The Worst Kept Secret - EVER!

I had completed these books of our blog and had them published in November, but I didn't tell our kids about them.  They were to be a Christmas surprise.

Interestingly enough, a few weeks before I actually published, our Dallas son sent me an email and said that I ought to write a book.  I emailed back and asked, "Why would you say that?"  He simply said that I should.  Hmm.  Did he telepathically read my mind from Texas to Arizona?

At the very end of the process I asked our Houston daughter-in-law (who is very computer savvy) to keep the secret, but see if she could help arrange some of the pictures into a better layout.  She did a great job of it!

But then I had to just hold my breath and keep saying to myself, "Don't tell.  Let it be a surprise.  Don't tell."

Once again, the best laid plans of mice and men...

Granpa and I opened our few gifts to each other Christmas morning.  That's when he got his set of "Heritage Travels."  He has never been an excitable kinda guy (and that's a understatement!)  I was not at all surprised by his "uh-huh" comment.  That's Granpa talk for, "I really like this!"

Then he went to spend Christmas Day with his momma and brother's family.  I had secreted a set of the books in their Christmas totes.  I wish I had been there to see Granny Beth's face.  I know she showed a lot more excitement than John had!  She had read them both by the time she came to see us a few days later!  I never heard from his brother and sister-in-law, but John said her sister picked one up and spent the rest of the day reading it!

The following Sunday, our Dallas family and us decided to surprise Granny Beth at her church.  (I think that was the best Christmas gift she could ever have because her church family means so much to her, and to be able surprise her and them was awesome.)  Afterwards, we went to her house - the same house she's lived in since Granpa was three years old!  The true colors are what we told the grandkids: chocolate milk with raspberry shutters!

Granny Beth (you can see her standing in the doorway waving goodbye as we left) had left her set of "Heritage Travels" on the TV cabinet - unbeknownst to me!  Our Dallas daughter-in-law was just looking at the family photos on the cabinet and said, "Oh! What's this?!"  Aw, man!  So much for the secret!

The next day, back at our home, our other daughter-in-law's momma had come to visit.  While I was talking with her, Granpa was having his own conversation with Lori.  He asked what she thought about the "books."  "What books," she asks.  So much for the secret!  (He must have really liked them after all because he wanted to talk with her about them!)  So I went ahead and gave her mother her gift to open right then - a set of "Heritage Travels."

Finally our family gathered around the tree, read the Christmas story from Luke's version in the Bible, and shared gifts.  We had a grand-nephew visiting from Alaska.  He's stationed at Ft. Hood in Texas on his way to Afghanistan.  When he opened his set of  "Heritage Travels," our oldest son was sitting next to him.  Phillip asked, "What are these?"  Lori got my attention - and as it dawned on Larry what he was looking at and his expression transformed.  It was priceless!!  Finally someone was actually surprised!

If you like our blog, you can buy the book forms on Amazon under the “Heritage Travels” titles.  There are Kindle version's, also.

You can also "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!

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Snowfall Memories Repeated

I was working on a new volume of Heritage Travels and came across this post.  I just can't resist sharing it again...

These are some photos of our home in 2010.  

It was just beginning to snow.

Yes, we leave our Christmas lights up as long as possible.  Good thing this year, huh?

This is shot from a high spot behind the house.  I'm so glad the Lord came up with evergreen trees; they make winter time a little less "brown."

Back to the front yard, this is our hitchin' rail for the horses. 

This is some of our stock and our Austrailian Shepherd, Junior.  The horse is a Thoroughbred named July, and the donkey is Mordacai.  He's known as a "Jesus" donkey because looking down on him the coloring shows a dark line of hair across his shoulders and down his back.  Mordacai is the FUNNIEST animal and an absolute sweetheart.

Here we are in the forest (WE call it a forest - our neighbor laughs and says that in Texas it's known as a "stand of trees."  Hey!  We are both born and raised true Texans!  WE call it a forest.)  Anyway, here we are in the forest next to the puddle.  We call it a puddle because it's a pond that doesn't hold water so very well.  Our sons are in the process of digging us a REAL pond on the other side of the land.

This is the swingin' tree that our grandkids, young and old, love to hang out under in the summertime.

John calls this area "the park."  It's one of his favorite places in our front yard because it makes him feel like he's, well, in a park.

The sun is going down, the snow has almost stopped, so John had to give up on his picture taking.  I feel better about Christmas now.  Hope you do to! 

Yes, folks!  It does snow in Texas - just not every year!

Christmas Creations For The Kids

And the process begins!  At the London Bridge in Lake Havasu, Arizona, I discovered these small treasure chests.  When I went to the clerk and said, "I'd like twelve of these," I think she believed I was teasing.  Nope.  'Tis twelve that I need.  (Granpa thought I'd gone a lil' nuts, too!)

Then I began considering what I would fill them with.  First, red felt just to class them up a bit.  Then, of course, $2 bills are required, and some other money - but what other kind of money??  I decided to begin haunting some of the many local pawn shops here in Kingman.  I would go in and ask if they had any "fun" money.  They also looked at me like I was crazy.  I emphasized that I was looking for "fun" money, not "funny" money (which is slang for counterfeit.)  Slowly but surely I amassed enough buffalo-head nickels and Indian-head pennies for one per treasure chest.  Some of them dated back to the 1800's!


As we are in Kingman, the turquoise capital of the world, Granpa and I went to the mine here in Kingman. They sell turquoise in as many shapes and sizes and grades as imaginable.  We dug into a barrel marked $400 per pound and came up with a few pebbles for each treasure chest.

Then, while we were at the Grand Canyon in search of snow, ( http://thetravelerstwo.blogspot.com/2013/12/in-search-of-snow.html ) I picked up some bags of polished agates, quartz crystals, and iron pyrite - better known as fool's gold - because they are pretty and represent the geology of Arizona.

Because a couple of our grandkids are so young they don't appreciate real money, I went to Cracker Barrel and got bags of chocolate "coins" wrapped in gold foil.  That reminded me of the gold dollar coins that came out a few years ago, so I went to some of the banks in town and gathered enough of those for each treasure chest.  While there, one of the clerks suggest some 50-cent pieces.  Ah!  Perfect!  And because these kids are so young, they got the added bonus of tiny race cars and action figures.

My momma gave us these "books" of Lifesaver candies when we were children. Another small tradition to carry on... so there were twelve of these, too.

On the way home, Granpa had to stop at a Russell Stover Candy outlet.  We bought so much candy there that he got a free stuffed animal!  (Boys never grow up!)  And so each of the kids got a stuffed toy along with sample boxes of candy.

None of this, of course, would fit in the treasure chests, but that was okay.  I don't think the kids minded at all!

And for our grandbaby-to-be (Mayberry if it's born in May, and Junebug if it's born in June - not really, but that's what we're callin' it right now!) there was a little stuffed toy and one of my afghans - baby size, of course.

There was a collection of gifts for the parents, too, but not nearly as creative or labor intensive.  (Sorry, guys!)

Overall I think it turned out to be a pretty good Christmas - especially when the older grandkids found out how much the Indian-head pennies were worth!

If you like our blog, you can buy the book forms on Amazon under the “Heritage Travels” titles.

You can also "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!

 On your iPhone, you can create an app by "adding to home screen," bookmark it, or add it to your Reading List, share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Any way you do it, it's free!

Sittin' On The Front Porch in Texas

Family, my dog, the Texas flag, our log home, our forest, (an ice chest our granddaughter had been using as a target for her arrows...)  It just doesn't get better than this!  I even love the hitchin' rail at the right for our horses.

All of our grandkids got bows and arrows from their dads for Christmas.  Rylee, though, got an heirloom bow!  Her dad still had the bow we gave him when he was about 12, and he passed it on down to her. Watching him teach her how to string the bow and stressing how important it was to un-string it after each use brought back fabulous memories for me.  Ry spent a huge amount of her time practicing her shooting.  I wish I had gotten a picture of her moving across the land with her quiver full of arrows slung on her back and her bow at the ready!

If you like our blog, you can buy the book forms on Amazon under the “Heritage Travels” titles.

You can also "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!

 On your iPhone, you can create an app by "adding to home screen," bookmark it, or add it to your Reading List, share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Any way you do it, it's free!

Christmas in Texas

God is so good!  We had a marvelous time in Texas!  Two of our three sons were there at our home - with our grandkids - for over a week!  I haven't spent that much time with our middle son in ages!  Two of our three "big" grandsons have jobs, and they were in and out at all hours.  


Our freshman-in-high-school granddaughter had an excellent time playing with the three little ones (not to mention the new baby goat, cats, dogs - including her Great Dane - horses, ducks, rabbits, etc!)











Our daughters-in-law were phenomenal at helping all of us to have the very best of times!  They enjoyed watching the cousins play together, balanced the play time of the Great Dane with the free time of the goats (always a challenge!), they helped coordinate meals, and when anybody went to town there was always a round-robin series of phone calls checking whether anyone needed anything picked up on their behalf.

Our grandsons and a great-nephew choose to make faces in the holiday photo, so I just thought I'd publish it for posterity!  Add four people to this and you have everyone who made it to our house for a week's celebration.  I was taking the picture but I haven't a clue where the other "Waldo's" were.

If you like our blog, you can buy the book forms on Amazon under the “Heritage Travels” titles. 

You can also "subscribe" for free by clicking on the broadcast icon at the top right corner or by bringing out the right hand toolbar and clicking on that icon at the bottom of the list.  It will put that icon on your toolbar at the top of your browser screen.  I try to post every day - it'd be a shame for you to miss one!

 On your iPhone, you can create an app by "adding to home screen," bookmark it, or add it to your Reading List, share it on Twitter or Facebook.  Any way you do it, it's free!

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