Flying to the Hospital in South Texas

We had never bought a last-minute plane ticket at the airport, so this was a first for us. Since we were already in Oklahoma City, it was easy for Denisa to jump on the next plane for South Texas to be with her Mother in the hospital. She had fallen on the sidewalk in front of her house, and had lost a lot of blood. The good news is that it happened so fast she didn't have time to catch herself (which often breaks an arm or wrist). The bad news is that she took the entire force of the fall to her face. Her brand new glasses certainly looked sad!

Considering that she could have had a lot more damage with a fall like this, the doctors were thorough with their tests. In the long run, she was lucky to find she only had a broken nose. Denisa got her permission to show the damage after three days in the hospital.

After some long days at McAllen Hospital, it was good to head back to Mother's home in Mission, Texas. The weather couldn't have been prettier, with temperatures in the 70s and light winds. Denisa is also glad to report that the citrus is now ripe and plentiful!

Denisa stayed for several more days, playing nurse, maid, and personal cook. She found that everything took longer than expected, because so many friends and neighbors around the park were asking how her Mother was feeling. Denisa helped to finish up the Christmas cards, ran the errands, and drove to a follow-up doctor's appointment. We even had a little fun before it was time to fly back to Oklahoma. Looking out the plane window, we'll say good-bye to the warm temperatures of South Texas for just a little while.

We've got some more family gatherings and Christmas fun, but we'll be resuming our motor home travels soon as we head south for the winter after the first of the year.

Enjoying Oklahoma City . . . and then a change of plans!

We are spending some time in Oklahoma City, enjoying time with family. This is a fun city, especially when you share it with fun people! We started at an Oklahoma City Thunder basketball game at the Chesapeake Energy Arena.

We are here compliments of our son and daughter-in-law. Merry Christmas to us! They hosted both of their sets of parents for an evening at the ball game.

The game was fun, and the home team ended up on top. Go Thunder!

The Chesapeake Arena is in downtown Oklahoma City, so we started our evening in Bricktown for dinner. The river that meanders through Bricktown is lit up for Christmas!

We also spent time with both of Denisa's sisters. We did some shopping (and lots of eating) and made a trip to watch some elementary school basketball. Just north of Oklahoma City we also went to see a new exhibit at the impressive Armstrong Auditorium.

The exhibit is set up in the elegant foyer, and it centers on the precious contents of the wooden cabinet that Denisa's sister is examining. Inside are two bullehs found in the rubble in Old Jerusalem in Israel.

We learned that a bulleh is a tiny bit of wet clay that was used to seal a letter or a package. About a half-inch in size, it includes the seal of the sender that was pressed into the wet clay and then allowed to dry. This makes for a very tough dime-sized artifact that has lasted for more than two thousand years. The two bullehs on display were from King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah.

We enjoy time with our siblings, and Denisa went to lunch with a group of women from her sister's church. After a tasty lunch and time getting to know each other, we took a picture at the farm-to-market cafe in Luther. Welcome to the blog, ladies!

We also helped with some baby-sitting. Denisa's other sister hosted all five of her grandchildren for the evening, and she recruited us to bring up the adult-to-child ratio. We were out-numbered 3 adults to 5 children; but we were out-energized by about 3 to 500. We're proud to say that Mark only had to climb into the 3-story-tall (children only) play area one time, to retrieve one of the children on our watch.

Even though the weather was colder than we like, the next day we had a beautiful evening. So we took advantage of the free activities in downtown Oklahoma City. We started at Bass Pro Shop, where Santa was listening to the toy requests of a very long line of children.

The lights of Bricktown are mirrored in the river, making very interesting Christmas light pictures.

We made the trip to take in the free water taxi rides that take place this time of year. We obviously weren't the only ones that were taking advantage of the nice weather, as the line stretched as far as we could see.

After an hour, we made it to the front of the line for our ride up and down the river.

For those of us with more time than money, waiting an hour was a good deal. For others, it's probably best to just pay the $11 per person for the water taxi ride.

One stop on our water tour was the mosaic wall, filled with symbols of Oklahoma history.

The really big news for downtown Oklahoma City is the opening of the streetcars. Many years in the planning, the maiden voyage took place the day before we were visiting.

All rides are free until January 5, and will cost $1 after that. We took the Bricktown loop streetcar, and got off at the Myriad Gardens to see the Christmas lights. Crystal Garden is lit up with red lights tonight.

We love the over-sized red Christmas balls that are scattered around the outside of the Devon Tower. It's hard to miss this landmark, as the Devon literally towers over all the other buildings in downtown Oklahoma City.

Another winter highlight is the outdoor ice skating rink downtown. We snapped this picture right after they cleared the ice for a new group of skaters to try their feet at skating. You can be assured that the line was long for the rare opportunity to ice skate in Oklahoma.

A warm ride inside the new street car took us back to our car, and the end to another fun visit to Oklahoma City. 

But we got bad news this day. Denisa's Mother fell outside her home in South Texas, and was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. So we had a quick change of plans as Denisa flew to be with her in the hospital. While we were just enjoying our time in Oklahoma City, we suddenly had a change of plans!

It's a little colder than we prefer . . .

While we are spending a month visiting friends and family in Oklahoma, we are finding that it's a little colder than we prefer. But even on nippy days, we are having a good time "playing tourist." It's amazing when we find things we have never visited in the state where we lived all our lives. In fact, this interesting site is just a little over an hour from the town where we lived for over 30 years. One cold and cloudy morning, we made our first visit to western Oklahoma's only national historic site--the Washita Battlefield.

We stopped in at the nice visitor's center that hosts a film and museum that explains the battle. Spoiler alert--it's the lesser-known conflict between George Armstrong Custer and the Indians. If the Battle of Little Bighorn is known as "Custer's Last Stand," maybe this should be called, "Custer's First Stand." On a warmer day, we would have taken in all the hiking trails, and more of the outside exhibits. But today we hustled down the half-mile trail close to the visitor's center and called it good.

We made the battlefield stop on our way to visit our good friends, Connie and Steven, in southwest Oklahoma. On a beautiful blue-sky day, we stopped in at Quartz Mountain State Park just a few miles from their home. People from Colorado might scoff at the size of these "mountains." 

Unlike many of the states we visit, entry into Oklahoma state parks is free. So we love popping into one for a little hike or a drive around the park. This little gem includes Lake Altus, surrounded by the quartz mountains that are great for climbing.

While Steven was running his miles in the park, Mark was scrambling to the top of a hill overlooking the lake. From his vantage point, he took the picture below. If you look very closely, you can see Denisa and Connie walking the paved trail beside the water.

The park has a golf course, a resort lodge, a nice campground, and a large herd of friendly deer. The deer at the top of the mountain was surprised to see Mark scrambling towards him on his way to the top.

We enjoy observing agriculture all over the country, and southwest Oklahoma is experiencing a very late cotton harvest. Unlike the traditional big rectangular bales of cotton, most farmers have purchased the new equipment to harvest their crop into these colorful round bales.

It looks like a good crop, with the boles opening up to expose the pillowy white cotton balls.

We are accustomed to driving down rural roads, trying to guess how and why a crop is grown in an area new to us. But today we have Steven, who was raised on a cotton farm and knows this area well. He gave us a peek inside the reason those cotton plants look so healthy and plush. The water coming out of Lake Altus via canals, is filtered and pumped into miles of soaker hoses buried down each row of plants in this field. This system provides the perfect amount of moisture for ideal growing conditions delivered straight to the roots of the plants through underground hoses. It also has the ability to add fertilizer and other additives using this sophisticated system.

Those fields of cotton look like snow from a distance. We got some real snow on one of the mornings we were staying at Connie and Steven's house. It has been our plan to travel so that we can stay warm in winter and cool in the summer. But this December in Oklahoma has kept us a little colder than we prefer.

Brushing Up on our Life Skills

While traveling across the country, we tend to mostly use our hiking and navigating skills. But right now we're spending some time in Oklahoma, brushing up on some of our other "life skills." For example, Mark has brushed up on his carpentry skills. He hasn't been on a hike where he got to scale tall cliffs for a while. But he got to brush up on his climbing skills to scale a tall ladder to hang a wooden quilt square on his mother-in-law's red barn. 

Don't even ask how he managed to hold that heavy wooden piece up with one hand and screw it into place with the other while perched at that height. 

It was a project for the county fair, and now her red-white-and-blue quilt square can be seen from the road as part of a county-wide project.

When we visit family, we see relatives from the very old to the very young. After spending time with our 7-month-old granddaughter, we also spent the day with Denisa's 99-year-young aunt.

Aunt Virginia has always been a quilter, but in the last year her eye site has started failing. She had two quilts in the works that she couldn't see to complete on her own. So Denisa and her sister Connie planned a sewing day to finish up some projects for her.

Connie was the pinner, and Denisa was the sewer. Denisa hasn't done much sewing in the last few years, so it was a good time to brush up on that life skill. It also meant she had to make friends with the singer sewing machine that Aunt Virginia bought new in 1952. With all metal parts, let's just say they don't make them this way any more.

Denisa had another sewing day at her other sister's house. Debra was the pinner, and again Denisa was the sewer as we finished some new nursery curtains for a niece. 

While Denisa brushed up on her sewing skills, Mark was brushing up on his cowboy skills. He spent much of his days hanging out with his brother on the ranch. They doctored sick cows, branded bulls, and moved expectant mothers to different pastures for easier monitoring. This day they got a cow in the chute with a prolapse. In layman's terms that means that when she delivered that calf, she delivered a little extra.

Mark was the tail-holder, as his brother poked everything back inside, and then stitched it up so it would stay. It looked like major surgery to Denisa, but it was just another day on the ranch.

Besides using skills of our past, we are also working to learn new life skills. Mark made the second and third pie crusts of his life using his Mother's tried and true recipe. Filled with home-made chocolate pudding, this will be our favorite dessert of all time!

We are also working on Christmas projects, and the annual card and letter are about ready for the mail. The only problem is finding Christmas stamps that don't include Santa Claus. Has the U.S. Postal Service forgotten the real meaning of Christmas?

Mark is also brushing up on his handy-man skills, as he makes the repairs on the motor home's plumbing. Remember that the water was flooding out of our basement when it was time to leave Kansas City? Mark purchased his supplies and waited for a warm day to glue the disconnected pipes back together. Even with an extended warranty, it's easier to make many of the repairs yourself, as long as you have the necessary handy-man skills to brush up on. Denisa is so glad that Mark has awesome skills!

So we are keeping ourselves busy with our stay in the Oklahoma Panhandle. It's good to spend time at a slower pace with our siblings and Mark's mother. We enjoy a town where the best place to eat is at the cafe inside the sale barn, where there isn't even one traffic light, and sun rises stretch across the eastern sky as far as one can see! We are brushing up on our life skills, as we have wandered into another of God's wonders!

Thanksgiving Fun and Flu

Being a new physician, means that you might not get the best holiday working schedule. When we found out our son had to work the day before and after Thanksgiving, we decided to make the trip to Kansas City to spend the holiday with them. 

Of course, getting to spend time with our granddaughter again was good incentive to make the 6-hour trip.

We were joined by Carter's other set of grandparents for Thanksgiving together. We love that our sons have married into such great families, as we love their in-laws! We're not sure how we didn't get a group picture, but we did get a picture of both grandmothers with our favorite (and only) granddaughter.

No pictures of the Thanksgiving feast, but we think that the brined turkey was the best we've ever eaten. That evening we walked to downtown Kansas City for the 89th annual lighting festival. The streets were blocked so the entire area became a huge pedestrian mall. The stage was set and the Plaza District was packed for blocks around.

Even with all the crowds and excitement, Luke managed to get little Carter to sleep.

For the rest of us, we waited with anticipation as the Plaza District buildings went from Ho-Hum to . . .

Ho-Ho and Merry Christmas! After the lights came on, we watched as fireworks lit up the sky.

As we made the two-mile walk back to their home, we could see the lights of the Plaza outlining its Christmas finery. We enjoyed our first experience of this long-standing Kansas City tradition, and we certainly had perfect weather for it.

We packed up early the next morning, as we had the 6.5 hour drive to the Oklahoma panhandle for the Engelman Thanksgiving celebration. But besides all the Thanksgiving fun, we had also picked up the Thanksgiving flu. Mark managed to dodge the bullet, but Denisa spent the next day quarantined away from all the food and fun. No pictures of the turkey, but this was Denisa's "Thanksgiving feast."

Instead of just spreading holiday cheer in Kansas City, it looks like we were also spreading holiday germs! Tis the season!