Dad's Day

While it might not have been the ideal afternoon to go to an amusement park, the three Six Flags season pass holders in our house thought it would be amusing to take their dad for roller coaster rides for Dad's Day. It's convenient that the park is only about 30 minutes away from our house. Best of all, Mr. Smith and I had free admission for the day, so it seemed like a good, inexpensive idea, despite the warmish temperatures and the thousands of others who obviously had the same notion of how to spend Father's Day afternoon.

We even bumped into some of our neighbors at the park. They looked just as hot and sweaty as we felt. Six Flags may not be the "happiest place on earth," but it just might qualify as the hottest place on earth. Crowded, too. It's a good thing that there was a breeze.

The Smithlings' main objective was to get their dad to ride the Shock Wave roller coaster, as it had been about 30 years since he had last ridden it. The wait was not terribly long, and Mr. Smith enjoyed the ride -- with hands in the air, of course -- down memory lane. I happily waited in the shade with a bottle of cold water.

Next, the kids hoped to get their father to ride the iPhone4 eating Texas Giant coaster, but the queue was 90+ minutes long. The 3 Smithlings had just been at Six Flags on Monday with a group of friends, so they didn't care about riding lots of rides. This was their dad's day, after all, so they let their father pick what he wanted to ride. Mr. Smith opted not to wait for this one.

I just had to share a photo of what the Texas Giant can do to a cell phone. During the kids' visit on Monday, our son's cell phone slipped out of the pocket of his pants and was devoured by the "Giant." Ouch. This phone was pretty much gutted. Thankfully, the SIM card was still inside, so it wasn't a total loss. (I'm always the optimist.)

Papa Smith will just have to wait until another not-so-crowded day to ride the TX Giant. And all cell phones will be safely stowed.

Q: Can you name the six flags that have flown over Texas soil?

A: Spain, France, Mexico, Texas Republic, Confederate, and United States

The Five Smiths?

Park Admission: $0

Water from the water fountain: $0

Waiting in line: Forever

Temperature: 102º F

Time with Dad on Father's Day: Priceless!

"There are some things money can't buy."

After waiting in seemingly endless lines for the better part of the afternoon, and only getting to ride a few rides, we decided to leave Six Flags in search of food. We treated Papa Smith to a yummy dinner at Pappasito's Cantina. Funny how Mr. Smith was the one who paid the bill. Happy Father's Day, huh?
"For everything else, there's MasterCard."

Here, Kitty Kitty!

Apparently there is a Scottish superstition that says, "A strange black cat on your porch brings prosperity."

If this superstition is true, then I'm rich! This adorable black kitty wasn't on my porch, it was inside my house, so I am sure I get extra bonus points for that.


Oh, but isn't there yet another superstition that mentions something about having a black cat cross your path that is supposed to bring bad luck? Now I'm really confused.

The confusion has been cleared, and I can attest that the whole notion of bad luck and black cats being linked is merely a myth. This beautiful black cat crossed my path, and I am blessed indeed!  As for that Scottish belief about black cats, we'll wait and see how that prosperity part works out.  

> ^. .^ < 

I love it when our youngest Smithling does something unexpected, silly, and creative -- which is pretty much all of the time. On this purr-ticular afternoon, Millie wanted to try to copy the makeup from her favorite "CATS" character; however, she soon learned that my makeup drawer offered a rather limited supply of theatrical makeup. None, actually. She improvised with eye liner and eye shadow to create her fantastic feline face.

The Glamour Puss

"A thing of beauty, strength, and grace lies behind that whiskered face."

"Cats are so unpredictable. You just never know how they'll ignore you next."

So now you know what goes on at our house when the temps hit the century mark, and it's too hot to play outdoors. I think I'd better go buy some more makeup. 

Sleepy Saturday

On Saturday evening, we saw a bluebird wearing pointe shoes, two dancing cats, a lovely princess, oversized vermin, a wicked fairy, and beautiful, kind, talented, fairies. Were we asleep? Was it a bad dream? No, we were in the audience at North Central Ballet's production of The Sleeping Beauty. Napping was not allowed, despite the name of the ballet. It was a treat to see all the weeks of hard work come together in one terrific show.

So, can you guess what aforementioned category my beautiful, kind, and talented ballerina was in? 

I could go on and on about all of the beauteous ballerinas (one in particular!), but I will not bore you with tutu many details. Instead, I will simply share several photos from the ballet and add commentary where needed.

King Florenstan XXIV, the Queen, and "babydoll" Aurora

The fairies give gifts of of beauty, grace, prosperity, and song to Princess Aurora.

Our ballerina girl portrayed the Fairy of the Crystal Fountain who bestows the gift of beauty. Of course, we (her proud and certainly unbiased parents) think she kept a bit of that beauty for herself. :-)

The wicked Carabosse 

Princess Aurora a.k.a. Olivia

Olivia isn't dead; she's merely napping... for 100 years!

Although I didn't include any photos of the next scenes, I'll fill you in on what takes place: The prince finds the snoozin' princess, plants a big smooch on her lips, Aurora awakens, then the Prince and Princess immediately decide to get hitched. Pretty realistic, huh?

Now comes the wedding scene and the dancing cat part of the show... That's totally believable, too. I like cats, so this is good stuff.

 The White Cat and Puss in Boots, minus the boots

Liesey as the Gold Fairy

And they lived happily ever after!

Right in Our Backyard

We were in the car (again!) on Memorial Day as we took a short 1 hour drive north of Fort Worth to visit the Lyndon B. Johnson National Grassland. This place was hard to find, that's for sure. And we couldn't help but chuckle when we finally saw the welcome sign, which was not much larger than a standard sheet of printer paper.

We felt so welcomed.

We found some grass on the land, so it truly is a grassland. 

Perhaps we should stop mowing our lawn and get it registered as a grassland. I can get a sign printed up in no time at all. Oh, and we don't need to call it a "national" grassland, just a "regional" or "neighborhood" designation will do. ;-) Just think how much water we will conserve from not having to water the lawn, not to mention all of the time we will save by not having to mow the grass every week. I am sure that our HOA would love this idea. Not!

We pretty much had the place to ourselves.

We found a shady location to enjoy our lunch. We didn't have to fight anyone else for a picnic table, except for a few ants and lots of flies.

We found a nice hiking trail to walk off our lunch, but decided that a 1.5 mile trek was far enough to go since it was 93º outside.

On the drive back to Keller, we stopped for a few minutes in the little burg of Decatur. It is a small and quaint city, and will require a future trip for further investigation.

The Wise County Courthouse is an architectural beauty, despite the fact that the clocks cannot agree upon the correct time of day. Neither timepiece is displaying the correct time. I'm not sure about the other two.  Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody care (about time)?

"El Castile" is an amazing limestone mansion that was built in 1883.

We plan to go back to Decatur sometime soon for breakfast at the Whistle Stop Cafe. We've heard that this small roadside diner has some of the best home cookin' around. The biscuits and gravy get rave reviews, and it's right next to the Petrified Wood Gas Station, right here in our "backyard." Who could ask for anything more?
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/13034

Memorial Tour

The holiday weekend found our family in the car once again; this time we were Oklahoma-bound. Our "little" boy didn't join in on our journey since he was headed to Joplin, MO, with our church to assist with disaster relief efforts. We missed having our son with us, but are thankful that he can go lend a helping hand. (I might have to share some of his Joplin photos and stories at a later date, if he allows me to do so.)

On this trip, Mr. Smith was surrounded by girls -- four of 'em! Mr. Smith's cousin, Linda, flew to DFW from SFO to join in on our Enid excursion. The destination? Three cemeteries in the greater Enid, OK, area were on our "must see" list. Would it be in poor taste to say it was a grave experience? Hmmmm. Actually, it was a rather cheerful outing. No somber moods were allowed. :-)

To honor my mother-in-law, we happily carried on her tradition of decorating each and every family member's grave site. Our car was loaded with flowers and American flags (Thank you, Hobby Lobby!) and a tasty picnic lunch (Thank you, Mr. Smith!).

It doesn't seem like it's been a year since we said our goodbyes to Grandma Florence. She is missed.

One of the highlights of the Memorial Tour was getting to visit Zion Lutheran Church in Lahoma, OK. The church was built over 100 years ago. The Krueger side of the family has worshiped here for as long as the church has been in existence. Mr. Smith & Cousin Linda found many interesting photos of relatives, and learned more about their Okie ancestors. 

Although this is a picture of a picture, it shows what the church looked like in 1908.

Things look pretty much the same today; only in color.

This family photo of Mr. Smith's great grandparents and their offspring was hanging on the wall inside the church. Millie observed that these people just don't look happy. I guess toothy grins were not fashionable during this era. Or perhaps the photographer made everyone grumpy.  Just for fun, I'd like to try out my Photoshop skills and add in some smiles, but that's a project for another day.

No visit to the Smith/Krueger/Wehrmann "motherland" is complete without also visiting the Krueger family farm in Lahoma. Our city slicker girly-girls actually like getting out and exploring with their cousins. Both of our girls had dirty feet and contented smiles after tromping through the fields.

OK wheatfield -- almost ready for harvest

I had fun "shooting" the cousins -- Millie, Suzanna, Liesey, and Rebecca.

Outstanding in their field? Or out standing in their field?

This field is growing beautiful young ladies in addition to wheat. Looks like the harvest is plentiful.

Cousin Linda posed with her cousin Eugene.

It is always a pleasure to visit with friends and family in Oklahoma, but there just doesn't seem to be enough time to get everything fit into one weekend. It's a good thing we live relatively close. And it's a good thing we like taking road trips. We'll be back. Gotta keep those wheels rolling.