Christmas Preparations

Philip made these tasty, chewy gingerbread cookies with cream cheese frosting.  I really liked them!

Julia had a long list as usual.  She made like 7 kids of cookies and them made boxes for friends.  She made one kind a day.  The first day I came home to a kitchen in full swing...but I'd planned on making pizza for dinner and needed the oven.  After that she made the dough right after school and then put it in the fridge and baked them after dinner.  That worked better for the hungry brothers.

I just like this picture.  Homemade Dots are always a hit.

Nicholas dipped various things.  I think these are pretzel circles with the middle filled with peanut butter.  Yum!

These are brie cranberry bites with almonds on top. It's a keeper recipe.

A lot of the things ended up on our Christmas Eve appetizer buffet.  Along with some smoked cheeses.  Jeremy has been smoking lots of cheese and it's so good.

Homecoming

Since the band is going to DC to march in the 250th anniversary parade they have a special little routine they do in the middle of parades.  They call it Cav Swag. They debuted it for the fair parade and pulled it back out for the Homecoming parade.

Nick got to go this year since he's in 7th grade.

Here's the annual senior photo.

 I guess I didn't get a picture of Philip except when he was marching.

Parents Night

To kick off football season.

Change up this year:  Philip is a running back and on the D line.

Julia's happy place at football games.

 

Fair Week

We weren't very excited about the fair this year.

Jeremy and I are still superintendents of the tractor driving.  He tried out the course to make sure it was set up right.  It was.

I looked up from grading the tests the kids take to see Nicholas on the mower.  "Oh good, I didn't miss my kid," I said.  "Um, Lisa?  He's getting off."  Drat.

But he was the third Vrana boy to get Reserve Champion!  He, Philip and Thomas all got 2nd once.  It may be the only thing they'll ever be able to say they beat Samuel at.

We were excited and proud.

Nick also shott bb guns and was happy with his blue ribbon.

Got the mandatory funnel cake after watching hay hauling!  Such a hilarious competition!

For open class I entered two kinds of cookies and Nick entered two Lego projects.  Julia had planned to make a cake but we forgot they changed turn in from Tuesday night to Monday night and she had to work Monday so she didn't have time to make it.  Nick went to see open class stuff without me and told me what ribbons I earned so then I didn't even go look at the projects.  AND I forgot to see if Mrs. Vrana the chicken was at the fair.  Drat again.  Just not in a fair mood this year I guess.

The parade is the first last thing of senior year.  :(

Since they are marching in DC next summer for the 250th celebration they are doing some fancy marching they're calling "Cav Swag" and they debuted it.  It's fun!  

I was on the wrong side to take picture of Philip but a band mom friend came through for me!

Only Nick and I to watch.  Jeremy walked with the Knights this year so we joined them when they got to where we were sitting.

All three kids did rides and looking at exhibits with friends so I didn't even go to the midway except for the funnel cake.  

I guess even though I felt like we did a lot less than we have in the past, we still enjoyed enough of the fair to be happy!

And then as always, buckle up because it's just about time for school....drat.

It'd Been a While Round Two

Since I saw my 2nd cousin Jill.  She was visiting her parents from Japan and they stopped by our house one afternoon.  No picture with Jill but she did bring us tiny block kits from Japan.

The kids enjoyed putting theirs together and ridiculed me for doing my penguin wrong.  I am just not a visual to real life directions person. 🤷‍♀️  Somebody fixed it for me.

 

It was great to catch up with her!

Happy Father's Day!

Sam was in Minden by then.  

We love you Jeremy!

Oklahoma Trip- Day 5

After a day of looking at things Philip protested "not another museum!" when Julia suggested we hit up the Outsiders Museum in Tulsa on Friday.  But it's small and we stopped by an amazing park first!

I think the park is called the Gathering place and there was something for everyone there.

Cool play structures

Big slides

A whole system of bridges

Fish to feed

a water feature

And trails to walk

We had a great time there!

We stopped by the Cathedral too.

And then to the Outsiders museum.  (Philip did in fact survive another museum.)  It's just the house they filmed The Outsiders in, which is a little house in a 'hood in Tulsa.  The story is actually set in Tulsa and they have furnished it to look as much like the movie as they can.  They aren't actually associated with whoever made the movie, just fans who bought the house and turned it into a museum.  The poor neighbors have "no parking and no trespassing" signs in their yards because it's just a neighborhood and there's no parking lot or anything.

I saw the movie in 8th grade and all my kids read the book/saw the movie in 8th grade too so we were familiar with the plot.  It was worth the stop.  One of the people who owns it was an extra on the movie so he had some candid photos and experiences to share.  After that I was excited to read the book (I think my class only watched it and didn't read it for some reason) but then we borrowed the movie from the library and the plot was only okay.  I'm sure the book is better but my enthusiasm waned.

The most interesting thing the guide said was that he took lots of pictures of Matt Dillion and Rob Lowe but not many of Tom Cruise because Tom had a snaggletooth so the guide didn't think he'd amount to anything in Hollywood.  Turns out the snaggletooth was fake and Tom Cruise did amount to something.

We also ate at Whataburger at some point.  I'm not 100% sure it was this day but whatever.  The kids loved it and the manager gave all three of them free raspberry lemonades because that was their new drink coming out the next week.  Great advertising on her part, give the kids a drink they'll like so they come back when it's featured.  We just kept our mouths shut about being from a place with no Whataburger. 

We also stopped by this Route 66 gem. 

It's a huge whale some guy made that people used to go swimming off of.  No swimming in the gunky lake now but it's a good photo op.

We tried to enjoy smores at the Airbnb that night but the mosquitos chased us in.

The next morning we packed up and headed home.  It's amazing how fast 7 hours can go when you have bigger kids and no one throws up!!

Oklahoma Trip- Day 4

We headed into Oklahoma City again on day 4.  We stopped at the capital.

It wasn't totally finished until recently.  They put the dome on in the last, I don't know 10 years and finished the lower level too.  We noticed how much brighter it is than Nebraska's.  Ours is so dark downstairs.  The tour guide was really knowledgeable and there were tons of  artifacts.  He said once when he did a tour with a group of artists it took 4 hours to see everything.  Thankfully we were on the 1 hour tour.  I'm not that interested in Oklahoma history.  The kids were glad they weren't Oklahoma 4th graders.  That state has an "official" everything.  Official flower, official wild flower, official tree, official song, official gospel song, official animal, official wild animal, the list went on and on.

Then we went to the memorial for the bombing that happened in Oklahoma City in 1995.  It's not really a picture type of place.  It was well done and interesting but the whole second section was about the perpetrators and how they pulled it off.  I thought it was a little much.  They had details down to the actual getaway car on display.  I would have stayed focused on the victims and made the criminals more of an afterthought if I'd designed it.

Last for the day we stopped by the shrine for Stanley Rother.  He was a priest from the Oklahoma City diocese who spent most of his priesthood in Guatemala at the mission the diocese sponsored.  During the Civil war Guatemalan Catholics (and maybe all Christians, I've forgotten) were heavily persecuted and he was murdered in his rectory in 1981.  He is in the Blessed stage of canonization.

The grounds were beautiful too.  There was a huge replica of Tepeyac Hill, where Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared but we only saw it from a distance because the grounds were closing.

It was back to the airbnb for dinner and relaxing after that.