Tulia Time! Swisher County Parade and Picnic!

Hello, Everybody!



In mid-July, we traveled to Sharon's old hometown for the annual Swisher County Parade and Reunion weekend. The parade started off with a fly-over of three old planes. Sharon was barely able to snap this picture as they kicked off the parade.

This is a really old fire truck. Tulia does have an updated model.

What parade is complete without tractors and equipment? The next couple of pictures show some of Sharon's favorites--John Deere tractors.

We have no idea what this piece of equipment is; nor, do we have any idea what it is used for. We do know that it is HUGE! Neither one of us would want to try to crawl into it!

Here is one of the floats that carried Sharon's sister's reunion class. It was their 50th reunion. Quite a few of them were there for the parade. For this to be a 50 year reunion, they were all able to hop onto that trailer and sit on the hay bales without a problem.

Here are the sisters--Janice and Sharon. Many of their friends remarked how much Sharon looked like her mom.

We drove by Sharon's old home place. The people who bought it have really fixed it up. It is beautiful. Sharon's family moved here in 1949. Her mom and dad lived here until 2002. Ellen visited this home many times with Sharon over the years. It holds lots of special memories.

In high school, Janice and Sharon sang with a group called, "Blue Stars." The Blue Stars got together for their own reunion to sing for the dinner on that Saturday evening. It was held at Lake Tanglewood Country Club in Amarillo. The picture below shows us in rehearsal. We started off a bit hesitantly, but after a few songs we got all warmed up! By the end of rehearsal, the Blue Stars were ready for the stage once again!!

The evening brought a special surprise for Sharon. Below is an old friend who came with her husband from Florida. She is Dana Rogers Bauer.

This picture shows Janice and her husband, Jim. They live in Plainview.

This last picture shows the Blue Stars. We sang about eight songs for the evening. People must have enjoyed us because they stopped talking and listened to us. What fun we had! We didn't discuss what to wear. It just so happened that we all showed up in black and white!

Ellen was the official photographer for the evening.

Until next time... . . . . . .

Home Grown Veggies!

Hello, Everybody!

Can you say HOT? We have had such hot weather. The days have been over 100 degrees for several days now.

We thought you might like to see our cabbages! We decided it was time to pick them. Since we have never grown anything "to eat", we weren't sure if we should try them. But we did our picking and got them all cleaned up.


Here they are! We decided they looked and smelled good, so we would give them a try. Our first bite was quite tasty, and nothing bad happened to either one of us! We were safe! We tell you, they made the best coleslaw! Besides tasting so good, we were quite proud of ourselves.

We have a friend, Jenny. Now, she is quite the farmer! She grows a huge garden at her home! We are fortunate to be the recipients of several of her vegetables. These are tomatoes, zucchini, squash, green pepper and jalapeno fresh from her garden. Our cabbages enjoyed the company!

We have harvested a red pepper from our little pepper plant, and another one is on the way! Remember our tomato plant disasters from the past? Well, we didn't even try this year. But if we get brave, we may give it another chance next year!

Almost forgot to mention our basil. Now, this we have grown from seeds. We didn't take a picture, but it has become a little bush! It smells and tastes wonderful!!

We hope you continue to enjoy your summer. We leave for Amarillo this coming Friday. We will also be in Tulia over that weekend. Now, that is farm country! They would laugh at our little attempt at growing crops! Oh well, Sharon hasn't lived on a farm in a long time and Ellen grew up in the middle of St. Louis!

Until next time. . . . . . .

Another Summer Project!

Hello Everybody!

Our summer project has been Ellen's master bath. There were two layers of wallpaper that needed to be removed. "Spare time" has been spent scraping off all the paper! The first layer was easy to remove. The second layer has been there since the home was built in the early '80's.

Ellen bought the house in August, 1998. One of the first things we did was to put new wallpaper in the Master bathroom. When Sharon removed one of the medicine cabinets, so that we could get all the paper off, this is what we rediscovered!
We both laughed out loud, because we had forgotten that we did that! Sharon got out her trusty pen and added to the note. You can see there is still a little room left, so if we need to remove the medicine cabinet again, be sure that we will leave another message!

Most of the paper has been removed. There is just a little left to do. We went to Lowe's this morning to find out about texturing the walls. We talked to the "expert" whose name is Joe. We got joint compound and directions on how to apply it. The final step will be to paint the walls.

Please pray for us!!

Until next time. . . . .