Thank You Coach Snyder!!!!

I am sure that a lot of you are in states that have intrastate rivalries between State Universities. Ours is between The Kansas University Jayhawks ( Better known as Chickenhawks by the Mitchell Household) and the Kansas State University Wildcats. 
I am the only Wildcat fan in my pharmacy, which is to be expected since KU has the only Pharmacy Program in this immediate area....so I take a lot of grief from the Jayhawkers, especially during Basketball Season since KU is usually one of the top 25 teams in the nation and my poor old Wildcats struggle to just win a couple of games each year. Lately it has even been bad during football season...Coach Bill Snyder retired a few years back and we were subjected to a few years of really poor coaching and even poorer recruiting. I got used to walking into the pharmacy on the day after a game with my tail tucked between my legs and my head hanging. 

BUT!!!! Monday morning will be different!!!
You see...Coach Snyder has come back out of retirement and he is BACK!!!!
Pat and I went to Jeremiah Bullfrogs to watch the KU/KSU game today and for once...we left with a smile on our faces!!!   Our Wildcats were victorious on  the artificial turf, against the evil Jayhawks!! ( OK OK , maybe evil is too strong a word, since Tammy is now officially a Jawhawk Alumni!!!) We beat em....17 - 10.... whoooo hoooooo!!!!!

Go Wildcats!!!!!  And Thank you Coach Snyder...we love you!!!!!

An Early Start to the Day

I didn't sleep well last night, I knew that I needed to be up early this morning so I was checking the clock every hour or so to see what time it was.   Shawna has been putting off the unpleasant glucose tolerance test that her midwife wants her to take, she has wanted me to go with me and my work schedule makes it really difficult.  Today we are leaving the house at 6:00 am in order to be the first in the door when the hospital lab opens at 6:30 am. Luckily it is only a one hour test ( When I was pregnant with Shawna I had to take a 4 hour test and then an 8 hour test...yeach yeach yeach).We need this early a start if I am going to be at work on time at 8:00. I had considered changing schedules with Louise, the other full time clerk and coming in at 9:00 so that I wouldnt be so rushed, but now I have to leave work EARLY to attend a funeral with Pat at 3:00, so I didnt' to stir things up at work anymore than I am already being forced to.

Our newest little grandbaby has suddenly decided to turn into an acrobat!!! I was sitting on the sofa night before last and watching as s/he did a tumbling routine!!! Shawna's tummy looked like it had been invaded by an alien!!! lol I guess in a way it has been invaded....heheheh. I can hardly wait to meet this sweet little thing that I talk to everynight!!! (Shawna says she thinks I am nuts but secretly, I think she likes it...lol)

We had a very personal connection to the horrors at Ft. Hood, Texas yesterday. As you may already know, our son, Monty is on his 3rd deployment to Iraq at this time. His family is living on post at Ft. Hood while he is overseas and as a matter of fact he is at home right now on 2 weeks R&R. As soon as we heard the news of what was going on yesterday my husband called them to make sure that none of them are in harms way. As strange as it may seem, I am glad that Monty was home right now. My heart goes out to the men and women from Ft. Hood who are currently stationed overseas and had to watch this all unfold from half a world away!!! At least Monty was there to know for sure that his family was safe, and to help them feel more secure as all of the tense moments ticked by.  Please keep everyone at Ft. Hood in your prayers, for the wounded who are recovering, for the families of those who were killed , for the others living there who have had their sense of security shattered, and for the angry, fearful man who caused all of this. 

I hope all of you have a fantastic day!! And a fabulous weekend!!

Ruth Ann

Happy Halloween!!!!!

OK....I just had to post pictures of Shawnas' last minute Halloween Costume...she is SO cute!!!!  Wish I had looked this good when I was  7 months pregnant!!!

Front view...so you can see her sweet face....

Side view so you can see her sweet baby...heheheheheh

The Final Leg of our Wonderful Vacation

 After we left Kathy and Derek and beautiful Maine, we headed out on country roads...with Niagara Falls in our sites. We knew that we wanted to stay on the Canada side of the falls because, #1, they say the falls are more spectacular from the Canadian side and #2 we had spent TONS of money on new passports!!!  We didn't make it all the way to Niagara Falls our first day on the road because there were just too many things that caught our attention along the way. We had to get really off the beaten path to make it to Cooperstown and tour the Baseball Hall of Fame. We even managed to get a picture of memorabilia from the Kansas City Royals ( our team) and the Detroit Tigers (Derek and Kathy's team ), side by side in the same picture!!!

The Baseball Hall of Fame is a very impressive  place...3 floors of wonderful Baseball history. I was more impressed with the displays and nuggets of history than I was with the actual hall of fame where the plagues of all of the inductees are.  We got T Shirts for Kieran and Tom so that they can wear them next year when we go to see a "Bah Ball" game.

Another thing that stopped us more than once was the beautiful scenery. New England is unparalleled in the fall!!! I was so moved by the majesty and beauty all around me .

How would you like to be able to wake up to this every morning in the fall???

We also found  a wonderful covered bridge that we just HAD to stop and take pictures of and explore!!!

And now we start getting just a WEE bit silly!! ( maybe we had been on the road too long!!!) Kathy and I had been texting back and forth about possible "moose sightings" all day long. Maybe that cow in the pasture was a moose in disguise....or did the bronze moose statue that they saw count??? I had been talking about wanting to see a moose the entire week we were in Maine and hadn't had a bit of luck...at least not with the LIVE ones!! So, when I started seeing some signs along the road, my warped sense of humor took over....

I was patiently waiting for that moose to cross...but he never did.

A few miles down the road, it happened again...we stopped at a rest area for my husband to visit the little johnny on the job...( I checked it out and decided I did NOT need to go that bad!!! But as I was sitting in the car, waiting for Pat to come back...I spotted something else that was just too good to pass up.....

There was a rest area sign across the road...and someone had left something out near it...and  it didn't take much talking to convince Pat to let me take this picture....

Several cars passed us while we were setting up the picture....we got some STRANGE looks....lol.

We spent the first night in Lake George, NY, a lovely resort area with skiing, golf,fishing,boats,  hunting, everything to keep anyone happy and satisfied. We had dinner at a really nice restaurant and enjoyed a quiet relaxing evening before we got up the next morning and headed out again.

The 2nd day we finally made it to Niagara Falls but if we hadn't already many reservations, which couldn't be canceled, we would have stopped somewhere short of our goal. We drove in rain almost the entire day. Well, to be fair, PAT drove in rain almost the entire day!!! He was exhausted by the time we got to the border and got in line to show our passports and head over into Canada. We had booked a hotel that wasn't very far from the falls itself and was right across the street from one of the big casinos. We walked across to the casino and found a place to have dinner, it was almost 10:00 by the time our meal was  served and we were both so exhausted that I am not sure either of us really tasted anything that we ate!!! The next morning we got up bright and early, got everything all packed back into the car, ate breakfast and then set off walking to the falls.
If you have never been to Niagara Falls I cannot make you understand how AWE INSPIRING it is!!! To think that the water has been pouring over the falls for so many years...is just unimaginable!!! We didn't do any of the "touristy" stuff, no boat rides or helicopter rides but we did spend a lot of time just standing and listening to the roar of the water and imagining what it must have been like for the first people who discovered this wonder!!!

There is a constant "cloud" of mist above the city from the power of the water that is spilling over the falls into the river below.

Our next day we had entered the heart of The Chautauqua Wine Trail,  which runs along Lake Erie in New York and Pennsylvania. I had not realized that there were so many wineries in New York...I always think of them as being in California. SO much for type casting...lol.  We stopped at a winery and bought a bottle of wine for Dionna and Tom ( they approved of our choice...said it was yummy). We also bought a small bottle of something called "Ice Wine"  which we will share at our family Thanksgiving dinner at Dionna and Toms' home. It is a very sweet wine, made from grapes which have been allowed to freeze on the vine for 3 days before being processed. It is pricey enough that we won't make a habit of imbibing!!!!

We made another detour when Pat decided that he wanted to go to Rantoul, Illinois. He and his family had lived there when his Dad was stationed at the Air Force Base there when Pat was young. We went and tried to find the apartment that they had lived in but it had evidentally been torn down somewhere along the way. He found the little bar that his Mom used to work at and went in to see it through adult eyes. He now wishes he had not done it because about an hour down the road we realized he had left his cell phone sitting on the bar. We got on the phone and called them to tell them we were turning around to get it...the barmaid told us that he hadn't left it there. Liar liar...pants on fire!!! So I spent the next few minutes calling AT&T to tell them to turn off the phone and then talking with Shawna to see how we could go about replacing it without spending an arm and a leg. I hope the barmaid enjoys her new phone.

We spent our last night on the road in St. Louis, in a really nice La Quinta there that we always stay at whenever we are in town. If you ever want a really really reasonable place to stay there in the Gateway to the West....let me know...I will tell you which LQ it is!!! We pulled back into Independence, spent some time loving on Kieran, and assuring Chief that he WAS going to be going home with us!! ( That poor dog..he attaches himself to us when we come back in the house and won't let us out of his sight for fear we are going to disappear again!!). It was nice to get back home...I had missed Shawna and she had even missed us!!!
And so there you have it...the story of our adventure....we are already trying to think of exciting places to go next fall!!!!
Ruth Ann

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth

  I am sadly overdue, according to my youngest and oldest chicks to finish the story of our trip. I didn't have time on our trip to sit down and do it and I have been so busy since we got home that I just kept putting it off.

So here we go....

We spent several days in Portland, Maine, the biggest city in the little state of Maine. There are so many beautiful houses there, with wonderful porches to sit on and watch the boats in the harbor and take advantage of the cool ocean breezes. Some of them are old enough that they have "widows walks" up on the top...where the wives of the seaman would stand and watch for their mens ships to sail back into port. The first day we were there we went for a ride on a narrow gauge railroad, Here Pat is, playing engineer at the end of our route, before we turned around to head back to the station.

The train took us right along the shore line and we could see the smaller boats, both pleasure boats and working boats that were anchored out in the harbor. One of the most noteworthy  things that I saw (but unfortunately couldn't get a picture of) was a statue...larger than lifesized of a very distinguished looking man...with his back to the ocean. I asked our conductor who it was, he said it was one of the founders of Portland, and they had originally put the statue in the central time square to honor him, until it was discovered that he had at one time been a slave owner. The people of Maine were so adamantly against the slave trade that they removed his statue from the city square and moved it out to the harbor...where it couldn't be seen without great difficulty.

The 2nd day that we were in Portland, we went on a great trolley ride throughout the city with the most amusing retired fireman that I have ever met!! He had some GREAT stories to share with us and really made the ride interesting. After the trolley ride we went to a floating restaurant there at the harbor for a light lunch and then Kathy and I drug the men along with us while we checked out the little stores along the harbor road. They amused themselves by posing with the local version of Long John Silver....heheheh. I am not sure which one of them looks scarier...are you??

After our little shopping excursion we took a 90 minute boat ride in the harbor and saw several lighthouses, seals swimming in the harbor, lobster boats out checking their traps, and just generally enjoyed the beautiful ride. Kathy chose to stay inside during the ride, she doesn't enjoy standing at the railing, thinking about falling in ...heheheh.

The next day we headed out on another day trip.We toured several little towns, one of which was York,Maine. There were several Revolutionary War sites, The Olde York Village had an old Gaol...built in 1719. The jailer and his family, including his children lived right in the gaol and attached house with the prisoners!!! One way they had of controlling unruly citizens was the pillory,I can think of no better way to adequately punish a young man who was refusing to listen to the advice of his elders!!

I am thinking about building one of these in our back yard....lololol.

One Wednesday we spent the entire day on a train trip from Brunswick to Rockland.  We arrived in Bath in a steady rain and it took us a while to find the "train station" because it wasn't really a station at all...it was a dirt (make that mud)parking lot with a small shed out by the railroad tracks where you picked up your tickets!! We sat in the car for quite a while because it was so cold and rainy but when 3 busloads of people started unloading we decided it was time to brave the elements and get into line!! The train ride was 2 hours each way, the scenery was wonderful, even if it was raining the whole way. About the time we got to Rockland, the rain stopped and the weather was great for spending the 3 hours that we had to explore Rockland, walking from place to place. We had a light lunch in the railroad station restaurant and then we went out to see  what there was to offer in Rockland. We ended up at the Maine Lighthouse Museum where we were able to learn more about how the lighthouses were built, maintained and improved on over the years.  Our next stop was the Puffin Project Museum I cannot tell you how impressed we were at the work that the people involved in this have done to repopulate the islands off of the coast of Maine with these adorable little birds who had been hunted to the edge of distinction for their feathers. We got back to Freeport about 7:00 or so that evening, it had been a full day and after we had dinner at the Bucks  Bare Naked  Barbecue Steakhouse   which was the home of what Derek and Pat both declared to be the BEST 16oz ribeye steak they had ever sunk their teeth into!!! I would love to take Kieran there to eat sometime, they have a fantastic play area for the kids with 2 of those cute little crooked houses ,tons of dress up clothes, kid sized tables and chairs, it was just a wonderland for the children!! I enjoyed their smoked sausages and bbq beef.

I had been on the lookout for a moose the entire time we were on our trip. I was DETERMINED to find one standing along the highway and snap a picture to share with you!! I finally DID manage to find a VERY friendly Maine Moose who agreed to let me pose with him, so that you could see what a wonderful adventure it can be in fabulous Maine!!!

On Thursday morning we all packed our cars and headed out. Kathy and Derek headed back to Michigan and home...but Pat and I weren't done with our adventure....I will tell you all about that on the NEXT episode...and if you made it all the way through THIS episode...I am very proud of you!!!