The Big D - Pt 2

As part of my job is to provide support during elections as requested, since I was part of the team who was in Texas in October, I also had to go back for the big General Election on November 4th. I was one of the very lucky ones who traveled to a place that had a very smooth election! No problems, no crazy stories to relate, just smooth sailing! The day I got in, I went over to Amber & Lance's house and got to see their kids...hadn't seen Miss A since she was a little over 6 months and had never seen the twins! All 3 are just as adorable as can be! I really hated that Zoie wasn't there as I knew she would have had a BLAST with them all! Amber & then got together with Sophie & Sloan at our favorite place - PF Chang's!

I had previously arranged to take another couple of days off and stay in Texas to visit more friends, so after the election wrapped up, I headed to McKinney and got to meet Frank, Deb, Rachel and Brad for dinner then went over to Frank & Debs for after dinner drinks. We got silly and had some great laughs!




Frank & Deb were very gracious to let me stay at their house while I was there....the next day, I met Frank, Sonya, & Jarret for lunch then did some shopping. I hit the Ikea store and Sam Moon - oh yeah! That evening Sonya & I had dinner but I didn't get a picture. After dinner with Sonya, I stopped at Rachel's to say "see ya!" to her and to see her kids - they all used to be Indie's babysitter when I lived there. It's when you see kids that you realize how long it's been since you've seen people - they've grown and matured so much!


I hadn't seen all these friends for 2 years but it didn't seem like it had been that long at all - a sign of true friendship! It made me miss being there and working with them!

Trick-or-Treat, Pancakes & Haircuts

Last night was All Hallows Eve...or Halloween to most of us. If you ask me what Zoie's costume was, I'm not really sure...kind of a combination of a princess, ballerina and fairy. The costume ended up in our hands last Halloween as a gift from Wendy for Zoie to use as dress-up and we never got around to using it so there ya go - this year's costume! We stopped at a couple of neighbors (including Pop-pop's) and then met up with Wendy, Porkchop and Marty (the Husker Linebacker) at the local mall (which was CRAZY and we'll probably by-pass that next year) for a little while then came back to our neighborhood and visited a few more houses around here. Zoie got quite a scare at one house...the man hadn't heard her knock on the door and came around the corner with a scary monster mask on - she flew off their porch into my arms! The man felt SO bad but when Zoie realized that it was just a mask, she was ok.

Here is the little diva dressed in her costume, or gown, as Zoie called it...




Here are a couple of trick-or-treat photos at the mall and around the neighborhood...






And, of course, once we got home we had to check out all the loot and Zoie enjoyed the fruits (or chocolates) of her labor!




This morning after a hard night of candy-gathering, I decided we should have pancakes for breakfast...and I had an excellent chef's assistant. These were some of the best pancakes I think I've ever had!


Our next big thing for today was....Zoie's 1st Haircut (kind of)!! I had cut her hair a couple times at home but today we officially went to a beauty shop and Zoie sat up in the big stylist chair and got her haircut! She was chatting away with Bettie, the beautician, and Amelia, another customer who was under the dryer. It was very sweet...

Shady Ladies

The Elvis shades return...


And the Biker shades...


And all together now...are we silly or what?!



Later!

Wham Bam Pooh Weekend!

I got back Friday night from my work trip in time to play with Zoie and talk to Mom for a while then get Zoie's pj's on and we crashed! We must have ALL been tired because we slept in until after 10 a.m. (it was wonderful!!). We got up and had some breakfast, watched Wonder Pets & Blues Clues then headed out to a craft show at our church (you'll see Zoie's new hat in future posts as the weather gets colder) and we saw my Godmother, Donna, who has a booth at the show most every year. Mom caught up with her as I tried to keep up with Zoie - never realized how much jewelry was at a craft show until I took a curious 2 year old! When we left the craft show, we were going to grab lunch (before the Nebraska game got out and every place was packed!) so we headed south to the new Texas Roadhouse in town. Go figure, I get back from Dallas and where do I go eat - TX Roadhouse! I've eaten at this restaurant in Texas (surprise!) and Wichita, KS, before so I was glad that it had come to Lincoln and added to the variety of restaurants. We had a great lunch with delicious food and good conversation among us then as we left, I noticed this little saddle & cowboy hat so my cowgirl Zoie hopped on for a bit to say yeehaw!



It turned out to be a gorgeous Indian Summer day (which we're starting to see less & less of and more cold, rain, & wind) and I had to snap some pics of the beautiful fall foliage we saw...




These trees were just in our neighborhood...we saw many, many more gorgeous trees driving through town. I love the autumn color palette of golds, deep red/burgundy, plum, burnt orange mixed in with evergreens - it's like fall has it's own special rainbow!

On Sunday after church, our big event was Disney LIVE! Presents Winnie the Pooh...my Swister and I had got these tickets months ago and the day was finally here! It was Swister Wendy, PCJ (Marty), my Mom, Zoie and me...we had great seats and the show was thoroughly enjoyed by kids and adults alike! An especially fun part was when it "snowed" in the auditorium - it was really cold & wet like snow! They also threw big "tomatoes" (beach balls made to look like them) into the crowd - I have no pics of these going around the crowd because one of the first ones was coming right at us and we kind of froze until it was right there so we were on the lookout from then on! Enjoy the pics from the show!

In the Big D - with Friends

I had to go to Dallas for a couple of days for work (& will be going back there again in about a week) and, while there, I got to get together with my good friend, Marcia, since she won't be there when I go back. It was SO great to see her and kind of fun being back in the DFW area! We had a nice dinner one evening along with a colleague I met on this trip. Here's our self-portrait!