A night of Great music!

Last night, we were treated to some VERY fine music. Justin, our grandson, was the featured guest artist at the Baylor Wind Ensemble. He played 'Concerto for Alto Saxophone, Op. 26b by Paul Creston. I did video tape most of the performance( missed the 1st movement, idiot camera person's fault), however, did get the rest. Amazing, amazing performance. Justin won the Baylor concerto competition with this piece. I wish I had a good scanner to show you the write up and picture about Justin on the back. Justin got a standing ovation after, 2 bows , tears in his parents eyes as well as mine, and a great hurrah from the ensemble. After the concert, we met in the foyer for refreshments and picture galore. Pictures show at bottom, Justin with parents and sisters. All of the family, Jessica, Jennifer(the pregnant one, Shelby who was held by the adoring and talented uncle Justin, mom Becky, Joey, Jennifer's husband and Carol (proud dad).

Top pics are Super proud grandparents, Hubby and myself, looking dumb as usual. No wonder hubby doesn't like pics. From this pic I should hate them myself.......lol

Justin with 3 band mates and friends.

I just wish you could hear the music. Believe me, you would be so impressed.

Justin is pursuing his Master's in music performance at Eastman College of Music in Rochester NY this fall. He was also invited to play at graduation by the President of the University), this spring (he won't tell me what he is playing, it's a secret)

We will have 2 graduations this spring, Justins and Kelly our granddaughter( she is getting her dental hygenist degree. Fortunatly they are on different days.

Before and after the "Storm".

I am enclosing some pictures I took. Several before the "storm" and some during and after. We were hit hard Friday late afternoon. First the Wind, then the hail, then tornado's. And rain, rain rain..................

We had golf ball size hail, some smaller and some bigger. I did catch some in pictures. The hail did little damage to the yard except to strip a lot of leaves off the trees. Thank the Good Lord thats all the damage we had.

Especially since Belton area had 3 confirmed tornado's, one being with in less than a mile from our house. One touched down very near our Wal Mart (across the town from us) one out near the lake, and one that destroyed a lot of cars at the intersection of US 190 and I35. Quite a few fences knocked over along with trees. I heard one house was damaged, but unsure where. The fact that God was watching out for our town was obvious. The storm had us in the hallway for quite awhile. The hail hitting was loud!!!!. The subdivision where Carol and Becky live was with out power for hours. They came over to stay with us since our lights were on. AC running. We offered to let them stay, but Carol went over to find the lights back on so they could sleep at home. Jessica and her family were in Georgetown and called to see about everyone. Becky recommended staying over night there since the storm was nearing them..

Becky said Jennifers car was badly damaged by the hail. They were at a friends house not a half mile from us.

Saturday morning was clear and absolutly beautiful. We drove to Cedar Park to a water garden's "Lily Blossom Festival". What a great time we had. Along the way we stopped a community garage sale. We stopped at nearly all. Got some baby clothes for the new one due and some for Shelby and Annalise too. Picked up box full of yarn! was marked .50 ea pc, I got the whole box full for $3, Sarah will get most, the rest for Shanna. Probably will wait till she gets stateside to send it. Quite a few books for the gr. grands and more.

(one the way back home we stopped at one and the gave us 8 jigsaw puzzles and 4 afghans.)

The lily blossom festival was awesome! They have greatly expanded the property so it was huge. Large crowds. Free sausage wraps, brisket wraps and drinks were wonderful. The employees were so very helpful. We got the filter material for the pumps for the ponds, 3 hibiscus bushes in 3 ga. pots were 15 ea. So we got 3. 2 were varigated leaves, with red blooms and 1 was a super yellow. The had a zydego band too. We will have to return next year. I guess you can tell which picture are which.

The rest of the story!

I realized that I hadn't updated everyone on the Medical side of the coin, (not the fun side). Hubby got the VERY BEST NEWS!. He is now officially in remission! All of the tests that they took showed NO sign of the lymph nodes or the cancer that had invaded them. He will be watched carefully of course. Every 3 months for labs, then 3 months later a cat scan to check. So they aren't leaving him............lol Of course he still takes BP meds , cholesteral meds, and diabetic meds, but thats all. All of those are well under control.
I went back to the Dr. Really worried about my BP, but I was way down very close to normal. I will continue to take meds for it, and have started to walk more and of course trying again to lose more weight( Still keeping the 'last year weight loss') Now I will try for 10 more #. It know it will take much extra effort, but since I actually got into sz 14 (and didn't have to suck in my stomach) I kinda like the look, so wish me luck. I found out that losing weight after a certain age is SOOOOOOOOOO darn hard. Any way, the dr. was pleased. I believe because I had the infection it raise the BP high. They did do a blood test so the next time I go (in 3 wks) I may find my body is starting to fall apart........lol I hope I am wrong.........

Weekend trip to FtWorth/Dallas

Here are a few pictures of our Wonderful trip to see our kids and attend Garage sales plus the Farmers Market in Dallas. I believe the pictures will give you an Idea of which goes to which.

Carol and Becky (bless their hearts) drove their suburban. We got to Ft. Worth a little after 8AM Saturday morning. Sarah and Cipriano met us there and we spent close to 5 hours walking around the neighborhoods loading up on some super buys. Everyone found something to purchase!!! All at SUPER prices. Carol and Becky really found great buys. I am sure Becky will post her buys on her blog, but I will still list the great ones here. They found a very very nice kitchen table and 4 chairs, 2 little tykes, a play house and a car. Plus tons of Baby clothes for the new baby on the way. I won't begin to list all, but needless to say they were very happy with the sales.

Adam, Sarah and I just picked up odds and ends. My big buy was a nice length of uphol. material and 5 big boxes of quart and pint size jars, I will use them in crafts. All the boxes were just eight dollars. Some craft paint a huge box of baby diapers, wipes and baby laundry soap. Sarah saved hers for some bonsai dishes. Adam bought a cane made of plexiglass and some odds and ends

All in all we really lucked out. After lunch at Benito's (authentic mexican food) we rested then went to Central Market. Another place Carol and Becky had never been to....It's a high end grocery. Similar to Whole Foods. Great meat/seafood, plus everything else. The Deli is to die for. Super Wine collections and Great cut flowers............That day they were celebrating cooking out doors. Chefs were cooking for customers out side, while a musician was playing guitar and singing. Very nice!!!

We went home with Sarah and Cipriano. On the way we stopped and visited Hong Kong an Oriental super market..........Another WOW place.

Next day, we waited for the others to get to Sarah's and after coffee and pastries we went to the Farmers Market. Pictures will allow you to see some of it. I couldn't get a picture of the veg. and fruit vendors. WAY WAY too crowded. One can eat a meal there with the samples they hand out. In fact this evening we had a meal using just the vegies we got there. Awesome corn on the cob, fresh, fresh spinach both steamed and in a salad w/cucumbers, onions and tomato's....yummy. I have been trying to get this finished and posted half the day, so while ahead I will post and continue some tomorrow.

A little of this and that!

We had some great fun with our Gr. Granddaughter this last weekend. Nice enough to be out side and Annalise found a plastic easter egg to play with. Her Dad got up and filled it with a few pebbles so she could shake it. She saw where he had gotten them (in our chimania) and wanted even more in it. She then found out how much fun it was to remove the stones and put them on the patio floor. It was so much fun to watch her. Busy,busy, busy. We were blessed having both granddaughters here. Shelby came later( i had the camera memory card out)

The reason for the wonderful company? Our son and his wife were at the coast celebrating their anniversary. They are lucky enough to do this every year. So, we lucked out with the grands. Of course they do come often but rarely in the same day. Blessings!!

We have been planting and moving things around in the back yard. We finally planted my birthday present from Sarah and Cipriano (the stacked pots). Now we will have to move it. Our shade has extended. We probably will have to help to move the whole thing to a sunnier spot. We have hen and chicks and verbena in it now.

We drove to our favorite nursery last week and got several plants and before that to the flea market for even more. We got 2 bouganvilla(sic) the verbena and 2 nice pothos ivy to plant in a basket. Also (one of my favs.) gazania. A beautiful deep pink wave petunia basket. From the flea market another fern and 2 blue hydrangia's -2 kalnchoes.

All we have to do now is plant a few pots and some empty areas.

This next weekend, if the weather co-operates we will go to Ft.Worth/Dallas for the weekend. A huge neighbor hood garage sale event in the historical district is the highlight of Saturday. Sunday we will all go to the Dallas Farmers Market. One of our most favorite thing to do. Carol and Becky will be with us and they haven't been to the market.

This week I went to the dr. and found I have Hi BP. Much much higher than ever. I went to the doctor because of swollen painful saliva glands. Now this week I will go see him about the BP.

Carol had his appt. with his primary Dr. All is well!!! all stats looked very good. This week he has a cat scan then oncology appt. I have an appt inbetween. Fun fun!!!