We're putting miles on our car--instead of our legs

We have been spending much of our time with Mark's parents, who still live on the ranch where Mark was raised. Mark's Father is 91, and his Mother turns 90 in February. They live by themselves with lots of support from a son and daughter that are close by. Right now they are needing some extra support, so our visit was timed well. 

We are trying to not over-stay our welcome at their house, so every weekend we are taking road trips to visit other relatives across the state. That means we are getting to spend time with Denisa's sisters that live in the Oklahoma City area. After the first four days at the ranch, we made the four-hour drive to stay with Denisa's sister Connie and husband Joe. We were too busy to take pictures of the baking day we had with our niece Beth. Every Christmas our grandparents made German miniature cookies called "peppernuts." We are trying to keep up this tasty family tradition, with hours of cutting and baking these little morsels.

We always enjoy "borrowing" our sibling's grandchildren. This day we were playing with the same toys that our boys once enjoyed. It had been a while since we raced marbles down mazes we built with marbleworks. It's nice to see that little boys still like to do the same things today as they did twenty years ago.

One thing about wandering around the country, Mark doesn't get to wrassle with little guys like he does back home in Oklahoma.

We also played lots of basketball on some unseasonably warm autumn days. The area set a new record high of 82 degrees one of the days we were visiting Oklahoma City.

After a record high temperature day, we were met with a blustery cold day for the first annual Pecan Festival in Luther, Oklahoma. We are bundled up to see the car show and walk among the arts and crafts. We braved the cold to buy some roasted cinnamon pecans, pecan pralines, and puppy chow pecans at the pecan festival.

We made the long drive back to the Panhandle, getting back to help with the pre-Thanksgiving cooking. After four busy days with the holiday crowds at the ranch, we headed back to Oklahoma City for another family get-together. This trip included wedding gown shopping, and we stayed with Denisa's other sister, Debra. She hosted a taco dinner where we got to see all her grandchildren, and most of her children. We were obviously too busy having fun to take pictures. But we have been blessed with lots of family time. Since we are a family that enjoys playing games, we also played lots of games on this trip to Oklahoma City.

The city is getting decked out for Christmas, and it's fun to spend time with people we love among the holiday lights.

We made a third trip to Oklahoma City the following weekend. But we had a very special stop-over in Weatherford. This is the town where we raised our children and retired, and we have many dear friends that still live here. We always feel welcome at Patti's house, and we thoroughly enjoy her cooking while she pampers us on our visits. Our priority was a Sunday morning visit to Pine Acres Church to see as many church friends as possible. We had a great time catching up with so many people! We were blessed to share  lunch when an impromptu pizza party was organized after church.

We made a trip into Oklahoma City for a doctor's appointment, happy to get a clean bill of health. Denisa is typing this as we are making that long 4-hour drive back to the Panhandle for the third time in as many weeks. We are heading back to take Mark's parents to two different doctor's appointments. We aren't hiking among the wonders of national parks right now. We are putting lots of miles on the car, but few on our legs. We are missing our good quality hikes, but we are very much enjoying being immersed in some good quality family and friends time instead.