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WOW! |
2019 was a great year to be a Red Raider fan. A
national championship for the men's track and field, the
runner up for the men's basketball and another year in the
baseball world series. Then our former quarterback
was MVP of the NFL and our former coach became the coach for
the Arizona Cardinals. Yep we are smiling, we have
waited a lifetime for a year like this. We
watched the national championship basketball game in the
middle of the Gulf of Mexico on the cruise ship's big screen. At
one point "Raider Power" was reverberating off the waves. Now
that was amazing - even if we didn't win.
And yes we are still talking about it. We may never get this
chance again so smile and bear with us!
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Our Kids |
Jamie was certified as a crane operator this past year.
He has been working toward that goal for about two years. Luchi
interviewed for and passed her citizenship test. She
is now officially an American, a Colombian and of course a
Texan. Jamie is still working in Odessa (oil
field pay / oil field hours) and Luchi continues to work
with the ESL program in a Weatherford elementary school. Natalie is 12
(13 in January - yikes) and still quite the drama queen.
She continues her dance lessons and has added piano lessons.
She sings in the school choir and is enjoying 7th grade.
Martin is 10 and will kick your tail in Dallas Cowboy
trivia. He plays flag football, basketball and
started guitar
lessons this year. He is a 4th grader. |
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Casey and Katy are the proud owners of a rescue dog
(disguised as a horse) named Tex. His first day he
was so excited he fell into the pool. Casey is a
member of a "cooking team". Between the barbeque
contests and golf tournaments and of course his business, he stays very busy. He
made the trip to Minneapolis for Tech's final four games.
Lucky man! Katy is
11 and is the undisputed cartwheel champion.
She began taking violin lessons in September so the symphony
better get ready. She also broke her left wrist this fall, which
was very tough since she is our southpaw. Thankfully her
cast is finally gone and she also got her braces off (Happy
Day). |
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Bethany and Michael are busy with two boys. Michael is on his second year
as a district manager for NOW and handles it like a veteran.
Bethany is now a work from home mom. She is making the
push for her proofreading business to become a full time job.
Lincoln Duke Land was born August 30th and he is a sweetie and of course an amazing grandchild
without the fact he is named after John Wayne.
Gatlin is 4 and quite the little man. His nickname at
our house is "the seatbelt Nazi." You will not ride in
any vehicle with him without your seatbelt. He came to GCamp
this year and entertained us all. He would get a bit
unhappy with us and announce (as he walked out the door),
"I'm goin' to Aunt Joni's." |
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Where We Went in
2019 |
We traveled (a lot) this year and can't seem to find a
stopping point. So 2020 look out. We took Gatlin to Lubbock to meet
Doyle, his great grandfather and he got to see his
first snow. We also took him to his first Texas Tech
basketball game. We went back to Lubbock to stay with
Paulette when she had back surgery. I went back to
Lubbock to attend her mom's memorial service. We plan to
make one more trip to catch a Tech basketball game before
the end of the year. |
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We made our annual trip to Vegas for March Madness.
Oh my, it was fun with Tech expected to do well and actually
doing it. We enjoy the games but don't care for the
smoke, noise and hard chairs. Did someone say old?
In June we went to our favorite beach in Mexico.
Low and behold there was a lot of sea weed. Most of the
beaches in Mexico are having this problem. The weed is
coming from around Bermuda and creating a huge problem
elsewhere. We "suffered" through a week of beach,
pool, food and cocktail service on the beach. It was
so terrible we talked Joni into going back with us in
December. We will come home on Christmas Eve. Merry
Christmas to us :-)
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In April we cruised with a big group called, "Friends of
Scooter". It was a fun trip and we made new friends
and spent time with old friends. Scooter is dealing
with Parkinson's. He smiled, laughed, teased and refused to be bitter or
miserable. A reminder and lesson to the rest of us, count your
blessings and stop your whining.
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In August the Chandler's joined us for the Alaskan cruise.
The scenery was amazing and Voni and I were the 42
champions. Of course Micky was cruising with bronchitis but
excuses were not allowed. We enjoyed it
so much we turned around and booked it again for April 2020
and convinced my siblings to join us.
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In October my siblings (Marvin, Linda and Joni) joined us
for another bucket list cruise. We did a partial
transit of the Panama Canal as well as stops in Cartagena,
Aruba and 4 other ports. We were impressed with the
Canal and shocked when the captain informed us it cost
$400,000 for our ship to do the partial transit.
We also watched the game 7 debacle of the 2019 World Series on the
big screen in the middle of the ocean.
We commented numerous times on the
trip about farm kids from Silverton (and Wellman and Welch)
and the amazing lives we are living. We were all raised by
parents that knew how to budget and it was one of many
lessons we learned from them.
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Where We Are Going
in
2020 |
We had been "banking" timeshare weeks while we were in DC
and realized it was time to use or lose them. In
January we are headed to Beaver Creek, Colorado for a week
of skiing. Well Micky will ski and I plan to people watch,
hang out and let someone else make the bed. In May we
will spend two weeks in Puerto Vallarta. Then we will
be caught up and go back to our regularly scheduled travels.
LOL
In March we are headed to Palm Springs to spend a week with our
Canadian friends, George and Tamara. I love the idea of
floating in the pool in March. From there we will go
to Vegas for March Madness. We are seriously considering
saying goodbye to our Vegas trip. According to me
(Kathy) 2020 will be our 15th year. According to Micky -
well it doesn't matter, he has it wrong. We both
admit, Vegas is not for senior citizens. |
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In April the Chandlers and my siblings and of course us, are
heading to Alaska. We know it will be much colder than
the trip in August but we are ok with that, we think. We
will fly into Vancouver and hope to get to see some of the
city before we board the ship. |
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Halloween 2020 we will leave Galveston on our "protest"
cruise.. In other words we will be gone on election
day. We invite anyone and everyone to join us.
We have named this one, "Fake news, we're screwed, let's
cruise." If you are interested look at
www.texasbeachbums.com/dream. This is a 5 day
cruise and a great way to test the cruising waters, not to
mention spending election day on the beach. Remember to vote
early and often - well that was what LBJ said. |
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2019 |
2019 wasn't a bad year even without our Red Raiders, we added a grandson, a
new citizen, a grand dog and many
miles on our bodies.
This year added another cancer survivor to our family
members.
Mick's sister, Dixie, battled pancreatic cancer and is now
cancer free.
The treatments were brutal but she maintained her
spirit. |
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We held our 5th annual GCamp. It
got a bit wild and crazy but the kiddos had a ball.
Marvin brought his boat, camper and grandkids and Joni had
her grandson. We enjoyed all ages, 13, 12, 12, 11, 10,
10, 9, 8 and 3 year olds. The kids enjoyed tubing,
fishing and swimming at the lake. We enjoyed bowling,
water park and made a lot of memories. |
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Micky has adjusted well to retirement.
The morning he
walked in and asked, "What is today?", I knew he had put the
world of daily grind to rest. We have discovered that
we still make too many plans and leave ourselves very little time
to sit and rest. But we hope to have many years ahead
for that option. |
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2020 |
Other than travel and spending time with family and friends we
don't have a lot of plans. We are retired!
I have tons of boards on pinterest with thousands of ideas and Micky has a nice
workshop (although Joni keeps pointing out it has no air
conditioning). But we find ourselves reading and
watching the boob tube. We are still ignoring the NFL
and doing our best to ignore politics. We are blessed,
content and healthy. Life is good and we are thankful.
BTW - are we the only ones saying -
20 years since Y2K! Nah - can't be!!!! And
yes, we are getting old! |
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We wish each of you a safe and peaceful holiday season and a
prosperous new year for 2020. We love you and wish we had
time to sit and visit with each one of you.
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