Back to School

 School days, school daze... We are experiencing a healthy dose of being dazed these days.

The past week has been spent getting ready for school to begin. All three Smithlings are hittin' the books this month. Millie's school began on August 22nd. Our son's classes at Univ. of Texas at Arlington begin on August 25th. Liesey's two college level classes (at Tarrant County College) begin on the 30th of the month, and she will also be taking a few of her senior year classes on-line at home. I feel like I need to enroll in a class, or two, too!

For the first time in her life, Millie Girl is heading off to "real" school. What an adventure this has been! The school supply list was long, but we all worked together and even had fun helping the school girl locate every single thing, plus a few extras. Hooray for Staples!

Schedule day was overwhelming; even for Mom and Dad. Millie's new school has 850+ students in 7th and 8th grade, so there were LOTS of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen-year-olds everywhere. And there were just as many parents as students, if not more. It's a good thing it's a big campus.

Our youngest daughter is now a Keller Middle School Comanche.

The middle school that Millie goes to used to be the high school in Keller, so it is a large-ish campus. Everything is bigger in Texas? Uh-huh. I told Millie that she has more students in her 7th grade class than I had in my entire high school. And my high school was made up of four grades!

 Do you think this student has enough pencils?

As an end-of-summer-last-hurrah-kind-of thing, our family went out to eat on Sunday afternoon. The restaurant we chose was in Addison, which is north of Dallas. Eating at the Magic Time Machine was interesting, indeed. Paul Bunyan was our waiter, and Superman breezed by our table a few times. There were other characters there, too. The waitstaff is made up of various fictional characters, and I think it is a requirement for each waiter to be a stand-up comedian, as well. The food was good (not knock-your-socks-off-great), but the entertainment value was exceptional. We laughed the entire time we were there.

Strawberry shortcake is the cure for calming the back-to-school jitters.

Our family posed for a photo, but when the "photo ninja" brought the finished product, we could tell that something went horribly wrong in the developing process.

YIKES!!!!! Mr. Smith is pretty scary looking.
We all agreed that Millie looks like she could be Gregg Allman's brother or cousin.


Lord, I was born a ramblin' man...

The first day of school brought smiles and a few nerves, but no tears.

I'm sure Bart and Jemima are going to miss Millie while she's away all day long.
Don't they look sad?

And she's off...

Showers of Blessing

Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. -Psalm 127:3

Baby Gianna, our newest neighbor girlie, was showered with love, hugs, kisses, and some very nice presents as we all welcomed her to the 'hood. We have wonderful neighbors, so it is always a pleasure to get to spend time with everyone. And it's always fun to snuggle/cuddle a new bebé.

 Thomson Triplets

 Gianna enjoyed visiting with each and every neighbor.
This baby girl has great interpersonal skills at an early age. ;-)

 Nothing Bundt Cake's carrot cake soon disappeared.

Decorating cupcakes may be fun, but eating the finished product is even better.

The "Denerest" (Denali + Everest) Ladies

 Paula had a lot of help with unwrapping the gifts, so it didn't take long to open all of the packages.

 Judy enjoyed taking her turn at holding Gianna. 

 Liesey and Elena smiled for the camera.

I waited patiently and finally got to have my turn snuggling a sweet baby girl. Oh, if only babies stayed this way  -- not for forever -- but for longer than they do!

I am not really sure what Miss Katie is up to here.
I'm not even sure she knows what she's doing!

 This trio is nothing but trouble -- not!

As I was cleaning up after the party, I opened the china cabinet to store some of our serving pieces. I returned to the kitchen to get a second armload of stuff and left the cabinet door ajar.  On my return trip, this is what I found. You can see from the photo that Maine Coons are helpers. Some help, huh?!  I suppose that I should be grateful that Jemima didn't want to help me wash the dishes. Cats!

Back Home Again

Recently, I had the opportunity to fly back to the Hoosier state to spend a week with my daddy. Mr. Smith and the Smithlings stayed behind in the sweltering Texas heat while I got to enjoy cool 79 degree temperatures in Indiana. In mid-August?!! Who would have imagined such a thing?

Dad and I had a very fun week hanging out together. As usual, my father taught me a few new tricks. I can now change a tire all by my big girl self. This is something that I understood (in theory) how to do, but have never HAD to do. I completed the task, and I didn't even get too dirty. :-) 

Although the tire changing event was pretty cool, the biggest accomplishment was learning how to use my dad's Dixie Chopper. 

A Dixie Chopper is a zero turn lawn mower that is made near Greencastle, Indiana. It reminds me of a very souped up power wheelchair with a cutting deck mounted on the underside. See the similarity? Well, one is a lot noisier than the other.

This beast of a mower is intimidating, to say the least. I have never really wanted to learn how to use it, and I've never really needed to know. Every time we visit Indiana, my son is the one who rides the Dixie. Since M. wasn't with me on this sojourn, I was the one who had grass choppin' duties. 

After a quick tutorial, (Thanks, Dad and Cousin John!) I turned the key, put 'er into gear and made a few fairly straight passes in the field. It wasn't so bad -- well, as long as the terrain is nice and flat, it's not so bad.

I decided to not be stingy with the riding duties, so I "let" Dad mow the "back forty." I was a bit put off by the thought of mowing near the creek, and along the pond, so my daddy took care of that section. My hero!

After mowing almost all of the property, we enjoyed a nice cool evening on the back deck. We had teamed up to tame the grass, and I was feeling a new-found confidence about handling the hot rod Chopper. Well, I was sort of confident. It was getting too dark to finish what we had started, so we agreed to wrap things up the following afternoon. After all, tomorrow is another day.


The next morning, we ventured to Vincennes, Indiana, in the southern part of my home state. Dad had an early morning appointment, we had a lunch date, and there were a few places to explore. Oh, my, it had been YEARS since I was last here! I know that I toured the historical sites as a grade school student, but I couldn't remember much of anything about what significant things happened here, or there... What did I learn in school, any way?


The George Rogers Clark Memorial is a memorial built along the banks of the Wabash River honoring George Rogers Clark. Duh! Clark is regarded as the "Conquerer of the Old Northwest." His efforts in the Revolutionary War were instrumental in ultimately defeating the British. I do remember that much.

Another stop on our tour was Grouseland, not to be confused with Graceland. Grouseland was the home of William Henry Harrison during his term as Governor of the Indiana Territory. Apparently the land had an abundant population of grouse, so Grouseland it was, and still is. We didn't see any grouse during our visit, but I won't grumble, complain, or grouse about that.

On the drive back to my dad's place, we just HAD to make stop by the Big Peach. Again, it had been a long time since I had stopped here. The peaches for sale were ripe and plentiful, but not quite as large as the one on the sign. Hmmmm, is that false advertising?


Once we returned to the Thompson Ranch, I decided to attack the last little bit of tall grass. The confidence in my newly-acquired Chopper operating abilities was soon dashed to bits, as I slid into the creek, not once, but twice. The first time I was able to drive out of the creek without any help. At this point, I should have parked the beast in the garage, but I couldn't leave well enough alone.


Pride? Maybe. Stupidity? Perhaps. Blondeness? Only my hairdresser knows for sure...


I simply HAD to make one more pass along the creek and up the hill. I started slowly going up the hill, yet found myself sliding sideways into the creek again. I ended up pointed in the exact opposite direction from where I intended to go. It all happened so quickly that I have no idea how I got stuck, or how I got completely turned around.


This time it took the "Exploder" and a chain to rescue the mower. The stuck mower was in a much worse position than what the photo reveals. After the Dixie Chopper was retrieved from the muck and the mire, I parked the slightly muddy mower in the garage, licked my wounds, and called it a day. The creek and the Chopper may have won this battle, but I'll be back.

FRIENDly Visit

It was pure JOY to have Sydney visit Millie (and the rest of our family) for ten days. Those ten days were crammed full of activities and constant giggling. Yes, there was giggling that lasted well into the wee hours of the night, EVERY night. I think the girls immediately readjusted their internal clocks from the Central time zone to Pacific Daylight Time. We didn't mind the late night laughter one bit. It was welcomed indeed. If laughter is the best medicine, we were on a drug overdose. Besides, sleep is overrated. 

“A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.” Proverbs 17:22 

Aside from giggling, Millie and Sydney enjoyed an outing to Six Flags, shopped here and there, ate out a few times, went swimming, toured Ft. Worth, spent the day at a water park, and the list goes on... 

A shopping trip to Sam Moon was definitely on the to-do list. Syd willingly tried this rhinestone-studded cowboy hat on for size and even allowed a photo to be taken, but she definitely didn't want to buy it.  We think she makes an adorable Cali cowgirl.

 Millie introduced her NorCal friend to her North TX buddy. 

Whataburger! Whatafrenchfry! Whatarootbeer! Whatacoupleofsillygirls! 

Although we could have opted to dine at In-N-Out, we thought it would only be fittin' to treat Sydney to an honest-to-goodness Texas burger. The girls enjoyed the hamburger, even if it wasn't a Double-Double. After lunch at Whataburger, for the remainder of the day, the girls' conversation was peppered with the usage of "whata" before almost every word.

Whatagreatvisit! All good things must come to an end, even a visit with a BFF-kind of friend. 

Parting is such sweet sorrow... Although these two smiled for the camera, they were not happy. At all.

We watched as Sydney's Sacramento-bound Southwest plane loaded, taxied, and took off.  The drive home was much too quiet with no giggling whatsoever.