Relaxing in Austin

I'm not sure that 'relaxing' is the right word...I'm being downright lazy!! Clint is working a convention and he invited me to come with him. I have slept late, walked along the river, watched the bats make their nightly exit from under the Congress St. bridge (see article here http://tinyurl.com/2vzark) (which I can also view from my 11th floor window of the Radisson overlooking the river!), found the closest Walmart, and today I'm heading out to find a scrapbook store!! Wednesday Elisa will come pick me up and I'll go on to San
Antonio for the rest of the week and weekend. Clint will come back to San Antonio for the weekend as we celebrate Rylie's 3rd birthday. I've been doing lots of scrapbooking with a group of friends every Tuesday, and I will post a few of the LO's that I have done. I'm working on our England/Scotland album. I know that I have some bits of info wrong and I'm sure that Tori will catch me on it when she sees the LOs!! Nothing gets by her! But she'll probably be the only one who will know! I'm off for now, but it has been so long since I've posted that I wanted to at least do a quick update.

February events

A lot has taken place this month and it has kept me from updating my blog! Clint now has a new job. He just finished his first week. Everything is so new and he's making a lot of adjustments to changes. We'll report back in a few more weeks after he has had time to really settle in.

We have just switched over to Verizon and I didn't realize how much of my time it would take to change everything over! If you're reading this and haven't received notice of our change of e-mail, then my new e-mail is suzyzoo@verizon.net and Clint's is blackmonc@verizon.net.

We leave in a week and a half to head to Missouri to visit with Tori and Greg. They are flying in from Oxford for the wedding of a family friend. We're excited to get to visit with them and get to join our family friends in celebrating their daughter's wedding.

We come home from Missouri on Sunday, March 4 and I leave the following Friday to spend a week with a close friend in Riudoso, NM. I'm soooooooo ready for this time of relaxation and fun! Lyn and I love to share recipes and here's a yummy one that I just got from her.

Lyn's Cranberry Chicken
Place chicken breasts in bottom of greased 9x13 pan. Sprinkle dry onion soup mix over them. Pour a can of whole cranberry sauce over the chicken. Bake at 250 degrees for 3 hours or 375 degrees for 1 hour. Delicious served with Near East rice with sauce over the rice!

Enjoy!

I want to attempt to do a year in review
so here goes!

Looking back at 2006....

January * Clint's company, Network, began to see the effects of a take-over by Protection One, the mother company, as they began letting various personnel go, including the President, V. Pres. (Clint's boss) and several directors. Clint, also a director, managed to escape the first round of employees being released.

* Deanna and good friend Renee Deaton went on a cruise with 30+ other ladies and participated in Bible Study, praise and worship, fellowship, and enjoyed the beautiful sites of Belize, Roatan (Honduras) and Cozumel. My cousins Myrt Vannoy and Jo Cheatham were on the cruise as well and posed here with me and Renee.







February *Deanna goes to San Antonio to help out with sick kids, etc. and gets to spend precious time with our three grandchildren Bethany, Caleb and Rylie.


March
*Besides the normal activities of Bible Study Fellowship, church, Bunco, YaYa's, work, etc., March afforded Clint and I the opportunity to travel to England to visit Tori and Greg! We made a side trip up into Scotland with Tori and Greg and saw fascinating castles, bridges, landscapes, buildings, etc.



Dining at the famous
Trout Inn (pub)

















The phone booths actually were quite nasty as homeless people used them for various and asundry activities! We had to find one that we could get close enough to for a photo.


















Tori and Greg on one of our 'many' walks through Oxford. It is a wonderful city with so many beautiful and unique sites...very old!!!














April
*a busy month filled with all the normal activities. A highlight of the month is that Rylie came for a 7 day visit with DeDe and BaBa. We enjoyed her sooooo much!















May

*brought Deanna's brother and s-i-l, Tom and Bev, for a visit. They were on their way back from a cruise and stopped in for a short stay. We loved having them here. We got to celebrate Tom's birthday with him!











*Toward the end of May we went on a week-long camping trip with our camping buddies and sweet friends Ann & Leon Koenig. We went to Beaver Bend Resort in Oklahome. It was absolutely beautiful. Our campsite was right on the river!!







June
*Another busy month! We joined First Baptist Church. This marks a new journey for us as God has led us to make this our new church home after being a member of Grace Temple for 25+ years.






Bethany came for a visit and attended the Cheatham family reunion with us. She loves to play dress-up with anyone who will play with her!! And of course we love to do that.





July *Clint's Surprise 60th Birthday Party

Many wonderful friends made the effort to be here to celebrate with us. Thanks to each of you!

August Friends of Tori and Greg's from England came for a wedding in Ft. Worth and spent several days with us. We enjoyed getting to
know Sarah and Andrew Dunlop. We showed them a taste of Texas by taking them to the Traildust Steakhouse!

*Every month a group of 4 of us get to gether for a 'girlfriend' night...we call ourselves the YaYa's! We eat a yummy dinner prepared by the hostess, play a couple of rounds of Hand and Foot, after which the loser has to take home the 'crown' and add an embellishment to it. We have fun laughing, hugging, playing, eating and even crying together!







September
*This month brings my birthday, which we celebrated at Teri and Darren's. Teri cooked a special birthday dinner for me and baked a yummy cake. I also got lots of birthday hugs and kisses from Kaytlyn and Riley.






September is Caleb's birthday too, and we traveled to San Antonio for his birthday party. While we were there, I got to take Bethany geo-caching for the first time. She loved it! This is a new hobby of mine that is a great adventure and fun to do with the grandkids! Todd and BaBa had fun too. Bethany is holding my new GPS unit!





*We brought Caleb home with us for a visit. DeDe and Caleb spent some special time at Lake Ray Roberts in the RV.






























SPIRITED SCRAPPERS is a new ministry which I am privileged to be leading at our church. We meet every other week for a Bible Study on the Fruit of the Spirit, then spend a couple of hours scrapping. We incorporate selected Bible verses into our layouts. We are leaving a spiritual legacy as well as a record of our daily activities.

October
*I went on my first overnight Scrapbooking Retreat with my friend Rhonda. We had so much fun! We were the last ones to bed...about 3:00 am!

















November
*This month is Rylie's turn to visit DeDe and BaBa. She is such a character and we love having her come. The first pic is Rylie with our aged Pomeranian Percy. He is 16 yrs. old, mostly deaf and blind, but still loves a hug from Rylie!


















































*Todd, Elisa, and family came to Denton for
Thanksgiving this year and we all went to the Gainesville zoo. The train ride is a favorite activity there!


December
*December 1 Clint was let go from his job with Network. We had been waiting for that to happen all year. We will seek God's guidance, and trust that He will provide for us in the meantime.

*December was busy as usual. Clint and Deanna performed with their church choir on two separate nights. The first night was with pianist Dino and the second with the talented Larnelle Harris. A picture of us in our attire is elsewhere on this blog.

*We went to San Antonio for Christmas to keep Todd and Elisa from doing so much traveling with her brother's wedding being in December. Christmas pics are also elsewhere on the blog.

*Then we watched the New Year come in with friends Carl and Renee Deaton, Gary and Doye Taylor, and Ray and Jo Gail Pittman.

And we end 2006 with a prayer of Thanksgiving for God's many wonderful blessings!

Some of my Favorite Layouts!

The first two pics are a collage of pics from Christmas Eve and Christmas morning titled Reflections of Joy

Older layouts

Merry Christmas to All!

We leave in the morning to head to San Antonio. We will meet Bob Summers (a very close 'father-figure' friend) in Marble Falls for lunch then on to see the grandkids!! Well, and to see our ds and dil too! We had a sweet time celebrating Christmas with our 'Denton grandkids' - Kaytlyn and Riley (and Darren and Teri)-last night. I think I've recovered from my 'all night scrapping' time Tues. night with Teri and Rhonda so now I'm good to go!! I hope that all of our family and friends will find time to celebrate Jesus' birthday and in that celebration will find the love, joy and peace that He makes available to everyone! MERRY CHRISTMAS! Love you!