This is the first time in many,many years that I and my daughter have baked christmas cookies in the same kitchen!! We had a lot of fun, and enjoyed the time soo much. We baked several kinds, but the biggest hit was the macaroons Tanya made. We wrapped gift plates for family and friends and her office workers. When all done, Tanya presented Jerry his gift plate along with Mister. It was a wonderful time with Mom and daughter. Thank you Tanya for taking the time to spend in our new home. Also, this is our first christmas in our new retirement home!! We're looking forward for many to come. 
We spent Thanksgiving with Kim & Jerry, Ashley and Zach. They had prepared a great Thanksgiving dinner. When we got there everything was prepared and their home looked so festive. Thank you for all the hard work you all put into this Thanksgiving!!! Great job!! The kids were on their best behavior, so nice! After dinner we visited my brother and sister-in-law and their kids for pie and coffee. It was a really nice Thanksgiving. I told them if they come to our house in Texas, I would have dinner for them!! Love you all!
Our traveling cat "Missy" died this past week. She was almost 20 years old. This picture was taken in our back yard of our new home in Texas about a week before she died. Jerry picked her our of a litter of several kittens right after she was born. She was a beautiful red cat. She never was real friendly, she hissed when anyone got near her and she didn't like to be held and barely petted. We called her, "Miss Queen Bee". Her favorite place while traveling was on our bed. She would let us know it was time for us to get out of bed and it was her turn. So, I would make the bed, and she would lay right in the center of the bed until it was time for us to go back to bed at night. When we bought our house in Texas in September, 2008, and moved her out of the motorhome, she said she had enough traveling. She explored the house and slept in every corner of the new house. She was only in our new home for a month, in that month we took her to the vet three times and each time they said she was just upset about the move and just being a cat. However, she quit eating and drinking, and in her last week she let me feed her and hold her and take care of her. We buried her in a beautiful garden area. I learned a valuable lesson about cats and myself. Everyone needs to be loved and taken care of even we really don't want to, or even think they want to be bothered. As mean as Missy was, even she wanted to be taken care of and loved in the end. The moral of the story is, "don't give up on people or in this case our cat, they will appreciate it even if we don't think they will. We will miss Missy and I am not even an animal person, but I found that I could even love a cat!! 
We thought we might be in the path of Hurricane Ike, so we like so many others, evacuated to Junction City for a few days. The RV parks and hotels were all booked up and some RV'rs were in the overflow parking lots. We left on Sunday afternoon, after hearing everything was alright. When we got home there was no signs of a hurricane at our house. Thank goodness.
The Fort McKavett Post Hospital is a modification of the standard, two-2q4e military hospitals build after the Civil War. Completed about 1874, the hospital has only one ward room, offices, dispensary,, hospital steward quarters and a rear wing with a kitchen and dining room. Surgeons were kept busy treating the occasional gunshot wound, accidental injuries, and venereal diseases spawned in the nearby parasite settlement of Scabtown, and other common minor complaints, most the result of eating spoiled food.
The 8th Regiment U.S. Infantry established Fort McKavett in 1852 as part of a frontier defense system stretching from the Red River to the Rio Grande, and along major transportation routes to El Paso. Troups of the 8th and 1st Infantry regiments and the 2nd Dragoon regiment occupied Fort McKavett in the 1850's, charged with deterring raids of Native Americans, who fought to hold their home land. Farmers and ranchers moved into the region as frontier settlement pushed westward. During the Civil War,the Confederate state governments failed to protect the frontier, and the line of settlement retreated eastward a hundred miles in some areas. At Fort McKavett, residents moved into the abandoned buildings for protection. After the war, in 1867, the Army began rebuilding the frontier line, occupying Fort McKavett in April 1868. Fort McKavett served as the headquarters for the 24th and 10th infantry regiments during the post war occupation. By 1880 raiding had ceased in Central Texas, making Fort McKavett unessential for frontier protection. On June 30th, 1883, Company D, 16th U.S. Infantry marched away, and the local citizens once again moved into the abandoned buildings.
Not everyone has a urinal in their bathroom. I personally think it is ugly, but the old man that built the house was very proud of it. He said his wife got tired of him peeing on the floor so he put this in. Wow! He actually called it a beaudea' (not sure how that is spelled) How funny!!
We are living in our bedroom for now until we get the house furnished. As you can see the bedroom is good size with room for two recliners and a sitting area and of course his new "42 TV. It's what you call priorities. We did splurge and buy a man size Laredo recliner and new bed and new TV. Those are our new purchases. The rest will have to wait. He's actually talking to him Mom here and telling her about the house. I've painted the bedroom a sandalwood color and still need to paint the one wall, which is facing toward the street. I eventually would like to put french doors right where that big window is. The sun comes up in the morning there and it would be a great place for a front porch. That too will have to wait.
Our back yard is like walking in a park. The swing is in our side yard right off our back porch. Directly behind is our carport and Jerry's work shed and in back is our motorhome with its own set up for RV hookup. This is Jerry's first time mowing the back yard. He has already done alot of yard work and it's starting to shape up.
We haven't been moved into the house for one day and our next door neighbor came over and told Jerry he was the campaign manager for the electing Smith for Sheriff. He brought Smith over to our house and the three of them sat in our empty living room on lawn chairs and admired Jerry's retirement badges and exchanged law enforcement stories and the next thing we knew we had a sign in our front yard. Sounds so familiar!!
This is the first time we drove our motorhome in the driveway of our new home in Smithville, Texas. The house was built in 1978. We bought it mainly for the property which has approximately 10 oak trees. As we drive in the driveway, their are huge cactus plants. It's unusual to see cacus and grass and trees together. Jerry has his yardwork cut out for him, approximately 3/4 acre.
We stayed at the Bar-B-Ranch for two weeks and enjoyed watching the the miniature donkeys, horses and ducks. This was a beautiful ranch that was also a RV park. We moved to this RV park while waiting for our house to close, which we hoped would be any day.
The Texan's take law into their own hands. They love to talk about guns and carry knives on their belts. They just dare someone to go onto their property, because by "Castle Law", they are able to shoot them!!! We have heard alot of stories since we have been here how they do things. The picture of the jail is the original jail house in La Grange, Texas.
