Introducing Princess Ann Marie!

It's good to be a princess. All the perks of living life as a member of the royal family without the responsibility!

These photos were taken at the DMA in the C3 for their Kings & Queens themed First Tuesday in November. The children got to decorate their own crowns, dress up in costumes and have their "royal" photos taken. I'm still a kid myself who happens to reside in the body of a middle-aged woman, so I made a crown too and had my photo taken. It was FUN!

Time, time, time is slipping away...

so quickly! I am behind in so many areas and the holiday season is here. Yikes!

So, to make life easier we are ordering our Thanksgiving meal from a grocery store. It's called Market Street and it's a fancy place for a grocery store and the food is awesome. Jeff, Gayle & I sampled some of the dishes this past weekend and decided together that we would order a meal from them. I will make a homemade apple pie though.

Lily will have a friend or two over in the afternoon and perhaps we will have the fireplace going all day to add an overall coziness to our surroundings. It will be lovely to share the holiday with Gayle again. We small families really cherish each other - especially during the holidays.

Heck Yeah, We Have Grocery Stores in Texas!

Our grocery stores are so fabulous that even my mother-in-law's dog Bojangles knows it. He loves to relax on the Sprouts reusable shopping bag. I imagine that it must smell of all the marvelous foods we carried home in it.

Gayle and I have visited four grocery stores since she arrived here - that's a store a day! Here she is at Central Market. It's a gourmet store with all kinds of fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, there's all kinds of prepared foods that you can buy to take home and eat. Usually they have a live band playing, but we were too early today. They did have samples throughout the store and we left with our bellies full. Yummy!

Jeff and his mother enjoy Central Market's olive bar.

Gayle looks at a huge collection cheeses from all over the world! This store can be overwhelming on the first visit or two, but it is surprising how quickly you can get used to it. We live about 15 minutes away from it - not a bad drive at all.

Dallas Historical Village

The Dallas Storytelling Guild told stories this past Friday to Dallas area school children on fieldtrips at the Historical Village. What a fun day! The kids were all wonderful listeners and participants in my interactive "Hunt for king Tut" story. Above is a picture of Traphene Hickman, Joyti Subramanian, her daughter Meena and me taken at the house where we all enjoyed lunch together following the event.

Meena is a marvelous storyteller! She is in the 7th grade and has been telling stories for three years. She has even started getting paid to do it! In the photo above she is telling her personal version of "The Little Red Hen". Her characterizations are hilarious. This is a story that I hope she takes to competition. She very well could be the next national youth storytelling champion - yes, she is that good.

Jerry Young tells a tale about how the rabbit came to be in the moon. The kids loved his story. He is a much admired, long-time, award winning Texas storyteller.

Traphene Hickman tells a story about the big bad wolf and the seven little baby goats. You can't look away from her when she tells it, for it's delightful to hear her texas drawl, as well as, see her tell how momma goat got her babies back.

The Hofbrau Beer Garden

My friend Marie Cox and I had dinner at the Hofbrau Beer Garden. What a fun place! Do you see the woman playing the accordion behind Marie? Speaking of Marie - she looked so good and young that I didn't recognize her at first! She had put in a full day at work too.

Here are the dishes we had along with a stein of beer - of course! Can't go to a beer garden and not have beer. We had yummy ice cream cones for desert.

Thanks Marie for the wonderful evening! It was soooooo much fun.

Some photos of Panama City Beach

Tiny little shells litter the fine, crystal white sand.

The water is cool, clear & soothing as it wraps itself around my toes.

No one on the beach but me on this glorious, sunny, Saturday morning in November.

A view of the gulf through the sea oats.

Few people know this, but the best time of the year to visit Panama City Beach is in October & November.

Good Grief Olafur with an "R"!

This is what severe sleep deprivation does to the mind. I am still traveling back to Texas with Gayle and barely slept again last night. This hotel was a real loser and the dog is having issues. It has been a lllloooonnnnngggg time since I had a decent night's sleep.

Pray for me during this last day of driving, I'll probably really need it.