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New Orleans, Christmas 2017, New Year's 2018 and Spring Break 2018

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

THIS HAS BEEN IN MY DRAFTS SINCE JANUARY!!!

Jan 25, 2018

Happy New Year!  Gosh the fall went by so fast.  I'll post these photos that will tell about where and what we've been up to.  I've gotta do better on the blog.  I like to refer to it quite often.  I'll let the photos speak for themselves...

Christmas at Memaw and Grandad's

Ori got Stella that big S light :)

We had Bettie and Heilbron over for soup before Christmas....Ori's brading Cooper's hair and the Bradshaw girls
played dress up...so fun having them over

Chloe was a reader for our Christmas Eve service

Memaw and Grandad got Ori a picture of them blown up on a canvas...so cute

Biscuit, typical on Christmas morning, getting into Matt and Meme's gift of treats....

We had a wonderful lunch at Kara's on Christmas Day

I believe it was August that got this blurry photo!

We did crackers after lunch with Bettie's crew....so fun!

Matt and Meme invited us to go with them to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena....we had a great time.
It was 10 degrees in Birdeye and 75 in LA.  THANK YOU Meme and Matt!! What a great trip!
This is at the Observatory that overlooks LA

These guys were cruising Rodeo Drive in these vintage cars....the girls let me get a quick snapshot of them

Another hot rod rolling by....

WHEW...The Rose Bowl Parade starts at 8 am Pacific which meant these two and Jackie
stayed out till 1 am and we had to leave at 7 am in an Uber to make it to the parade.
We did make it, but barely.....


The girls were mad at all my photo taking, they were half asleep



At the Rose Bowl, poor OU looked like they were going to win but lost in overtime, so sad....

Gary, Jackie, Mom, me and Ori  (Dang it Gary's eyes are shut)

At the Observatory...squint and you can see the Hollywood sign

We stayed in a VRBO condo a few blocks from Mom and Gary's hotel which was the host
hotel for OU.  Across from it was the Staples Center where this ginormous Shaq statue is

I'm embarrassed I don't know who this OU Player is but the girls enjoyed getting a pic with him

We really loved Santa Monica...we took an Uber and went to their famous boardwalk...
so much fun and the weather was divine!
Santa Monica

Jackie took the girls to the Downtown LA New Year's Eve party...they had a blast

Buddy got a hair cut right after this....Blogger organizes photos so weirdly.  Meme and Matt took us all to LA but
also sent Christmas gifts, so nice...It took us hours to open it all...and a lot of fun...



Cute side shot of Coco

Chloe on Rodeo Drive

New Year's Eve dinner....so sorry it's so blurry (dang waiter)
At Halloween we had a space at the chamber of commerce's Trick or Treat at Village Creek
and Ori and Chloe helped with the vet clinic's campsite.  So cute

The girls took Gumball with them to pick out our tree...the funny thing is that CoCo wanted
a BIG tree this year and that's what we got.  We couldn't keep the darn thing up the first
day, it fell 3 times....note to self for next year...

Jackie and I took the girls with us to New Orleans on the Levee Board Trip...this
is Jackson Square

A tradition now since Chloe could walk is to take candy to the Cross County Courthouse
for all the staff on the last day it's open before Christmas break...and of course, Chloe's always
taken dogs with her......and now Ori, so much fun!

This was in 2004 at the courthouse with Emmy.  Look at Chloe sporting her OU shoes and
OSU jacket....so cute.  You can tell Emmy was not a kid dog at all....but she'd been all over
the country at this point in the show ring so she could hang....so cute!

Winter 2018

Good Lord I'm a SLACKER!!

I don't know why blogging has become more of a pain than a passion of mine that started 10 years ago...it could be a myriad of things like Trump, not being motivated to work out maybe because I've run too many races and biked too many miles, or the fact that I'm getting closer to 50, or that Chloe's had a very stressful junior year in high school and we've had an exchange student with us.  Nevertheless, I've gotta get back in the swing of things so I can enjoy my blog of recipes, travel, gardening and most of all family. So pardon the delay in blogging, I am going to try better in 2018, even though it's nearly April already.

So we are on the way back from Santa Fe, New Mexico, after another wonderful trip with my fabulous sister-in-law Kara, Martin and my niece and nephews.  Kara booked the same great VRBO that was walkable to downtown Santa Fe and many southwest stores, museums, galleries and of course lots of really good restaurants.

This trip we arrived on Saturday after taking the girls to Amarillo and eating at the Hoffbrau, a great steakhouse the night before.  Saturday for lunch we ate at the Pantry, a really good southwest restaurant know mainly for breakfast but lunch was great too.  Martin and Kara's crew flew to Albuquerque and took the train into Santa Fe and met us at one of our favorite restaurants, La Choza. Sunday we went to Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.  It was a great service, Ori really enjoyed it.  Jackie got the girls tickets to hear a band play at Meow Wolf, which is an eclectic art space that has a lot of venues for all age groups in the art world.  You had to be 15 to get in so they couldn't take Whit.

We had lunch at our favorite Spanish restaurant La Boca then girls all went to shop and the boys headed back to the house.  Then it snowed!  Ori's second time ever to see snow.  They went to get their ski gear and we walked down to Upper Crust Pizza for dinner.  Monday everyone skied while Kara and I went to the spa.  We had lunch at Del Charro.  It was an old saloon but we had the most wonderful authentic Tostado recommended by the sweetest grandfather waiter.  On the way to Del Charro we passed the Gruet tasting room that had just opened so of course we checked it out.  Great is a New Mexico vineyard that Kara and I discovered two years ago at the Santa Fe Cooking School.   They had a $10 wine tasting.  We had tastes of 3 sparkling wines and a red.  The lady that served us was very good at talking about the wines, the vineyards and you could tell she really loved her job.  In the end I bought a sparkling and a red for Easter Lunch that Jackie and I will host in a few weeks.  Monday night we all ate at Osteria D'Assisi, an Italian restaurant and had a wonderful meal.

Tuesday Kara got talked into skiing and Ori was sore from her first time on skis so Ori and I went shopping and had lunch at the shed.  She had tacos WITH cheese, I couldn't believe it.  There are three things Ori told us when she arrived.   She hates cheese, avocados and cats.  I had the tamales, a pork and a vegetable one and wiped it out of course.  Last night we ate at Cafe Pasqual's and it was another good meal.

The highlight of the trip was all the commentary by August.  That joker was non-stop chatter.  And Happy Birthday August!!! They left on his birthday, we did celebrate at Cafe Pasqual's with a milkshake and singing.  August commented on Jackie's hair loss, margarita drinking by Memaw, at Upper Crust, the guy poured my wine to the very rim and he pointed at my glass and said, "that's a good pour Aunt Keeli", I was like alrighty August.  There were many more comments along the way about his burger tasting not as good as McDonalds, lots of Shirley Temple ordering and lots of advice.  Good times.  Today we had lunch on the famous Canyon Road that is full of galleries and art galore.  Mucho Gusto was a very good, authentic Mexican restaurant.  We enjoyed sitting near locals that covered subjects like medical marijuana, Trump, forgetting to "turn that damned phone off", and lots of other color commentary.  I don't think they had their hearing aids on the right setting because we could hear them word for word.

On to OKC, Bentonville and Fayetteville.  And we left our dogs sick with house sitters, Gummy and Biscuit with bronchitis and Buddy with pancreatitis.  So we hope we haven't run off Whitney and Farley...
Chloe at the top of the mountain for lunch

On the way to eat

Chloe and Ori at the Loretto Chapel that has a staircase built that has no nails or central
pole to support it.  Apparently it was built with glue and wood.

Stella, Ori and Chloe stayed at the La Casita, the little apartment by the garage at the VRBO


Chloe really got into skiing this year.  She wanted to stay longer.  I think at this age I got
more confident with by skiing ability and began to love it too.  Maybe next year we will
stay for a few more days and ski.  It was really cold and windy this Spring Break until the day we left.

Ori and her ski instructor

Jackie got Ori and Chloe tickets to Meow Wolf, an art collective production company that
has multimedia experiences, an art collection and stage.  They went to see a band and loved it.
Meow WoFind out more about Meow Wolf »

Chloe

Jackie described this as a Yetti at Meow Wolf.  He also described it as a 21c hotel
Chloe, Jackie and Stella

During the snow
Ori's second snow!!
This is Rennie, we had her for a week but since we were out of town she went to another foster, we should be getting her back next week sometime.  She's a great one, house and crate trained, very sweet....
This is the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo.  Apparently, some man put these cadiallacs in the
grown and people randomly started spray painting them...We've always driven by them
and have never stopped but we did this trip...It was cold that Saturday morning and windy
Cadillac Ranch...Ori found yellow spray paint on the ground and painted PERU
On the way to ski
At the Big Texan in Amarillo where if you eat the 72 oz steak, it's free.  But who would do that?

After lunch on Canyon Road