Christmas wreath

I'm in the midst of trying to tackle a mountain of laundry, so I don't have much blogging time. However, we had a great visit from Doug, Wilda, and Ben for Thanksgiving. Wilda came bearing gifts, but the most beautiful of all is this wreath that she made for my front door.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ms. Beasley

Remember our encounters with law enforcement looking for the elusive Ms. Charmaine Beasley? After a guy stopped by last month looking for her (with a tow truck), I learned that her name is acutally Sharmingra Beasley. I Googled a little bit, and found out that she's listed as an unlicensed mortgage broker in the state of TX - and she had a business address (small mortgage company called Real Women Mortgage, or something ridiculous like that) listed in Dallas.

So, back in late October when we were leaving to spend the weekend in Mississippi, we were literally getting ready to get in the car and leave town, when I looked out the front door window and saw two gentlemen approaching - wearing big guns strapped to their belts. I told Cass that he needed to answer that one. They identified themselves as sheriffs from the Dallas Fort Worth airport. They wanted to know if Sharmingra Beasley was available.

Apparently, Ms. Beasley rented a car from the Alamo desk at DFW back in September, and she never returned it to them. They were looking for a white Toyota Yaris. They even showed us a photo of dear Sharmingra, lovely woman. We explained to them everything we knew about her, including the info I got from Google recently. I think it was news to them that she was in the mortgage business, so hopefully that will get them a little bit closer to catching her.

I think that from her mortgage business exposure, she somehow knew that this address was a foreclosure and was therefore empty for a period of time. She's probably been using the address for her criminal activities, even though she never lived here (her name is nowhere on the deed history for the house), to throw people off track.

I'd love to know if/when they catch up to her. But I probably won't.

Opera

I've tried several times since Sunday night to make this post, but our internet service is of the dial-up quality these days. My first 100 attempts at uploading this photo resulted in "timeout", so I had to resort to uploading a smaller resized version. Remember the days of clicking on a link and patiently waiting for minutes or more to have an entire page of images load? That is what I've been dealing with for about a week now.



We took the kids to the Dallas Opera on Sunday. Cass heard on the radio that they were doing The Marriage of Figaro, and he thought we should take the kids for their first opera experience.

Surprisingly, they made it through the whole thing! It was 4 acts, with 3 intermissions - it lasted a total of 4 hours. Luke fell asleep during the 3rd act but woke up in time to see the last act. Logan didn't have her glasses, so she couldn't read any of the subtitles. Cameron seemed to enjoy it. The most important thing (to me) was that they got a healthy dose of Performance Etiqutte - where you're seated, theater doors close, the performance begins, and everyone stays quietly in their seat while the performers are singing. No getting up and down, no talking, no cell phone calls. The theater-goers respectfully focus on the performers and their work WITHOUT creating distractions. I've been to too many school performances and piano recitals where people are completely disrespectful.

Next time, we might find a good Broadway show to take them to see.

Here's a new one

Luke did not get a PPP today.

"Stomping on grapes in the lunch room."

Edited to add: When I was putting him to bed, he told me "There's a girl in my class, Samantha, and she gets a Purple Paw Print EVERY day!"

Methinks Luke likes Samantha a little bit. :)

Conversations with Luke

When I grow up, I want to be: a whale trainer

Luke: I like being a whale trainer.
Me: Really? What does a whale trainer do?
Luke: You teach a whale how to do a flip out of the water.
Me: Oh. How do you do that?
Luke: You have to do a flip out of the water to show them how.

(pauses)

Luke: Fry is a whale trainer. (Futurama reference)
---------------------------------

I like Samantha because she wears the prettiest clothes in the class.
One time I found a feather on the playground and I gave it to her.
She has it at her house.

MSMS/MSU weekend

Too much to write about, so I'll just post the pictures. :)

In front of the new Colvard Student Union

I'm disappointed that this turned out blurry - but Clay, Paul, and Cass at the tailgate

Best hosts ever - Derek and Jean

Parachutists jumped out of a helicopter and delivered the game ball
(we were glad none of them broke any limbs, like last time!)

The new HD video scoreboard - it is BAD ASS (there's no other way to describe!)

Great seats - Thanks Jean, Joel, Derek!

This was supposed to be a Maroon Out - but I wore black funeral attire myself

Bully!

Band!

Another shot of the massive scoreboard

A small band group came around and played the Fight Song in front of the crowd at different spots

I also have some cute pictures of Luke playing with Clay and Ashley's kids - but I'm not sure if they'd be OK with them on a public blog. So if you'd like a link, I'll be glad to send it.