Did they really mean "shrub" sale?

World's Largest Bronze Sculpture

If you've never visited Tulsa, I can recommend one area of the city that should be on your "Things to See" list. I just returned from the Oklahoma Educators Association Summer Leadership Academy which was held at the Hilton Tulsa Southern Hills Hotel. This lovely hotel is directly across the street from Oral Roberts University, where you can find the world's largest bronze sculpture known as "The Praying Hands".

Recent Carter pictures

Isn't Carter the cutest little farmer you've ever seen?

Britney sent us this link http://www.studiobphotos.blogspot.com/
to see pictures of Carter along with lots of other great pictures, too.
The photographer is a friend of her sister's.

We don't get to see Carter in person very much, but we really enjoy all the pictures that Britney sends our way!

Mad Men Season 1 Marathon

One of our favorite shows from last summer is about to begin its second season in only seven short days! Mad Men on AMC!!! I've been watching the Season 1 marathon since about 6:00 this evening and it's almost midnight. I think this is the season finale. If you haven't heard of this show, you should go check it out at http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/ and be prepared to get hooked!

B&K Save the Day

Thursday's little adventure had all of the elements to be a really good, possibly prize-winning, stupidest home video (that is, if we had been videotaping.) Ben and I decided to do some yard work that morning (mowing, weeding plants, watering, etc.) As we were finishing with those tasks and it was coming up on lunchtime, we were noticing a few more limbs were down around the big oak tree in our front yard. There are so many dead limbs from an ice storm way before we even moved here that are trapped on top of some other limbs. So we decided we could handle cutting and sawing off several of them if we backed the truck up under the tree and stood either on top of the cab or on top of the step stool inside the bed of the truck. Has everyone pictured this yet?

Ben was the primary ax man with his little hatchet and our piddly little hand saw, freakishly strong hands, and protective goggles. (Fine tools for cutting down several thick oak limbs, don't you think?) I was the helper and only got to have protective goggles. My main job was holding onto the end of the limb Ben was cutting and simultaneously lifting it up and pulling it down and to the side to the ground as Ben sawed through it (trying not to smash it on top of Ben or the truck.)

We were very, very careful and we drank plenty of water to stay hydrated, and ended up with a nice pile of smoking wood for another brisket. I told Ben it felt like the beginnings of a home video where someone was about to come inches from certain death, but we both made it through the experience with only a few scratches (and it's really a miracle that only one of those scratches on Ben's forehead came from the saw...I couldn't help that he raised up as I was lowering it! Oops!) And I'm happy to report neither of us fell off of anything and the truck is no worse for wear either.

The tree is really two trees that grew up so close together that they now share one base trunk and the limb that goes out to the right is really one of the massive trunks. It's really bizarre...and it was starting to lose a few limbs sue to rotting from the inside out, so we are happy to have helped put them out of their misery.

July in Arkansas

The Elliotts' visit to Ada

In June, Hillary and Chris brought Madelyn and Sophie to visit us here in Ada for a few days. We had lots of fun and lots of food, too! I think Hillary was inspired to even start cooking a little more...she took three of my cookbooks with her back to Van Buren!

Most of the pictures we took that weekend were of Madelyn, of course, so I've added several to our photobucket album. There are also some older pictures of Madelyn, too...which are really fun to look back at.

Memories from Kansas City

While in Kansas City, we saw the Chiefs Stadium, a neat fountain near the Plaza shopping area, Mediterranean style buildings at the Unity campus, President Truman's Home, and the biggest cinnamon roll we've ever seen (that picture is Ben holding it up in front of our steering wheel!)

Unity Roses

The Nguyens' wedding weekend was a great time for us to catch up with old college friends and see some of Independence, MO (Home of President Harry Truman) and Kansas City (the MO side anyways).


Albert and Amy were married in a chapel at Unity Christian School. The grounds all around the campus were blooming with dozens of varieties of roses. The were just beautiful and I got to experiment with the supermacro setting on my camera! Just click on the picture and it will lead you to our photobucket album of flower pictures if you want to see more.

Flint Hills

As our spring semester came to an end and summer began, we travelled to Kansas City for Albert and Amy's wedding. On the way we passed through the Flint Hills. This was a really amazing area...almost dreamlike....with hardly any trees, lush rolling green hills for miles and miles, and a few hundred very happy cows grazing along the way. Driving through here made us feel as if we had been transported to another planet...

Our first slideshow post

Just click on the photo and it will lead you to our photobucket albums!

Slideshow time

Hello again, everyone. I'm experimenting with adding slideshows from Photobucket today. It's not exactly what I had imagined, but I'm still tinkering with it. The photo is WAY too big and I really wanted to have a slideshow on the side of the page, but I haven't figured that out yet. I didn't really want it to be a post, but we'll see. If anyone has any suggestions (like my computer-savvy friend, Angie, maybe?) please let me know!

More Spring Break

The famous Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, MI
Sculpture in Grant Park, Chicago, IL

Art Institute of Chicago

The way to Narnia...

by way of the music building at Michigan.

Notre Dame Campus, Southbend, IN

Ben and Scott in his office at A very foggy night in Ann Arbor

the University of Michigan

We had too many great pictures from spring break to fit into one post. We also visited some good friends of ours, Scott and Jenn, who lived in Ann Arbor, MI (now Kentucky). We really enjoyed visiting that part of the country and seeing how different life is for our friends up north!

Any excuse we can find...

In April, Ben gave a marching percussion clinic in San Antonio. So of course we had to stop by Austin and visit a few of our old favs. (And we finally found the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue on Town Lake....not that we really looked very hard when we actually lived there.)

While in Texas we stayed with our friends Rob and Michelle and had a great time catching up and playing with their little boy, Benjamin. He really liked Big Ben, even though he kept calling him "Ven".

We love getting back down to Austin any chance we can get. We may try to make it down for a football game this fall if our schedules willalign. But thankfully PASIC is in Austin again this year so we'll get to visit for a few days in November!

Spring Break - Chicago, IL

We had a very chilly, but fantastic, time in Chicago.

We visited our good friend, Huei, and saw several museums

and historical buildings in our short time there.

Pictures above: Hancock Center, The Bean in Millenium Park,

SUE the TRex in the Museum of Natural History, and the

view of the city from outside the Shedd Aquarium.

The end of 2007

Anything Texas-related makes Ben's Christmas a happy one!

Our family had its own Santa this year...

Madelyn had a big time during her first Christmas!

Carter did, too!

We had a great time with both sides of the family and ate way too much (as usual) during our multi-family/multi-meal day.