Merry Christmas from Mike, Elaine, & Sugar

More Pictures from the Ice! Show at the Gaylord Texan

ICE! at the Gaylord Texan

http://www.gaylordhotels.com/gaylordtexan/ICE.cfm

Kris, the Snider's, Mike and I went to see the ICE! show at the Gaylord Texan. Mike and I saw this show last year. It had a few new sculptures this year. We ate dinner at the sports bar, walked around and checked out the decor and then headed to the show. I have attached the link to the hotel and below are some interesting facts about the ice and other information.

2,000,000 pounds: the amount of ice it takes to create ICE!

5,000: the number of ICE! blocks hand-carved and transformed into our winter wonderland

40: the number of artisans from the City of Harbin (China) Tourism and Development Commission, who sculpt the attraction by hand

34: the approximate number of days needed to hand-carve the ICE! display

14,000: the total square footage of the unique structure that houses ICE!

9 degrees: the temperature setting for the ICE! structure. A winter coat is provided to keep you warm!

1,400+: the number of LED lights frozen within ICE!

3: the number of types of ice used in the construction of ICE!
~ Clear “glass-like” crystal ice – so flawless that it is compared to Waterford Crystal – makes up 80 percent of the sculptures
~ “White ice” blocks, which are more like compacted snow, make up 15 percent of the sculptures
~ Colored ice, which is dyed brilliant colors, is used for highlighting and accenting the remaining 5 percent of the sculptures

52: the number of days you can visit this famous attraction before it melts away

2: the number of other destinations in the United States that are as cool as ICE! Sister properties Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee and Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Kissimmee, Florida also host annual ICE! events.

No news is good news....

I am not sure I agree. We still don't have a date as to when the contractor is going to start on our house. We do know that there was a lot more damage than State Farm anticipated.

Upstairs:
Carpet for the two bedrooms.
Carpet for the Jack n' Jill bathrooms.
Wallpaper for the Jack n' Jill bathrooms.
Flooring for the bathroom.
Wallpaper for the bathroom.
Painting the baseboards.
Downstairs:
Paint for the powder-room.
Paint for the laundry room.
Paint for the ceiling in the dining-room.
Carpet for the livingroom.
Paint the ceiling in the kitchen.
Wallpaper for the kitchen.
Painting the baseboards.
Lower cabinets in the kitchen will be replaced.
The Kitchen island will be replaced.

The contractor is working with us to make some modifications and do more. We will end up paying some out of pocket, but we figure this will be good for us to have a new kitchen and it is already all torn up. No time like the present. :-)

SNOW IN TEXAS!!!

I can't believe I just typed that!! Yes, folks, it snowed and it was COLD!!!
Yesterday, the 29th, we had a high temperature of 80 degrees. The low last night was 36 degrees. That is the largest temperature range, since we have moved here. Very crazy. Today the high was 36 degrees and tonight it is 29 degrees. It isn't supposed to be this cold!!! This is TEXAS!!! It doesn't snow in Texas! :-(
Now it feels like Christmas time.

Our first Texas Thanksgiving

It has been a tradition for the last 9 years....I cook Thanksgiving dinner. Well, this year was no different...well, sort of. Instead of "family", we had "friends" family. The Snider's, Kiter's, Kalish's, Krissy, Chuck, and Josh came over to our place for dinner. There were FIVE dogs!!! Sugar, of course, was the hostess...Joe-Paw (Kris), Miller (Kalish), Lucia and Nicholas (Kiter) had a fun time running around and then eventually tiring out. They even got their own turkey dinner, compliments of Mighty Dog. :-)
We had the traditional 16 pound turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, brocolli, and cranberry sauce. Su made latkes. Wow, I liked those. I hope she makes them again. (hint, hint) Gretchen made an awesome Sweet Potatoe casserole with marshmallows on top. Oh my stars. Loved it!!! I am hoping she makes that again. (hint, hint) :-D Then we had pumpkin pie and homemade apple pie for dessert, with ice cream, of course. Yummy!!!
After dinner, Mickey and Mike set up the Wii and the 'boys' played for awhile. Tennis, Baseball, Boxing and some shooting game. They seemed to enjoy themselves. Then Winston, Josh, Chuck, and I sat down to play some good ole fashioned Texas holdem. Yee Haw.
I missed seeing Mary, Dad, Fran, Rich, Tim, Gwen, Tina, Phil, Jenn, Adrienne, Aunt Ellen, and of course Baxter and Kaiser and this would have been the first year with our little niece Allie. It helped having good friends to share a holiday.

I love Robots!!

Tee Hee.

A few weeks ago I mentioned something to Mike about Roombas and Scoobas (the little round robotic vacuum cleaner and floor scrubber) being on sale at Kohl's. He checks on the 'Woot' web site everyday and apprarently finds a Roomba for $150. Well that is a substantial savings, since they sell for $300 or more. He bought it! I didn't know this at first. I had a home demonstration one Sunday and he is working in the garage and outside and after the demo, he says he has a surprise for me. I go to the garage and find the Roomba charging. WOO!!! I got excited, I wanted to use it right away. Since the livingroom is stripped to the bare foundation, we had to shut it in our bedroom. It was awesome. We just stood there and watched it go. When it bounces into a wall or something, it turns around and goes the other way. It runs for about 90 minutes. I love the fact that it has never been so clean UNDER the bed. An upright vacuum can not clean under a bed.
Then the next day, he finds the Scooba on Woot. He gets that too. So, I have been having a good time with these new toys. My bedroom and bathroom and closet have never been so clean. :-)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

Love Mike, Elaine, & Sugar

Flooding part tre

The clean up people that the home insurance folks sent, showed up on Monday. They sucked up the rest of the water and set up air blowers and dehumidifiers. There must have been about 22 air blowers and 4 dehumidifiers in the kitchen, powder room, bedrooms, bathroom, and livingroom. They pulled off the floor boards and some of the door frames. They cut a large hole in the ceiling in the kitchen to allow the upstairs floor to dry. They drilled small holes in the walls where the floor boards were so that when they set up the air blowers, they would be able to get the air into the walls to assist with the drying. It was VERY loud in the house. With all the dryers going, it was too loud to watch tv in the livingroom, that we stayed in the bedroom most of the night. It was also very hot. The air conditioning didn't help, since we had so many machines running. But it remained cool in the bedroom. We got to the point that we had a card table in the bedroom so that we would be able to eat dinner in peace.
After about 3 days, they took all the dryers and dehumidifiers away. Unfortunately, we still have all the floor boards off and laying to the side. We still have the kitchen table in the diningroom, but we have tried to make the most of everything. We put the sofa back and my chair and Mike's end table. We didn't put the table back in the kitchen, since they will have to work in there for the largest part of the time.
We didn't hear back from Rick, so we ended up calling State Farm to send a contractor. That contractor now has to send his estimate to State Farm and then hopefully, we will soon get started.

Flooding part deux

Saturday morning...The contractor called and was heading to the house. Mike ran the shop-vac to clean up the water while we waited. When Rick, the contractor, got here, we took him on the tour of the damage. He helped us pull up the carpet in the bedrooms and pulled up the padding. We put the padding in the bathtub and it looks like a wet seal. We moved everything out of the front bedroom, which I just got done decorating (figures).
Rick left and told us to continue to soak up the water and to remove the carpets and padding. We cut up the carpet in the living room and now we are on bare slab. Good thing we are in Texas and it doesn't get too cold or we would be freezing. (Sugar is not liking the fact that the carpet is missing.)
We walked around and took more pictures of the damage. I went to Walmart and got two box fans to help with the drying process. After the clean up, there really wasn't a whole lot left to do. In the evening we went to Kris's house and played poker. It was nice to take our minds off of the events.

Who needs rain for flooding?

It was a Friday night, October 27th to be exact; we left work and went to dinner. No different than any other Friday night. Except tonight was going to change our lives.

We arrived home around 6:30 or 7 pm. We are still on daylight savings time, so it was still a bit light out. I walked over to the garden side of the house, to take in the lovely site of weeds not flowers, and I notice that the bottom of the house is wet. I said to Mike, why would the foundation be wet? He and I assumed that the bug guy had showed up and put something around the foundation. (remember..to assume is not a good thing, it really does make an a## of 'u' and 'me'). We go in the front door and immediately hear water running, like it was raining in the house. We didn't even have to go much further in to notice the water on the floor in the dining room coming from the kitchen. "OH MY GOD" is all I could say.

As we get closer, we noticed water RAINING from the kitchen ceiling, a 2 foot hole in the ceiling, water seepage into the livingroom in the carpet, water in the powder room and laundry room. The water was going out the backdoor onto the patio, because it was a half inch high. We went upstairs, since that is where the water is coming from...the toilet in the Jack'n'Jill bathroom is running and water is flowing out of the tank. The floor is a lake. The carpet in each bedroom is soaked. Mike turns off the valve to the toilet, which apparently is not working since it is allowing water to continue to flow even though the tank is full. All we could say was, "OH MY GOD".

Mike called State Farm, but the woman that answered wasn't much help. All she did was give us a claim number and said someone will be in touch. (Well...no one was in touch until Monday! We were so mad and disappointed.) After talking to her, he called his boss to see if he knew of a contractor, since we got no help from State Farm, and he put us in touch with a nice man. He told us to pop the water bubbles in all the rooms that had bubbles. That is what we did. ----- Saturdays update to come.....

Our Anniversary

Mike and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary October 25th. We went out to eat after work at our favorite restaurant, Saltgrass Steakhouse. Nothing fancy, but really good steak. We splurged and shared a piece of cheese cake. ;-)

He sent flowers to work. He is such a sweet husband.

Poor Joey

Our friend Kris dressed up her Boston Terrier, Joey. Check out his toes!!! :-)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

These aren't any dogs that we know, but they are too cute not to share. :-)

And more pictures

Old Ford Fire Engine at the State Fair

Just one of the many old Fords at the State Fair

Koch's visit part two

Clowns playing with a calf

Casper the trick horse



On Friday, we went to the Fort Worth Stockyards. (Seems that we have taken everyone there that has come to visit.) We arrived around 3 pm to see the cattle drive. Then we did some shopping and ate at Riscky's Steakhouse. We wanted to kill some time before we went to the RODEO!! That was cool. I didn't think I would like it, but I really did. They had a woman ride a horse around the arena with the American Flag. That was very patriotic and touching. There was a trick horse that was an Albino and the woman that trained it was in Indian dress. That horse was very smart and beautiful. Of course there was bull riding, barrel racing, and the calf roping. I wasn't into that too much, but I did feel better seeing the calf run off after it was roped, so I knew it wasn't hurt. (and yes, I do eat cow, but I don't know its name or what it looks like before it becomes my dinner) ;-) The had a wedding party in there and asked the bride, groom, and bridesmaids to come into the arena. They made such fools of those people, but they seemed to have had a good time. There was a calf scramble. That is were they bring in little kids to try to pull a ribbon off the tail of a calf. That was hilarious.

The Koch's visit to Texas

Fran & Rich (Mike's Mom & Dad) & Baxter (a handsome white schnauzer) drove the RV from PA and parked at the Grapevine Campground. They stayed with us for a week, which made it much easier to do all the tourist stuff. We went to Southfork Ranch (the outside of the house was filmed for the Dallas tv show). The house was very over-the-top. The inside wasn't used for the show, but the family that lived there moved out because all the fans would gather on the front lawn looking for the Ewing family. (guess they didn't realize it was only a tv show, tee hee)

We went to the State Fair on Thursday. WOW! It was huge! The auto show was cool. I sat in a bunch of cars that I think are really cool, but after sitting in them, I decided that I wouldn't buy one. Like the Chrysler 300, beautiful car, but doesn't feel right. The old Model T Fords were on showcase, even an old firetruck was there. (I love old cars!) We also saw a guy that 'builds' with playing cards, without using tape or glue. He is called the CardStacker.

Big Tex at the State Fair

CardStacker

Southfork

The Bogert's Visit to Texas

Barbara & Jack on the train to Fort Worth Stockyards

Fort Worth Stockyards Cattle Drive

Our friends from Wilkes Barre, PA spent a short 6 days with Mike, Sugar, and I. Unfortunately, we had to work while they were in town, but we really enjoyed having them here when we got home from work. On Sunday, we took the train from Grapevine to Fort Worth Stockyards. We saw the cattle-drive and shopped around. It was a nice ride. My first time on a train...except for a subway type train. We got to meet Jack's brother, Joe, and his wife, Janet. They live in Lewisville, which is about 10 minutes from our house. We ate out twice and the rest of the nights Jack made dinner for us. It was nice to come home and have someone waiting for you with dinner ready...although Mike usually does that for me. :-)

Steam Engine in Grapevine

Longhorns

More Pictures

Statue in front of Cowgirl Museum in Fort Worth

Funny T-shirt at Fort Worth Stock Yards

Mary & Dad's Vacation Part 2

Turns out the trip home was a little eventful for Dad and Mary. The plane sat on the tarmac for 63 minutes longer than it should have. It was raining cats and dogs, so they chose to delay the take off. Also, it turns out the airline checked one of their suitcases. There was a paper inside that stated that the bag was chosen for a random inspection. Dad said it seemed wierd to know that a perfect stranger can just peruse through your things without any consequence. True, very true.

Here are some more pictures.

The Human Maze at the Fort Worth Stock Yards

Mary & Sugar by the pool

Pics from Dad & Mary's Texas Vacation

Mike, Mary & Dad in front of the Rainforest Cafe at Grapevine Mills Mall

Elaine & Mary at the Fort Worth Stockyards next to Clarabell

1933 Cadilac on display at the Cowboy Museum

horse drawn wagon on display at Cowboy Museum


Policeman at the Fort Worth Stockyards