Bevin and I walked the streets bouncing in and out shops and art galleries, having a great time! 

We also took the sky tram to the top of Mt. Roberts, which overlooks the whole city and waterway.  The altitude is about 1800 ft. above sea level, and actually has a sub-tropical rain forest located there.  It's amazing!  You can see all of the kinds of plants that you'd expect to see on a mountain- pines, shrubs, bushes- but also, there were feathery ferns and wild, red flowers!  There was also a bald eagle living in captivity at the top of the mountain.  The poor bird had been shot with a .22 through the beak, damaging its left eye.  The people taking care of it promised that the in the off season, the eagle lived in a much larger enclosure.  That makes sense though, you can't have an eagle sized rookery at the top of a mountain which also happens to be in an avalanche zone.  We ate appetizers at one of the local restaurants before returning to the ship.  It was a good day all around! 

To be continued...

Summer Recap pt. 2

So after my two long hikes to the store, we loaded up our (heavy) cokes and bags into yet another Town Car and head for the docks!  The Rhapsody of the Seas isn't the biggest ship in RC's fleet, but it still holds around 2200 passengers, give or take.  It's a curious thing, watching all these people get in line for the same long trip.  You can tell the rookies from the veterans, for sure.  My lovely wife took special care to see we were included in the later group, not the former.  We'd pre-checked our bags rather quickly, not taking the time to stand and stare at the "big boat" like so many others.  The urge to correct that misnomer was strong throughout the trip.  Afterall, my wife's grandmother has a boat.  It's a nice tri-toon with plenty of seating, great for a relaxing day out on Cedar Creek Lake with family.  The 78,000 ton, "boat", we were taking to Alaska was a floating city with a casino, hospital, bars, dining halls, shops, theater... There's a fire department, armed security.  The captain is technically mayor and minister all in one!  Yes, it's a "boat" like I'm a petite, little girl.

We met some nice Canadians from Victoria while standing in line.  They were excited about some drug they were taking to help them quit smoking.  I've been through the pain of quitting that bad habit, I guess whatever helps ease that pain is good.  But I've heard some pretty bad things about those drugs too.  Scary things!  We wished them the best as they got into the Diamond Club members' line.  There are no special lines for Gold Club members.  Thirty minutes of people watching later, we were on board!  It should be noted that we did try to play the honeymooner card with the lady behind the check-in counter; it didn't work.  I should have showed her some leg.

The view in Seattle is stunning, especially from the ninth deck of an ocean liner!  It's magnified with the one you love beside you.  She and I were able to hang out on the deck for awhile in the cool mid-60's temp while the crew prepared our room and delivered our luggage.  One word of advice to any guys reading this, if your wife wants to go sign up for excursions during this waiting period which is a part of any cruise, let her.  While I was letting the tension roll off me with each sea breeze (I'd been working two jobs at the time), Bevin was getting more and more nervous about the prospect of not getting some of the off shore activities we'd planned to have since March.  It's not as much fun having fun when the one you love isn't having fun too.  That's not a profound statement, but it's true nonetheless.  They eventually got things right for us though, and once that happened, we prepared to lose track of time for the next nine days.

(to be continued...)

Summer Recap pt. 1

Wow, I didn't realize that we hadn't written about any of our goings-on in quite some time.  And in that time, Bevin and I have done a lot! 

We've eaten "Frozen Lucys" at Mom's on Main in Aubrey, went to a LOST finale watch party, enjoyed ourselves at a summer kickoff party at the pool, I had a second job at Babies-R-Us for a little while, lit off fireworks with friends on the 4th, Bevin's done some yoga, joined NetFlix, and we started going to a new church- not all exactly in that order though.  Plus I've read some Dean Koontz books (Odd Thomas is pretty cool), we've watched all of Friends again, and Bevin bought me season one of Good Eats.  It's been a full summer to say the least and I know that I'm skipping over a lot.  But the best thing we've done since our last post was... our honeymoon cruise to Alaska!!

If you've never been to "The Last Frontier", go now.  Think of the most beautiful thing you've seen in the most beautiful state you've been to.  In Alaska, the most beautiful thing you've seen in the most beautiful state you've been to is even more beautiful than you saw it the first time.  Trust me!  I'm speaking from experience.

We left Dallas on June 18th for Seattle.  It was a four hour trip that knocked two hours off the clock so that when we landed at 10PM, our bodies were ready for bed.  There was no time for sleep though!  We jumped into our waiting Lincoln Town car and sped off to one of the nicest Best Westerns I've ever seen located in Pioneer Square.  Feel free to look it up, it really is a fancy hotel.  The concierge at the front desk suggested a pizza joint around the corner for dinner.  It was late and they delivered, so we took the advice.  The name of the restaurant escapes me at the moment, but the guy on the phone who took our order had a very thick accent, Italian or possibly Greek.  We dined on a piping hot, gooey delight!  I swear they made their own cheese for the calzone. 

Heavy dinner made for great sleep.  Great sleep made us ready to tackle the process of getting on board the ship!  Before we got into a second Town Car to head off to the docks, there was an issue of procuring Cokes and Dr. Pepper for the trip.  Royal Caribbean allows each passenger to bring on a certain amount of personal beverages, basically a six pack of cokes apiece per passenger.  And we loves the Cokes and Dr. Peppers!  So again, the guy behind the lobby desk saves the day and directs me to a store two blocks up the street and around the corner.  Not far, right?  Bevin stayed in the lobby to watch the bags, while I made the trip to get a couple of six packs each of our fave drinks. 

Along the way, I saw some of the Local Color.  Seattle is a lot like Austin, only cooler weather wise.  And Pioneer Square is a lot like South Austin, only you're in Seattle, so being there yields a looking glass feel to the scene.  A homeless guy had parked his dolly/ruck-sack/carryall outside the store's entrance.  I strolled in with my duffel bag, stepped around the guy stocking drinks in the cooler, and dropped two cans of DP on the floor, one of which began to spray all over me and the stocker.  He was nice about it all, said something to me in broken Spanglish to the effect of, "It's okay, it's okay" and he cleaned up the mess.  I paid the lady behind the counter fifteen bucks and made my way back to the hotel... only to be told by my lovely bride that canned drinks may or may not be allowed on the boat.  Nice!  Back to the store!  The lady behind the counter gave a half-hearted laugh when I told her I needed to swap the cans for bottles and why.  With a promise not to bust anymore cans, I made it out of the store a second time with 13 bottles of drink instead of 24 cans, and I got a buck-twenty or so in change as well.

(to be continued, hopefully with pictures too...)

Ruby Sue Jackson

Ruby, Ruby Sue, Rubes, Sue, Sue Bean, Ruby Sue Magee, You Little S**t.......those are all names of our dog, Ruby.  She turned 1 year old on September 20th of last year (of course I'm totally accurate...that's what the Vet told me...I believe them!).  She is a wonderful dog that has entered our lives and made them better.  Never did I ever think I'd love a dog as much as I love her.  Her personality is that of a Southern sassy woman...I kind of link her to Kathy Bates in Fried Green Tomatoes...really, Kathy Bates in ANY movie I've seen her in.  She's got a smirk that lets you know her true thoughts.

I can't imagine our lives without her.  Even though it is super inconvenient and expensive when we travel, her dental work alone is worth about 6 really nice Coach purses (no idea really, I'm just guessing...the most expensive purse I've ever purchase was about $50 from Banana Republic and I thought I might puke when I did that....totally worth it though.....black, buttery leather and huge!)...ummmmmmmm......where was I?  Oh yeah.....EVEN THOUGH I have to pick up her poop 2X daily, I've had to pull hair out of her butt one too many times, I have a small panic attack everytime someone opens the door and I don't have her in my arms.........I love her more and more everyday.  To Ruby Sue....our hairy little child!

A wonderful man...

On March 5th, Harold Riggins left this world and went home to be with the Lord and the rest of his family who had passed before him.  I can't imagine a more pure and dear man.  The oldest brother of my grandmother, Harold was definitely the jokester of the family.  My grandmother was the youngest, with my Great Uncle Glen in the middle.  Over the years, my grandmother has joked about just how much ribbing she received from the both of them.  I get the feeling that they made her the strong woman she is today. 

Harold spent his days after the Marine Corps helping my Great Grandparents on their cotton farm in Seymour.  He loved living on a farm.  Everything about living on a farm he enjoyed...barn cats, tractors, being able to have fireworks (which he loved!!!!). 

After Great Grandma Riggins passed in 1999, he moved in with my Grandparents in Irving.  It was wonderful being able to see him more often.  His humor and kindness was like no other man I've ever known.  When I was going to college, I often would get letters from him, typed on his typewriter because of the stroke, with a few dollars to help me get through.  After moving into my apartment, he told my grandparents to help me out with buying a washer and dryer.  He was adamant on me not using a laundromat!  His contribution bought me my first Whirlpool Washer and Dryer...I felt so grown-up.

These past years since he's been sick, he's been living a lack-luster life in a nursing home in Athens.  His days were filled with feeding tubes and spaghetti westerns on the tv in his room.  My grandmother diligently made sure his last days were as enjoyable as possible, and that no one would take advantage of his situation.  She was one of the best advocates for him.  It was a kind of love that was a blessing to see.  I hope I will be that strong if ever in that situation. 

This morning, my thoughts turned to Harold, prayers for him and knowing that he is in a much better place.  My grandmother said in the limo on the way to the cemetery, "You know...he doesn't have to ask to go home anymore".  It made me smile...I know he is home now.

Domestic Bliss...

We had kind of a ho-hum weekend.  Nothing too exciting, but after the weekends past, it was nice to just relax.  I decided to try some new recipes I'd picked up and they were all winners.  I made a brisket in my Martha Stewart "Le Creuset" knock off cast iron pan with onions, bbq sauce, and a Dublin Dr. Pepper.  It was wonderful!  Like always, I love cooking with soda when it comes to bbq.  It gives it such a good flavor and a subtle sweetness that you can't deny!  I also made a Quick Cheddar Beer Bread with one of Dan's Shiner Bock Frost beers.  It turned out very moist and yummy with butter smeared all over it.  Then I attempted some Spicy Pretzels that my friend Sundey posted on Facebook.  I had everything I needed for it in my pantry and it was wonderful!  I'll be making these for Super Bowl Sunday!

Dan and I made a quick trip to Stonebriar Mall to pick up a few things left on our wedding registry; a French Rolling Pin from Williams-Sonoma (for that pie crust I'm going to make....one of these days) and a Hot Air Popper from Macy's.  It was on sale for 19.99 and I couldn't resist!  Dan and I have been wanting one for so long and couldn't wait any longer. 

Let me say...I've been a fool for eating popcorn any other way.  It is so amazing and fluffy.  When paired with melted butter (wrong, I know, but fantastic!), Reese's Pieces, and a Dr. Pepper...I'm not sure there's anything else more wonderful in the world.  I'm in a blissful state right now....even though I'm watching my husband as he's got his favorite series "The Venture Bros." on the tv.  I don't mind watching it with him.  He smiles with a boyish joy that I find so sexy. 

To many more lazy Sundays with my husband......God is good!

Life these days...

My husband is great...let me just start by saying that.  He's a strong, thoughtful, kind, generous, witty, and giving man.  I'm proud to not only know him, but have him in my life every day!  I can't imagine going through the days we've had recently not having him there beside me.  I really believe we have come to the understanding that we belong together, we make each other better people, and we can't imagine our lives without each other.  

To say it mildly, our relationship and how we handle ourselves in situations have been tested.  I'm proud to say that we came together as a family (albeit small, but no less important) and prayerfully made decisions that were best for us and our well-being.  We have been blessed by God's grace and his mercy in all areas of our lives.  I continue to be humbled by people's generosity and love; and at the same time I'm continually surprised by people's ignorance, hate, and inability to communicate like adults.  Will life continue to test us in more severe ways than these past events?  Of course...I'm not naive to that fact.  But am I confident that we'll handle it the best way we know how....together with God?  Of course I am.  That makes me excited about our years to come. 

I am in awe of the man that sits in front of me now.  My husband, my partner, my lover, my beautiful future, my family. 

(I know this entire thing was really mushy....I'm sorry if you weren't prepared for that.  If it makes you feel better...he's sitting across from me in his boxers with Ruby laying asleep on his shoulder, wrapped up in a blanket watching Alton Brown.  A paragon of style and manliness no doubt!)

Large rockers and Dublin DP

Bevin has a friend on Facebook who spent Christmas in Ireland, TX. We didn't know there was an Ireland, TX and it got us to thinking, "Wouldn't it be great to tell everyone we've been to Ireland?" And then we thought, "What if we went to Dublin first, THEN Ireland?! We could tell everyone we did Dublin/Ireland this weekend!" Go puns! We looked up both cities on the map; it'd be a stretch to hit both in a day and see all the sights, though Ireland's designation as a ghost town makes the list of attractions shorter than usual. Since Dublin is closer, we decided to go there and save Ireland for later.

After a late start and a quick shot through Ft. Worth, we finally got to 281 and found our first stop of the day rather unexpectedly! About a mile south of the I-20/US 281 interchange is the Texas Hill Country Furniture and Mercantile, home of the Star of Texas Cedar Rocker, which happens to be THE largest cedar rocking chair in the world!

This place is a really cool find!  The owner/proprietor makes most of the furniture in the Mercantile, much of it from cedar and mountain pine.  There's even a bathtub made of solid mesquite that took nearly a 1000 man hours to complete.  It's fully functional and stands on hand carved horse hooves.  Too bad they don't let anyone take pictures inside...

Right next door is the Natty Flat Smokehouse, where you can get every smoked meat known to man, fresh cobbler with Blue Bell on top, and lots of different kinds of preserves/syrups/jams from all around the area.  We waited behind a few nice, old ladies out day-tripping across central Texas.  I sampled some of the jalepeno jelly while perusing the menu, fantastic!  Bevin ended up getting the pulled pork sandwich while I went with the smoked bolonga.  Before eating this sandwich, "baloney" was a cheap meat fit for college students and poor drunkards.  This thick cut slice of meat was no such thing!  It had been over the heat all day, soaking up all the woody flavor the old cook out back could throw at it.  I took it in with zeal!

We finished quickly, without desert sadly enough, but Dublin was calling!  There was a little confusion on my part about distances when we made it to Stephenville.  Bevin had done all the navigation work, and the driving for that matter, I was strictly along for the ride!  But it was taking too long.  What if we got lost, took a wrong turn?  This was a college town just after New Year's, if these savage bastards smelled fresh meat, anything could happen!

My fears were unfounded.  Bevin got us to Dublin in fine fashion, just 20 minutes before the next tour at the Dr. Pepper bottling plant.  That place was awesome!  It's the oldest DP bottling plant in America, putting out anywhere from 2 to 3 thousand bottles of the good stuff every other week.  Much of the machinery is from the 20's and 30's.  When something breaks down, they have to scrounge a part from storage or manufacture a new piece.  They still use bottles that people bring in to them from garage sales and antique stores, some from the 1960's even!  The tour costs $2.50 a person, lasts about 40 minutes and you get a free bottle of fresh brewed Dr. Pepper along the way!  Bevin even took picures in place we weren't allowed to, like the picture below...

Old Doc's Soda Shop is attached to the bottling company and housed in the original bottling room.  Bevin got all kinds of nice pictures there too!  Naturally you can get DP served up just about anyway you want it, even hot!  They also make nice sandwiches, PB&J, etc.  We bought a bottle opener, some DP Jelly Belly jelly-beans for my boss, a shot glass, a coozie, and a case of Dublin Dr. Pepper in 8 oz bottles!  Technically, since we brought the bottles home from outside of the bottling plant's 44 mile distribution radius, we're bootleggers!  But I don't think anyone will be chasing us down over it.

We then took in the Dublin museum, which had many great local artifacts from the town's history and visited Three Sister's boutique, a nice store selling all kinds of things any passerby could want.  We dined at Babe's in Grandbury and headed home to a very anxious Ruby.  All in all, it was a very good day!

Big Daddy's Flea Market

Bevin and I celebrated Christmas a little early with the family out at Cedar Creek Lake. Mammaw's lake house is picturesque being fifty yards from the water line. There are two bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, huge kitchen, sun room and a great back porch from which you can look out onto the lake and her boat house at the end of the dock. It's always a pleasure spending time there no matter how full the house gets, and it was quite full for Christmas!

After a day of gorging on cold cuts, mixed cheeses, fudge, etc., we headed home but not before stopping at a place called Big Daddy's Flea Market just between Tool and Seven Points. Yes, that's the name, Google it. Big Daddy's sits on about three acres of prime East Texas real estate along Hwy 274 and has the look of a converted Public Storage yard, only before there ever was anything called "Public Storage". The initial appearance of the place is deceptively small; it wasn't until we were through the first two buildings that I realized all the other sheds belonged to Big Daddy as well. The peddled wares though were pure white trash gold! Seriously, I've been to flea markets all over south and east Texas, as well as most of South Carolina and central Alabama. I know white trash gold when I see it.

And so does Bevin! She bought us a hot bag of roasted peanuts and a can of Dr. Pepper from a nice lady selling various cookbooks compiled by some of the local churches in town. We munched down while looking through voluminous libraries of old VCR tapes, ninja throwing stars, NASCAR collectibles- you name it! The highlight of the day was the basset hound puppies; Bevin was in love with a quiet one by the time I caught up with her. I'd been distracted by someone selling "books"... the largest collection of Nora Roberts and Danielle Steel I've ever had the, pleasure?, of wading through. (Anyone need a Dummies guide to Windows 98? I know where you can find one.) If we didn't already have Ruby, we'd have gone home with the little puppy! It was a 3 pound bundle of wrinkles and ears, very cute!

Too bad we didn't have the camera out. Some of the other patrons were very interesting and a picture would do them more justice than my faded memory. We came back to our car to find Ruby had thrown up in the back seat. The mess was cleaned up nicely and no one seemed to mind me letting Ruby pee next to our parking space. If you're ever out that way, check this place out and bring cash, you're going to need it when you find that rare copy of "Double Impact" in Betamax!

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year

Sure...each one of these deserves to stand on their own. Dan and I haven't posted in a good bit and I thought it necessary to finish up these events and start new for 2010!
Thanksgiving was at my grandmother's lake house on Cedar Creek. My cousin, the dedicated fireman, decided it would be a great idea to live up to family traditions past and fry a turkey. Well, once Dan got wind of that, the race was on. He and Evan were texting back and forth deciding on their strategy. The turkey was wonderful, the sides were wonderful, the family was wonderful!
Then there was our wedding...more to come once we get the pictures in...let's say for now...beautiful, memorable, and I'll never forget his face and the smile I saw when I walked down the aisle. So very wonderful.
After that, moving in together was a little crazy! A one-bedroom apartment is not really meant to hold 2 adults who've lived on their own for awhile. We had so many duplicates of everything..it was hard to weed through it all, but we're getting it done. Our home has that "lived-in" look, which I like. Decorating for Christmas though was a bit of a crazy thought, so we bought a 2 ft. tree and decorated it up real nice! :P Stockings were hung on the bar and that was about the extent of the decorating this year. It kind of hurt my heart to not put up everything, but I knew I couldn't find a place for it just yet.
Huffines had their Christmas party at Castle Hills Country Club and Dan had his for Mass Group Marketing at Mi Cocina in Frisco. He was blessed with a Christmas bonus check. He really does love working for this company! They have been great to him and he's working his way up!
Christmas was an adventure to say the least. After many changes in our plans due to weather and other things, we spent Christmas eve at home together and had a fantastic first Christmas together. We went to Mom and Dad's for Christmas dinner and my grandmother was visiting as well. Cornish game hens, cornbread dressing and Dan's precious fudge were in attendance. Overall it was a great day!
And that leads us to now...New Year's hockey game tonight and then headed to spend the end of 2009 with Greg and Colleen back at Chapel Hill. I'm excited to be spending it with my new husband, family, and good friends. Blessings and love to a wonderful 2010 to all! See you in the new year!

Stars game tonight!

*Whew!* Okay, so the rush of the getting married is almost over and Bevin and I are starting to settle down... only a little! We've still got some traveling to do and all, but for tonight we're stopping long enough to take in a Star's game at the AA center. We've got great seats through my boss! I've never been able to sit on the floor level of any sporting event (except for an SA Missions game once, but I think that was $1 Beer night and I don't remember much...) I'll have to tell you all about our visit to the flea market in Tool, TX this past weekend. We live in a state of very colorful people! I mean that in every sense of the word. But for now- GO STARS!!

Clark's Outpost - Tioga, Texas

On November 15, I woke up like every other Sunday...head to Starbucks in ratty clothes, get a coffee and Sunday paper, and come back to the house to read and cut coupons (one of the best things about Sunday in my opinion). When I came back, Dan was at the apartment and was looking to find some kind of football on tv. After hearing the grumbling coming from the couch about the bad football selection and his horrible picks for his fantasy teams, I suggested we try a BBQ place in Tioga that I saw had been written up in the paper that day. Well....let me say, I'm learning you never suggest trying a new bbq place to Dan if you can't fully prepare to carry this plan out! I've just about never seen him so happy! We couldn't get in the car fast enough.

We headed out to Tioga about 11:30. I wasn't sure about the crowd, seeing as they'd just been written up that day, but thought we'd hit it a little later than normal. Clark's Outpost is a very unassuming place to visit, just like Tioga. On the menu that day was an appetizer of fried cheddar cheese balls (yummy), brisket sandwich for me with potato salad, and ribs for Dan. All of it was really good. The sauce was served in Grolsch bottles and heated in water warmer...which some of the best bbq places do their sauce the same way I've found. Overall a very good experience. We drove around the town a bit and took a picture of the water tower...thought it was pretty cool!

These trips make me understand what this marriage thing is about...I absolutely love spending time with Dan. What makes me happiest is knowing that we enjoy the same things, and seeing the smile on his face makes it worth the trip....everytime!

The Big Day is tomorrow!

Alright, so we haven't posted anything in all the rush to get married, but that will soon change! Bevin and I get married tomorrow, though unofficially I've been married to her since meeting up again on mySpace. I saw her picture and that was it! I love you, Beautiful. This is going to be oh so much fun...!

The License!

We're going back to Nac today! Bevin and I need to finish our marriage counseling with Tom (the minister who'll perform our ceremony) and to get our license. Our friends, Kelly and Ryan, were married in Nac and we liked the way their license looked. This is a "turn and burn" trip though, I have to be at work tomorrow (for four hours, HA!) so we'll be headed back to Dallas this afternoon. It's a pretty trip though! We love this time of year.

Near Death Experience

In honor of my friend Laine Odle's near death encounter with a hideous yellow spider the other day, I thought I'd tell of my own experience a little over a year ago.

I'd just spent eleven glorious days of vacation in Lewisville and the Dallas Metro area with my soon to be fiancé. In fact, we'd finished lunch at "Mother's Daughter's Cafe" over on Old Orchard and Main where I'd made the decision for proposing marriage to my Bevin come Christmas time. I had the pot roast, excellent fare, and a fried chocolate pie to go. My unwitting-bride-to-be had some kind of sandwich I think, but my mind was on far heavier things than her diet at the time. We said hello to Ms. Donna dining with her son and daughter-in-law, paid for the meal, and said our loving good-byes in the parking lot. The usual three hundred miles stood between me and San Antonio; I'd been gone a touch too long from work and the natives needed taming. Had to get back quick!

With the fried pie in a brown paper sack sitting in the passenger seat, all I needed was something to wash it down. A quick stop at the Chevron around the corner would fix me. It was a cool day, I left the Pontiac's windows cracked, no sense in wasting gas on A/C, right?

It's customary when traveling to get the right amount of food and drink for the road. Too little finds you irritable and twitchy, cursing every blue-hair and gas station you pass like a foul-mouthed Sooner hopped up on those 'little white pills'. This is unsafe. Too much, however, will bog you down. Worse yet, the urge to urinate will be strong at the most inopportune moment and you will pull over. This costs time. As a trucker, I learned the right mix for me in the travel food formula is a 20 oz. bottle of Dr. Pepper, 1 12 oz. bag of roasted almonds, 1 8 oz. bag of David's sunflower seeds, and a pack of Camel's- that last part is optional, I've been clear of the cigarettes for almost six months now. All of these coupled with the pie would get me home in fine fashion and hours to spare.

I jump out on I-35E south and weave through the lunch hour traffic. Anyone from a big city like Houston, San Antonio or the Dallas area knows that Rush Hour is a myth. There are in fact many rush hours throughout the day and I zoomed headlong down the throat of a big one! Again, the air was cool, the sun was shining, the Grand Prix purring, and I was mentally plotting the how's and when's of proposing to my girl. On Christmas Day? Too cliched. Where am I going to get the ring? Charles would know. What's my 'plan B'? This is how I thought my way through the construction, closed exits, and potholes.

Lancaster, TX is a poorer suburban town marking the border of South Dallas. I'd spent some time there at the Red Roof Inn (next to the Cracker Barrel) when the company I drove for, Frozen Food Express, was putting me through training. The place, the city, is a dump. Traffic had thinned some by this point in the trip and I'd begun to relax and reminisce on how different my life was since making a short-lived career of trucking. I went to adjust the sun visor and saw legs. Segmented legs of evil, all shiny and reddish-brown like the Devil's polished ass!

I've spoken often of my firm belief that God plans to keep me humble with this insane fear of spiders. It's silly to be as big and strong as I am and practically piss myself at the thought of a spider weighing two grams speeding its way up my left leg. I've also often joked that I was going to die one day while losing control of my car as one swung down out of the sun visor.

For one eternal moment I sat transfixed, staring at the hideous creature crawling around to the front of my sun visor and thought, This is It. The Grande finale. I actually predicted my own end. God does have a sense of humor and I'm the punch line of a joke! I don't recall the lane I was in, but I'd set the cruise control at 67 MPH just moments prior to the grim discovery. This is a magical setting, just slow enough not to bother cops but fast enough to get through city traffic at an even pace. And should you lose control of your vehicle at this speed? Punch line.

A calm swept over me. The steering wheel was in my left hand, my right hand free of drink or food. Stay in control man, feel for something. You've got to crush it before it makes its move- but make damn sure you get it on the first shot, boy! There'll be no second try here. Unaware of anything going on around me, I knew this would require more than a napkin. The idea of touching poisonous spider guts is almost as hateful as its big brother, the one involving my left leg. There in the passenger seat was the answer I sought: sun-warmed fried chocolate pie in a brown paper bag.

In a motion too fast for words, I crushed the menace and sent its body, those sickly legs, bag and all, to the passenger side floorboard. I watched for movement. Nothing. Then came breath and focus. I was supposed to be driving a car, in traffic no less! At some point during the fray my brakes were tapped because I was now doing 40 MPH on a major Interstate highway, thankfully in the slow lane. People honked their horns, but I couldn't care. Heart pounding, head throbbing, I fumbled for the phone. Bevin couldn't hear me in this state, no that'd ruin all my plans for wedded bliss. Nancy! Surrogate mother, wonderful boss! She'd make fun of me, rightly so, but she'd be safe to tell what had just transpired in all my tizzied glory.

It was Nancy who pointed out the answer to my biggest question- how did that thing get into my car in the first place?! She asked if I'd left the windows open over night. Nope, been burned too many times by rain. What about lunch time? No, but I left them cracked... when I ran... into the gas-station... Well, there you go dummy.

'Dummy' indeed! I made the trip back home in relative peace, not even stopping to throw the bag of mashed pie and spider guts away. Bevin was eventually called, long after I'd calmed down. I don't remember her response exactly, the nerves were still slightly shot, but the story had little effect on her saying 'yes' when I proposed last December. We've made a fair deal since then: she'll kill the spiders, I'll handle the crickets. She's terrified of crickets, I know them as bait. I just hope she's driving the next time this kind of thing happens; deal or no deal, twice in a lifetime is too much.

Mattito's in Frisco and the Art Show...

So the other night, Bevin and I decided to hit the town and go to an art show in Frisco. A friend of hers from work knows one of the artists in the show (Jeb Matulich, you can search for his blog, Junky Trinkets). He does fantastic work! It was a pleasant change of pace from our usual evenings as of late. The Frisco City Hall Atrium is an impressive structure, newly built with all the ammenities. The artwork is on all five floors and will be on display for the better part of a year. If you're out this way anytime soon and want to do something with a touch of class, check out the show. You won't be disappointed. And yes, I mangaged to go through the whole display without touching anything or knocking it off the wall... mostly. I got a little close to a few pieces while admiring the brush strokes. Bevin kept me in line though!

And now for dinner...


Although the finger foods at the show were wonderful, it just wasn't enough for Dan! We had plans to eat at Mattito's there in the square. I've always heard about it, and thought we'd give the place a try. 2 Margarita's (one with salt, one without), cheese and beef enchilada dinner, seafood chile relleno with raisins and pecans, and many chips and salsa later....well, you get the picture. It was good....very good.... Dan was impressed with their version of a chile relleno and how they put the raisins on the top. The only difficult thing to manage at the end of the night was the high sticker shock on the margaritas. 6.95 a piece for each house margarita! I know the both of us were shocked to see that. Next time we'll go during happy hour if we want to drink.

Mid-way through the battle...but Dan will not be defeated by this "quaint" sized meal. Notice the raisins! Yum!

When we left for the evening, we could imagine Ruby was very anxious to see us and hurried home. I can speak for Dan when I say this...a night of culture can do you good. I feel fancy!

Becoming a Jackson...the beginning...

So, I set up this blog to chronicle the adventures of the future Mr. and Mrs. Dan and Bevin Jackson. It won't be that special...probably only my mother and maybe the random stranger will look on here. Over the years, my family has become more tech savvy and I'm proud to say, I think even my Dad might get on every blue moon and check out to see what his daughter and son are doing. I like the idea of a place to share things with people that want to know. I also like the idea of family being able to catch up, no matter the medium.

I won't be writing on this very much until after we become The Jackson's. I could have set it up and made the changes, but honestly, I'm much too lazy for that. But after December 5th, I hope you like what you see. You can expect pictures, random thoughts (more from Dan I think), recipes, and lots of other sorts of goodies. Hope you enjoy and love and blessings to all!