Sunday, December 8, 2019

Texas - December 2019

At the Pantomime
This year was a trip to Texas for our early Christmas event.

Keith flew in form Austin on the Thursday night as he was there for work.  Dick picked Keith up at the airport and had Indian at Nanglo where they had the exact same dish of lamb vindaloo (to the chagrin of the waiter who wanted them to have different items) before going to the house.  Jean was not home yet so Keith went to bed as he had an early morning for work.

Keith's Friday was conference calls all day.  He then picked up Shawna, who was flying in from Louisiana, at the airport and brought her back to the house.  We all had a glass of wine before driving to Fort Worth to enjoy a wonderful dinner at Saint-Emilion.

Grimaldi's
On Saturday, we both worked in the morning and went for a walk.  We then just relaxed around the house before all meeting Margaret, Owen, Josie, and two of Josie's friends at Grimaldis pizza for dinner - we were able to get a table for 9 without a reservation.  After dinner, we walked downtown Grapevine (known as the Christmas Capital of Texas!) where the lights on the main street actually were quite impressive.  The evening was capped off with the Grapevine Pantomime at the Runway Theater which was based on Cinderella.

King and Queen Dodds!
On Sunday, we did some more work before meeting Graham and Margaret at Breadwinners.  Our flight was in the afternoon and we made it safely home - Shawna was excited to be back at her home!





Friday, December 6, 2019

Louisiana - Thanksgiving - November 2019

This year we were back in Louisiana to see Shawna's mom for Thanksgiving.  Honny had a minor surgery on the Tuesday so Shawna flew in on the Monday night before and also stayed the week after Thanksgiving to help her out before flying to Texas.  The surgery went well - she had to stay one night in the hospital - and after she was quite sore for a couple of weeks.

Keith arrived on Wednesday evening.  On Thanksgiving, Nicole, Hunter, Harmony and Hayden joined us for lunch - Mom had catered a few items and Chet made the yummy turkey and stuffing for us.  The rest of the weekend was low key since we couldn't go anywhere - we got some work done, watched lots of Hallmark Christmas movies and the Crown and cooked at home.  Keith left on Sunday to return to Chicago.

For the rest of the week, Shawna worked during the day, cooked meals and ran errands for her mom.  It was nice to spend some additional quality time with her mom.  She flew out on Friday to Texas to join Keith for a weekend with Keith's family before returning to Chicago.