Southern Oklahoma – Part 2

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And we’re finally back for the rest of the story… aka AC & UB’s part 2. Let’s just start off by saying we had so much fun that I kind of hated to leave. But, let’s look more in depth at the fun we had…

Wednesday

Aloha (that’s the horse) is one of the best, kid friendliest horses but she had one flaw… she’s a PITA (pain in the @$$) when it comes to saddling her. She’s extremely frustrating. UB & Tbug worked on that all week to the point that by mid week Tbug was saddling Aloha by herself. Now that may not sound like much, but that’s HUGE!

AC had Wednesday off. She had a hair appointment while we were working horses. When she was done, we were just finishing up with riding. Remember, southern Oklahoma in July=try to beat the heat working horses. When it gets hot, the horses and cows get tired, hey do you blame them? The summer I spent with AC & UB, we worked horses at midnight so that it wasn’t so darn hot. At least 6am is better than midnight… I think….

Anyway, as we were getting done riding for the day, AC pulled into the driveway. UB decided we needed to run in to town and eat at Scout. This restaurant was interesting, but the food was excellent. This early morning stuff got to Abug and she slept all through lunch.

After lunch, UB went back to the ranch to do ranch things (haha) and Tbug, Abug, and I went with AC to Norman to this really cool grocery store. Our goal for the day was to hit up this grocery store and Sam’s. If there is one thing I can tell you, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE grocery stores. Hey, where I live, we mainly have Walmart. oooo Fun, right?

This grocery store had some interesting things I’ve never seen before, like these saucer peaches. The only thing this store really didn’t have was a bakery. They did… but not a free standing area where you could get donuts, cookies etc. I bring this up because Abug WANTED a cookie. So when we left here, AC treated all of us to Starbucks. Yum! And Abug got her cookie.

So this thing here. This is known as a Duck. Yes, I know it’s a flamingo but…. here’s the story.

I’m not sure if Abug wouldn’t warm up to UB or what all week, but she was being quite the stinker. So UB asked her Tuesday if she wanted a duck for the pool. Well then it was on. He was supposed to go to town and get her the duck on Tuesday, but he didn’t. That’s ALL she talked about. I joked with UB that if he wanted to get on her good side, he better get her the darn duck. haha. So Wednesday while we were in Norman, he went to town and got her the Duck.

He went into the store and told them he wanted to buy one of the ducks. The guy behind the counter said, we have a Flamingo. He said, yes, that’s what I want. The guy said, it’s $49.99. UB said, it was $29.99 yesterday. The guy informed him that the sale went off yesterday. UB said, I want the duck for that price. After a little negotiation, he got the Flamingo for $29.99. That evening I was flipping through a high end catalog on AC’s counter and found almost an identical flamingo for $119. Needless to say, even the $49.99 at that point would have been a steal. And UB said he would have paid the $49.99 if he’d needed to just to make Abug happy.

Thursday

Thursday morning Abug didn’t want to wake up, at all. The kid isn’t used to 6am. So Tbug and I quietly got dressed and left her in the house. I had plans to run up to the barn, do chores and come back down and wake her up/get her dressed. Easy peasy!

After chores, I went down and got Abug. While I went back to the house, they started watering the arena. While that sounds weird, it helps cut down on the dust. Definitely needed.

UB had Tbug crawl up on Poker Chip and they all went off to gather cattle. When Abug and I got up tot he barn, we went and watched  them gathering the cattle, then got out of the way so that when they came in the gates of the arena we didn’t scare them off.

That morning I ran back to the house a couple times. Once to get Abug, then AC called around 7 and said that there was a lasagna in the freezer. If I went and pulled it out NOW, that it should be ready to go for lunch. We all worked horses, plus UB had some friends come over to work their horses, then around 11:30 or so I ran to the house and put the lasagna into the oven.

So… as you can see, this doesn’t look like lasagna. Well… I ran to the house, put the lasagna in the oven at a higher temperature than AC said, and set a timer. Then I went back up to the barn, unsaddled my horses, and back to the house to check on the lasagna. After an hour, I pulled the lasagna out of the oven and it was still frozen solid. UB and Tbug were at the house by this time (as was Abug, but she went with me) and UB said, what are we going to do now. I shrugged my shoulders and said, I don’t know. Luckily AC left her truck so we had a 4 door vehicle (and didn’t have to take UB’s big truck) and off to town we went. We decided on Subway.

That afternoon AC asked what we were doing. I said nothing really. She said, UB wanted cinnamon rolls so if we were interested, we could make some. If not, she’d make some when she got home. If there’s one thing I can tell you about me… I love to bake. I really do. So we jumped at that option to make cinnamon rolls.

My favorite recipe is PW’s recipe. Seriously. I’ve never had trouble making them and they are fantastic IMO. Well… the recipe makes a HUGE amount. So I decided to try a different recipe. AC has a lot of cookbooks, so why not try something new, right? WRONG! I went with either the Betty Crocker cookbook or the Better Homes & Garden’s Cookbook (I can’t remember). The minute I put the dough in to rise, it felt hard. Well to get the dough to rise, they say put it in a warm place. Well outside is warm, so I covered it up, set it on the patio table, and we all went swimming. Hey, it was in the 90’s. That’s warm. The dough didn’t rise… like not at all.

So we started again, this time I made PW’s recipe and just cut it in half. Let me just say, this recipe cuts in half well. And is still AMAZING!

The “duck” had been in AC & UB’s pool now for 2 days. Some of the cows just so happened to find the duck and watching them stare at the flamingo was quite entertaining. We laughed and laughed and laughed.

So the lasagna. Whatever happened to the lunch lasagna? I’m glad you asked. So when it didn’t get ready for lunch, I turned the oven off, and left the lasagna in the oven. I left it in there all afternoon in fact. At dinner time, we decided to warm the lasagna up. At first, UB was worried about the fact it set in there all day, but I figured since I left it in there and it was frozen solid, it should be fine. And let me tell you, it was AMAZING!

So the story on the lasagna. UB was out on his tractor and noticed that a neighbor was mowing lawn on a little riding lawn mower. They’ve had a lot of rain so I guess the grass was quite tall and the area was huge. UB went and offered to mow it with his tractor. The neighbors took him up on it. As a thank you, they made them this lasagna. They drove in to AC & UB’s house. They weren’t there, but as the neighbors were pulling out, AC & UB were pulling in. The guy said, I know you guys are rich and all, so offering money wouldn’t really matter so we made this lasagna as a thank you for mowing our lawn. He said his wife mad the best lasagna. AC &UB put it in the freezer.

I can’t begin to tell you HOW AMAZING this lasagna was. I have no idea what his wife did so special but dang I want the recipe. It was a large enough lasagna that we ate on it Thursday night and Friday for lunch. But my gosh was it amazing.

Friday

I guess one of UB’s previous employees wives suggested he put this little viewing area in the arena and that was an awesome move! Abug spent a lot of time up there so she could see what was going on, plus it gave her a place out of the way to play with her toys. Also, it made it easier to pick her up off the “ground” to get her on horseback with us when she got to ride with someone. Win win!

Obviously the duck won UB some brownie points with Abug, plus the fact that she got to ride horses with him.

Oh Oklahoma sunsets, How I love thee! Friday we rode horses like the previous days and waited for hubby to get back down to us. AC had the day off so she spent the day mowing lawn. That afternoon Abug, Tbug, and I ran into town to Sonic to get drinks. Abug fell asleep on the way in to town. Once we pulled in to Sonic, she picked her head up, said I want Tea Tea (Sweet Tea), and she was back out. I guess the kid had a huge week and she wasn’t used to it by far.

Saturday

Saturday morning, my whole crew was dragging just a bit.

Tbug and I sat down waiting on UB to get back. Abug got mad at us and went and sat across the driveway from us and said she’d play by herself.

Once UB got back from town, it was time to saddle horses. Tbug saddled Aloha all by herself. Her dad was quite impressed. I’d sent videos all week, but he actually got to see it in person. And I promise, Abug isn’t underneath Poker Chip. In fact, she was a good couple feet from him. Love the power of pictures.

All week I spent picking UB’s head about this and that. One thing I asked him was how people get the huge stop on a cutting horse. He showed me how and I told hubby, but I asked UB to explain it all and show hubby as well because while I could tell him, I just wanted UB to. He agreed. So Saturday morning UB went to teaching hubby as well. Barbie should have been trained as a cutting horse, but the fall/spring that she should have been trained, I was pregnant with Abug and I was put on huge restrictions which included NO riding horses.

All while we were riding, Abug kept saying she wanted pizza for lunch. We worked the flag that morning instead of cows. Because of that, we were done earlier than the previous days. We helped AC scrape some gravel back into the driveway from the concrete and then we all jumped in the pool. When we got out of the pool, AC asked what we wanted for lunch. UB suggested pizza and I spoke up and asked if he knew Abug had been asking for that all morning. He said no. So we got pizza.

That afternoon AC made appointments for us girls to go in and get pedicures. Abug wanted her toes painted pink. That’s all she talked about including the first couple miles to town in the truck, then she fell asleep. We stopped at a stop light just shy of where we were headed and Abug picked her head up, said, I want my toes pink and fell back asleep. When we got there, Abug was out. I carried her in and she sat on my lap while we got our pedicures. They even painted her toes pink for her.

We left and ran to the grocery store. Tbug stayed in the truck with Abug while we ran into the store so that she could sleep a little while longer. She woke up on the way back to the ranch just about the place she fell asleep and said, I want my toes painted pi…. and stopped mid sentence when she realized her toes were painted pink.

That afternoon a storm started to blow up so we moved the duck up under the roof to keep it close to the house and keep the wind from dragging it off. It was quite funny to walk by the door and see the duck staring at you.

Dinner… YUM! We had Meatloaf, Corn on the Cobb, and left over PW’s Fancy Mac & Cheese from the night before.

And Cinnamon rolls for dessert. The first pan was completely gone. UB asked me to make more. I obliged. 1) I love to bake. 2) I love these cinnamon rolls too! I was asked to make these at Thanksgiving &/or Christmas.

AC had a recipe for a good breakfast casserole you put together the night before so hubby and I worked on that before bed.

Just as we were finishing up the casserole… the night sky/sunset was GORGEOUS! I love sunsets but Oklahoma sunset… gosh you’re gorgeous!

Sunday

I woke up at 6:30ish Sunday morning. UB had no intentions of getting up to work horses on Sunday. We decided we’d just feed horses in the trailer on the way out, that way they had something to do on the 5 1/2 hour ride home. I just laid in bed and stared at the window. One I was sad that I was awake at 6:30am.. haha… but 2, I was sad we were leaving. We had so much fun.

AC said whoever was up first needed to put the casserole in the oven. Hubby had an alarm set to put it in, but I went ahead and got up to go put it in. When I got into the kitchen, AC had just put it in the oven. She said that the directions on bake time were off because it never bakes at the temperature for the amount of time the recipe says and gets done.

While the casserole baked, we watched a marathon of Fixer Upper. There was one house that was a condemned (basically) 1920’s house that the city of Waco owned. We sooooo hoped that that was the house that the couple would by, and they did. I recently saw in the news that Chip and Joanna Gains were underfire for supposedly making a couple by a house in a neighborhood they didn’t like. The pictures kind of look like the 1920’s house reveal we watched. I couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t that house…

Then it was all over but the shouting packing. We deflated the “duck” to get him in the trailer, packed all our stuff up, and loaded the horses.

It was quite sad to leave. I know Abug had a blast down here, I think Tbug did although we put her out of her comfort zone quite a bit, and I had a blast. What time hubby got to be here, he had fun. We thank AC & UB so much for allowing us to come down and spend a week with them. It was a lot of fun and I think we all learned a lot.

On the way home, let’s just say turnpikes suck when you have a freshly potty trained little girl. Sigh! We stopped alongside the interstate twice or 3 times so she could pee. Then we had to stop in Tulsa because she had to go again. There’s a huge funny in picking on my mom with Mazzio’s pizza’s. Where we stopped in Tulsa, there was one, so we sent her a picture and decided to go ahead and eat there while we were at it.

We met up with Tbug’s mom on our way home, dropped her off, and headed home. And that was all Southern Oklahoma wrote, this time anyway.

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