George and I just spent nine days at my mother's home in Oklahoma. It was an epic trip. We pretty much wore ourselves out keeping up with mother. She celebrates 97 years in November, and she keeps a tight ship. When we got there, she had a long list of things that needed doing, and the first thing she wanted to do was go shopping. I don't know if I have talked about shopping much in my blog. I am a good shopper, but my mom takes the cake. We went to Kohl's and she found eight blouses and bought two for my niece and I got two, plus a suede-cloth jacket in a beautiful turquoise. She refused the wheelchair, and walked with her walker all through the store, until she got to the middle and had a huge pile of clothing in her walker basket, and THEN we got her a wheelchair to finish the trip to the cash register. She loves to go places, and when she is feeling up to par, we took her out wherever we were going.
George and I visited my niece Crystal and her new baby Kaitlyn Faith in Muskogee while we were there. The three hour drive went right through "Indian territory", as mother said, and there were casinos tempting us all along the way. The drive was pretty and peaceful and we really enjoyed our visit to the toy store with Devin and his little sister Alyssa. They were polite and nice, and just lovely children to be with. I'll not forget that long hug that Alyssa gave me for a long long time!
We did a lot of birdwatching every evening. Sometimes with a delicious Braum's ice cream shake in hand, and sometimes not. There are scissor-tailed flycatchers in that part of the country, and in trips past, we would see one or two and get really excited. This trip, out near the El Reno Reformatory, near a field of wild sunflowers, there were hundreds of them! Mom cautioned me not to say "hundreds". She wanted to me to say "dozens". We certainly saw a lot of them, and mom got to see them with us too. We had a great evening trip out there. I say hundreds! They were so elegant and beautiful with their 14" long tails and their apricot and pale grey markings. They fly up to catch a cricket or bug, and their wings and tail spreads out like a giant scissors. It is beautiful to behold. More about them when I get the pictures.
Our flight back was horrendous. We got up at 3:30 a.m. to catch a 7:00 flight through Minneapolis. The flight was cancelled at 6:30 due to mechanical problems, so we were rescheduled to atlanta, with three hours to wait before we took off, and another two hour wait in Atlanta. We got home last night at 9:00 p.m. A VERY LONG DAY! The high point of the trip home was a delicious roast beef sandwich on panini bread at The Atlanta Bakery Co., at the airport. I never tasted anything so good. We had coke from a bottle, and a frozen yogurt. Delish! The flights were fine, once they took off. Who knew we'd be having lunch in Atlanta!
Thanks to my good friend Joan for her lovely letter. I'll be responding soon! So nice to catch up with old friends through a blog...very neat stuff--blogging.
Have a great day.
