Thanksgiving in McAlester
I know I have said it before, but I am going to say it again - nothing is more important than family, friends and our health!! All the other is truly not that important or simply the stuff we fill in life’s empty spaces with (not to get to Roger Water’s-y). I also seem to be getting more and more sentimental the older I get. So when it looked like all was lining up to have a Thanksgiving this year with as big a family group as we have had in years, we were pretty excited. In particular because Brother Dominic was coming in from New York. Sister Kerry was also making her first trip to the hometown of our Grandson. Becky and Rolland and there youngin’s would be there, of course M3 with parents in tow, Zac and his clan, and the ‘old’ folks would all be sitting around the big house with us smelling the bird in the oven and watching the Lions losing on the TV. Yep… time for that old cliché - it just doesn’t get any better than that!
What can I say, it was a great week, including: talking old times, catching up with Dominic, playing with the Grandson, cooking with my wife and my Mother, eating, eating, eating some more, going to Wal-Mart (again - this is what you do in McAlester), lot’s of pictures, watching Zac’s clan enjoy the easel, doing the Tulsa Mall Black Friday trip and just like last year we got the M3-Santa Picture and scored some cool Jordan Nike’s for him, eating German chocolate cake, eating pumpkin pie, eating pecan pie, and did I mention eating?
The find of the trip was the local track up at the High School. We of course needed some runs, including some speed work while we were there and we found the track open, just up the street and a great place to run. Not only did we do our speed work there one day, we did our long run on it as well (so much better on the knees and joints versus running on Carl Albert Hwy there). Having never ran on a track (least in forever) it was really nice, and I think we both had our fastest 4X mile repeats ever (I was doing sub 6:15 average which is fast for this old man).
The best part of the trip of course was all the catch up and laughing about old times with everyone. It was extra special having both Dominic and Kerry to shoot the breeze with. I think it’s been 10-12 years since we did that. I know it won’t be that long before it happens again. The grandkid was of course his same old perfect hambone star-of-the-show self. I think you will see evidence of this by checking out all the pictures (this time they will only be 75% M3 shots versus 90% normal!). In particular you will want to scope the Santa costume shots because you know we had to get him some get-up for this trip’s pictures. Kimberly also captured a great video that portends of his future rock stardom (check it out on youtube HERE). It was also nice to see how Becky’s family has grown so, her and Roland sure raised some great kids.
We had a great ride home too as the old man had joined us for a quick trip to the Valley of the Sun. Along the way we even got to catch a little early ‘White Christmas with some decent snow around Amarillo and the area. Seeing we had ‘road-tripped’ it, it was nice we had driven OB2 (which stands for “Old Blue Two” in honor of buddy Clay’s old Ford Truck he called Old Blue) with Four Wheel Drive. Even though we really didn’t need it, it was nice to know we would have been fine had the road gotten worse, and the same could not be said for the Coupe.
As always, it won’t be long before we venture back to the land of the Sooners and Cowboys - but next trip will be very, very special because: we got a Grand Daughter on the way!!! Some PICS HERE