Blake's Stay Extended

Blake had planned the perfect itinerary to fit in with his work schedule. He found the perfect flights to give him the maximum days to visit us while only missing one day of work.  But some times perfect plans are quelled with imperfect weather that cancels flights all over the country.

Blake was supposed to fly back to Shreveport on Monday evening, but we found out that his flights had been cancelled.  He rescheduled his flights for Tuesday evening, and we had another day of South Texas fun!  The good news is that the storm had shut down his office, so it didn't even cost him a vacation day to stay another day with us.

Mark, Denisa, Mema, and a couple friends had planned to go to a performance of the New Shanghai Circus on Monday evening.  We managed to shanghai another ticket for Blake, and he got to enjoy the show with us. This group has a theater in Branson, but spends some of the winter months touring the country.  We could use the entire blog entry to describe the amazing feats of acrobatic and balancing skills that this troupe performed.  There was the guy that flipped bowls on his head while balancing on a board that was rolling on a tube.  

There were the bicycling tricks that ended with one guy pedaling a bike around the stage that eventually added 9 more passengers.  She attempted to take pictures, but the lighting and Denisa's distance from the stage were working against her success.  This is a poor attempt at capturing another group of girls each twirling 7 plates on the top of poles while doing splits . .

Or the guy that did a tight rope act upside down while walking on his hands.  He also juggled while tight rope walking.  It was a great performance!

The cancelled flights also meant another day of playing pickleball and ping pong and other games.  It was a cool weather day, so we enjoyed homemade soup for supper.  We took Blake back to the airport 24 hours later for his rescheduled flights, only to find that they had been canceled again!


With another 24 hour extension, Mark and Blake headed to a sports bar in order to watch the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team win handily.  They found that Beef O'Brady's is a great place to watch basketball on 11 foot screens.  Those NBA players are already tall, but they looked even bigger on that big screen.


We had another day with Blake, so played more pickleball and shuffleboard.  Blake has asked more than once, "How much money do I need to save so I can retire too?" Considering that he graduated from college just one year ago, I think that he needs to work a few more years before he is ready to play pickleball and shuffleboard on a full-time basis.

We made the trip to the airport again on Wednesday evening.  It was actually snowing in Shreveport that day, and one of his engineer friends was planning to do some snowman building.  So we weren't very hopeful that the flights would actually go out this time.  But the third time was the charm, and Blake made it safely home to Shreveport by 10 p.m.  We had a great time with him, and enjoyed the 5 days and nights he got to stay with us!