Arkansas

Smoke on the Border

The big shindig… also known as… Smoke on the Border in Gravette, Arkansas. So, we made it. The boys signed up, we hauled everything down, and bam, we were entered. I say we loosely. I helped when they said they needed it or by washing their dishes, but this was all them!

Saturday was the People’s Choice event. Basically, people were allowed to come and walk through the 2 streets blocked off for the event. If people had samples, obviously they could sample it. Samples were cut off around like 2 maybe. Then, the People’s Choice meat was dropped off to the church around the corner at 5 pm. People could buy wrist bands for $10 and they basically got all you can eat meat plus possible sides. Sunday was the main event. So they had the option of entering in 4 categories… pulled pork, brisket, ribs, and/or chicken. The awards were held at the Methodist Church as were all things turned in. And bam, it was all over but the cleanup. (more…)

Chuy’s – Rogers, AR

What is the significance of this picture? To prove that hubby was HOME! Wait, what?

Let’s back up… So 2 weeks ago hubby was in Boston for work. He was supposed to be home Friday, August 3, 2018. I state “was” because his flight got canceled as did every flight Delta had that night within a 150-mile radius of Boston. There was some storm and instead of postponing like Southwest Airlines did, Delta just canceled and apparently that’s what they always do. UGH!

Why did I really care? Well because Sunday, August 5th we were supposed to be leaving on vacation. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, right? So hubby and his co-worker who were traveling together looked into multiple routes to get home and both didn’t get home until Sunday. Hubby left out of KCI (Kansas City) and finally found a flight into XNA (Northwest Arkansas) at noon on Sunday. His co-worker got home Sunday at 4 pm into KCI.

Hubby was looking for every route to get home on Saturday and couldn’t do it. Our plans included us leaving between 5 and 6 on Sunday evening. It was a fuster cluck. With him rerouted through XNA, my parents and I drove up to KCI to get his truck because that’s a 2ish hour trip. Then Sunday morning we headed to XNA to pick him up and bring him home, quickly do laundry, finish packing him, and leave here on time. It was stressful! But we accomplished it, even with eating lunch at Chuy’s Tex-Mex.

Chuy’s Tex-Mex – Rogers AR

Chuy’s actually originated in the early 80’s in Austin, Texas. For what feels like months, our friend Jared has been telling us we needed to try this restaurant. A week earlier my parents tried this restaurant and raved about it too. So when they found out we were going to XNA, he suggested going with us and we could try Chuy’s. They raved about it so much they said we needed to find one in San Antonio (which there are like 3 or 4 locations). (more…)

Memorial Day Weekend 2018

Better late than never, right? I guess taking a week off from blogging last month didn’t help and then needing to blog like 5 times per day to either keep up or get caught up… whew! So we’re going to learn about Memorial Day Weekend today, the first day of July because that’s how I roll. I also woke up this morning to thunder and rain. OMG, we sooooooooo need the rain!

Memorial Day Weekend 2018

Going into Memorial Day Weekend, we weren’t sure where we’d sleep. Maybe the bed of my truck. Seriously, no idea, but then Jared bought a horse trailer with living quarters and BAM! he let us borrow it and we got to sleep in a bed. Whew!

Like most of our Memorial Day Weekends since 2014, we’ve spent them at the lake. This year was a bit different because Tbug didn’t get to go with us. Bummer! This is our first MDW without her since 2014. She started working on her SCUBA certifications that year. And prior to that year, we were elsewhere. (more…)

The Christmas Train

Earlier this month my dad was reading the Big Nickel newspaper and saw that the Christmas train happened this last weekend. One day it was from Seligman, MO to Rogers, AR and I don’t remember the other day. I don’t remember because we were planning on the Saturday trip, we had plans for that Sunday. We were excited because it happened to be a Tbug weekend so we bought our tickets and made plans to ride the Christmas Train.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect and it wasn’t quite what I thought I might expect, but it was a lot of fun either day.

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Underwater Pumpkin Carving

I typically get sick twice a year… this year I think I’m at 3 times. Blech! I’m so over this! Anyway… A couple weekends ago we had our annual Underwater pumpkin carving. Yes, I said underwater, because who doesn’t want to carve a pumpkin underwater? Don’t answer that.

The surface temperature topped out around 78˚. The water temperature wasn’t bad at all either. I heard the thermocline was down around 30 feet. I couldn’t get past 3 feet because of whatever this is. My ears were jacking with me so I carved my pumpkin basically laying right under the surface of the water.

I’ve been bugging hubby for family photos all summer long so finally we found a weekend when we had Tbug and it just so happened to be this weekend. We got up early (although not as early as I would have hoped, my fault) and went to the lake to do photos. Not quite where I wanted to take them, but sometimes you have to roll with the punches and I was happy with how they turned out so it’s all good.

That morning it was a big chilly. Abug got cold so Tbug zipped her up in her jacket with her. I turned around and this is what I saw.

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Colton’s Steakhouse {Poplar Bluff, AR}

On our drive home Sunday, we made it as far as Poplar Bluff before needing fuel for the truck and our bellies.  I did a quick search for restaurants, other than the Dairy Queen we ate at for lunch and the MacDonalds (aka McDonald’s… there’s a story there!). I came across the fact that Poplar Bluff had a Colton’s Steakhouse, so we decided to eat there.

If you’ve been to a Colton’s before, you know they serve you rolls before your meal. If you’ve never been, hey, they serve you rolls with your meal. And these rolls are so yummy! I could make a meal out of these rolls.

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Monticello, Arkansas: La Terraza Mexican Restaurant

Oh hai, did you know I went on a semi-impromptu trip? haha… no? Well, I did :). I headed to Monroe/West Monroe, Louisiana. Did you know that Monroe and West Monroe are two different towns that are only separated by a river? The Ouachita River to be exact.

Anyway we left Monday. Basically it was like a straight drive down through Arkansas. In fact, most of the 7 hour trip was through Arkansas… 30 minutes from Missouri to Arkansas and then like an hour and a half or so into Louisiana. The rest of the time was spent in Arkansas. But the drive wasn’t bad! Anyway around 1:30 we decided to stop for lunch in the town of Monticello, Arkansas. We decided to eat Mexican so La Terraza it was. (more…)

Safari Hunt 2016

We just had our Safari Hunt! This is a time of year that we look forward to with our dive group because, well, it’s a lot of fun! Our SCUBAPRO Rep was on site with some fun new equipment that I got to try out. Yes, I’m bragging. One of the pieces is still more like a prototype really than anything. In fact, he asked my opinion on what I thought and said he was going to take my comments back to SCUBAPRO. Whether he does or not, that’ll be determined, but still I got to try it out.

I made 2 dives with this BC and Dive Computer. One was with Tbug before the Safari Hunt, the other was to hide animals for the Safari Hunt. Dan gave me 3 animals, and then the rest of the time I was to dive around and create diversions. I spent time hanging out in different areas of the cove playing with the dive computer underwater. Hey it was a good diversion.

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Memorial Weekend 2016

I’ll apologize now. This will be photo heavy but I’m just going to do Memorial Weekend in one post and get it done. So Be Warned! 🙂

Our Memorial Weekend really started Thursday night. Tbug had a softball game… yes, she’s playing softball now. So we went over to her game and then she just came home with us because we planned on going to the lake. I have no idea if they won or lost or even kept score… But I can tell you that Tbug went around all the bases and made it home as if they were scoring a point. She even slid in to home instead of doing a summersault like she did earlier in the season. I guess you can take the girl out of cheer but you can’t take cheer out of the girl.

After the game we went to Jared and Karen’s house to borrow Karen’s truck (again, she needs that jalopy) and their camper. There was a tire that was starting to go bad so the guys decided to change it. We made it about 5-10 miles from their house and the tire blew. So I called Jared and asked him to come rescue us. I might also mention this was close to 10 or 11 at night.

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