KIds meals-August 30, 2016

Thursday night we ate at Gella's Restaurant in Hays, Kansas. We so enjoy the food that we make it a point to stop there every time we pass through the city. They are way off the beaten path but worth finding it. Located on a brick street from days gone by it is in the center of a restored old town Hays. What a great job they have done.

Old town, Hays, Kansas

 

 

This is how they serve the kids meals at Gella's. The inside is a clear

plastic bowl. If the car is not destroyed by the child it can be taken home.

I sweet talked our waiter into giving us two to bring home to our

little "angels". This is such a clever idea. Something we have not seen before.

 

If you ever drive through Hays do make it a point to eat at Gella's. They have been in the same location for 13 years so they are doing something right. And it is called food. The food is absolutely fabulous. Service is superb. For the record, I was not paid to say these things! And no we did not eat kids meals.

 

 

 

 

Rain-August 27, 2016

One of the fun things about living in open flat country is that you can see for such

a long distance. These pictures are of a thunderstorm that was moving across the plains.

 

See the rain shafts. Still the sun is shining.

 

These shafts are a little more intense.

 

Here you see the storm moving past us and the sun

starting to shine behind it. This storm did contain some

small hail. The dots on the window are not dirt. It's light rain.

 

I find these sights very interesting and I am glad we have such open space to enjoy this.

But don't read this wrong. I still love the trees in the South. Not just the rich deep green color but

the glorious shade they provide.

 

 

 

Odd Camper-August 26, 2016

We saw this thing in a rest area in Kansas a few days ago.

It's like a tent on top of a Honda Element. There was a ladder on the side

of the car so they could climb up and sleep.

Obviously there is no bathroom or kitchen. It appears there is only

a blanket inside but we did not want to stare. They were from Oregon.

 

To each his own I suppose. It just did not look comfy to us.

Cheap, but not practical.

 

Business-August 18, 2016

We are roaming about taking care of business. Elvis called that "TCB". We're doing it.

A rice field in Arkansas. We have never seen rice at this stage of growth.

We've seen it being harvested (combined) and watched it being planted,

but have never seen it in full growth. It's really pretty.

 

Sunset over Oklahoma. Pretty, pretty, pretty.

 

We'll be back in the swing of things in just a few days.

 

Hannah started preschool today and we are anxious to hear how she liked it, or not.

 

Flowers?-August 12, 2016

The neighbors across the street have these things planted in

their front yard.

 

 

If you're from the South you know what these are. They are Goldenrod.

They are WEEDS! They grow wild everywhere in the South and have started

to take hold here. They cause terrible allergies. We are bumfuzzled why

anybody would plant a weed in their yard. They are like all other weeds,

they grow like crazy. Perhaps someone here gave them a cute name and people

bought seeds thinking they would get a pretty flower.

 

At one time, in my youth, this was Alabama's State Flower. Fortunately, someone wised up and removed the weed from the state flower list.

Birthday time-August 10, 2016

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY TO HANNAH!

I can't believe Hannah is 4 already. Time flies.

 

Zoey spent the day with us while Hannah went with her parents to Elitches Amusement Park in Denver. Hannah had a good time and we had a great time with Zoey. She was not upset at being here alone but she did ask twice where Hannah was. She never asked for her parents and when it came time to go home she sat down on the floor and said she was staying. We did take Zoey to a balloon store to pick out a birthday balloon for Hannah. She was so overwhelmed at all the balloons her mouth was just dragging on the floor. It was so cute. We let her get a plain balloon so she chose purple. She was so pleased it made us feel terrific. All in all, a good day for everybody.

Hannah's handiwork-August 7, 2016

We kept both girls yesterday. Zoey was unusually tired and spent most of the time resting on the floor or sleeping in my lap. Holding her is not drudgery by any means. So while she was sleeping in my arms I could hear Hannah in the play room with Granddaddy. Her mouth ran constantly. I could not hear every word but I could tell she was really into something. After I finally got a chance to see what was going on, this is what I found.

Hannah's homemade playground.

These cats go with her dollhouse and are only about 2 1/2 inches tall.

 

This is the swing.

The cat on the coasters is jumping hopscotch.

 

This one is going down a slide.

 

Jerry told me that the only part of this he helped with was to be sure the bolts were tightened. Hannah designed and built this herself. I am not kidding. He said all of the talking she was doing was not at him, but instead she was giving building instructions to the cats.

 

I told Derrick before Hannah could walk that she had an engineers mind. I think I even posted it on this blog. He always looked at me like I fell off the turnip truck yesterday. I rest my case. The bad part is that girls with engineer's minds don't always fit in well with others.

 

Hannah will be 4 on Thursday. I am happy to share with you what she accomplished yesterday.

 

 

Miscellaneous-August 4, 2016

First, Happy Birthday to my baby brother! His birthday serves to remind me how old I am.

I have several odd pictures to share in no particular order.

This burro just moved in down the street from Derrick. Well, it's family

moved in, too. Neither one of us has ever seen a multi colored burro.

All we have ever seen is a solid colored ones. It seems so odd. And the

poor thing is entirely frustrated. It paces constantly and brays endlessly.

We feel sorry for it. Still, it's interesting to look at.

 

This is our view of the Rockies. Trust me, they are there. The smoke has

been so bad for so long we have not had a clear view of the mountains

in a very long time. We miss them.

 

The last time we went to the park when it was not cloudy and cool,

the girls went down a hot slide. Shame on us for not checking first.

As soon as they got off the slide they started running around the park

holding their rear ends and shouting that they had burned bottoms.

It was too funny to stop them. Besides we were the only ones there.

 

When we picked the girls up this morning Hannah asked to go to the "toy store", her name for Wal Mart. It's definitely not our favorite store but Toys R Us is just too far away. It goes without saying she found a Princess Cat (mew-mew) that she wanted. We told her she could not have it because it might mess up her birthday which is next week. She said that was fine because she didn't want anything except a cake. We found that a clever enough answer that she and Zoey both got the Princess cat. It's a tiny thing and really cute. It only took us an hour and a half to find that one object. Still, for the most part, we had fun.

 

Once we arrived back here, we made some cookies. I had the idea to make watermelon cookies. Watermelon in appearance, not flavor. So, I made sugar cookie dough. We all put the dough on the cookie sheets. Zoey fell asleep so Hannah had to decorate them. The icing is just a vanilla flavored powder sugar icing and then she put mini chocolate chips on top. I think they turned out pretty well.

 

They're going down pretty easily, too.

 

We will have the girls here again on Saturday. We never know what to expect so we are just trying to roll with the punches.