Here, There & Everywhere

I could sit all day long and watch the beagle and the bassets running. They just make me laugh!

Or once the daffodils are blooming will we get kicked in the rear with ice and snow? Time will tell. It does appear though that some of our plants think it’s time to pop up and show some color.

As I stated in my previous post, Amanda does love to read. It’s not unusual to find her like this, although it’s usually one of the bassets that she’s cuddled up to and not Bubba. You can tell though that Bubba was enjoying himself.

I don’t know anyone who loves books more than Amanda. From the moment she learned to read, she has had her nose stuck in a book, reading newspapers, reading the internet, browsing book stores–new and used and making lists of books she wants to read. I don’t know how she keeps it all straight.

I do believe that she thinks everyone loves to read as much as she does. And because she thinks everyone does/should, she loves to share. Following are the books that she gave to Tommy last Christmas and this Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appears to be certain themes:

• Wyoming
• Railroads
• The West
• Baseball

I’d say Tommy better get to reading. :)

When we returned from our Christmas trip to Wyoming I had to jump back into work. The two-week break was a great one, but I almost had to get trained again on my job. :) Thankfully, all of the soccer people were busy doing other things as well and didn’t need any assistance from me right away.

We lost Tommy’s dad to Alzheimer’s last week. What a nasty, nasty disease that is and so horrible for family/friends to watch their loved ones go through. This is one of the last pictures of Ed before he was unable to get out. Three generations–Ed, Tommy and Hall.

And the whole family together:

If walls and doors could speak, what would we hear about this house? In our travels to the West we see a lot of old abandoned houses and barns. And each one I see makes me wonder what happened to the families that lived/farmed/ranched there.

Time to go home. I tried to talk Tommy into staying in Laramie permanently, but he said no. So we got up early and hit the road. I sure will miss the Wyoming skies.

I asked Tommy when he was growing up if he realized how big the sky really is. With so many trees around where we live, you just don’t get to see the wide open skies like out west.

This is the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument. It’s a museum that goes across I80 in the middle of Nebraska–pretty cool!

The rest of the trip home was pretty uneventful. We stopped for a train and a few barns. The one place I’d really like to have stopped and gotten some pictures was Cairo, Illinois. This is the area that was flooded back during the Spring/Summer. At one time Cairo was a thriving city and you can tell by the number of really large houses there. Unfortunately it has fallen upon hard times. We weren’t able to stop for photos though as it was nearly dark.

The day after Christmas, Tommy and I went for another drive. This time we decided to head out towards Alsop Lake. I have previously taken pictures there of all the snow and the ice on the lake. We’ve even found ice fishermen there! This time–nothing but a Game Warden sitting in his truck. But, we drove farther than normal and went until the road ended. Along the way we saw a really long barn, a bale of hay on an old trailer and an old rock house–my kind of drive. :)

I’m always reminded of the Beatles song, The Long and Winding Road, when we travel in Wyoming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a wonderful Christmas it was with Amanda and Evan. We surely did miss having Sara and Hall with us though. The day started out a bit later than we thought–Tommy and I were awake and up by 5:30 (Laramie time). Usually on Christmas morning, Amanda is awake really early. Not so this year. Tommy and I really tried to make enough noise to get the lazy butts out of bed. I was getting close to starting to open presents when Amanda and Evan finally got up. While we were opening gifts our Monkey Bread was baking and making the house smell really good.

Unfortunately, Evan found water backing up in their laundry room so the next couple of hours he and Tommy tried to find the problem. The good/bad thing was the problem was  in the pipe from the kitchen sink down to the basement. While it was good that they were able to find out what the problem was, it was bad because we could not use the water in the kitchen. Thankfully we were able to cook dinner. We could not wash the dishes which left a mess in the kitchen.

We had fried turkey, sweet potato casserole (which Evan says is like dessert at dinner), stuffing, roasted brussel sprouts (Pioneer Woman’s recipe–yummy), Crescent rolls (not near as tasty as Anne’s homemade rolls) and cranberry sauce. We were going to make a Buttermilk Pie but were all so full nobody felt like making one.

All in all another wonderful Christmas in Laramie!