The weekend was fun.

Mom decided on Friday that she didn't want to go out. I think she was resting up for the visit by our cousin Sue and having to lay out a big feed on Saturday. So Denise and I went to BJs without her. Once again it was excellent food. I had their New Orleans Jambalaya, which is so spicy it made my head sweat and cleared my sinuses. WONDERFUL! And, as usual, their home brewed Harvest Hefeweise was also wonderful, even if I have to ask for the orange slice. I'll get the waiters trained eventually.

After that we drove west to Lampasas to visit with our friends who were competing in a chili cook-off there this weekend. The town was packed with party goers and there was a live band playing on the town square. It was about 95 when we got there at 9 or 10 pm, so I was glad I wasn't stayin' there and sleepin' in a tent. We sat there with them and drank a few beers and then headed off to the house.

Saturday morning, or really afternoon, we met up with some old friends of Denise's, from her earlier life as an army wife, and we all headed back to Lampassas. These are some nice folks. Their son is in the Army and has just been stationed at Ft. Hood, so we'll be seeing more of them in the future. They came down in their RV and are staying at a park on Lake Belton called BLORA.

We spent the afternoon with them, wandering around the park there in Lampasas, checking out the spring and the river, eating BBQ ribs at the camp site and then having a great lunch at this nice German restaurant there on the town square. We tried our hand at fishing in the river there by the spring but didn't have any luck.

There's a pool there that the spring water flows into where the water comin' right out of the aquifer is at about 65 degrees. It's REALLY nice to jump in there when it's 100 degrees in the shade. We all made plans to drive back over there some weekend and take a dip.

My buddy Dave ended up takin' third place for his chicken wings! Congrats dude. We sampled his ribs Saturday afternoon and they were wonderful. He wasn't happy with them though. The meat wasn't really falling off the bone. Hell, I loved them anyway. Everyone else did too.

We left there in time to make it back to Temple to have dinner with my mom and cousin. Mom's Chicken Enchiladas were wonderful. They always are. Like Dave, she's never really satisfied with what she does. That's the sign of a good cook, I guess. Take it from me though, they were great.

After dinner we headed over to BLORA to have dessert with Denise's friends. We showed up with a gallon of Brahms homemade vanilla ice cream and they added the German liqueur as the topping. It was great.

It was all great! We had fabulous weekend. Now I'm back at work (muh!).

I just got an email from Mushy. It sounds like they're having a wonderful time in Alaska. One of these days...

It's been a busy week, and it's gonna be another full weekend.

I started 6 new classes on base this week. I start out in the morning, the butt crack of dawn, with 2 classes back to back at the high school (8 to 10am). Those are 16 week classes and they're about half over. This week I started 3 separate hour long daily classes from 11:30 to 2:30 every day, and 3 evening classes - M/W night from 4:45 to 7pm and T/Th night from 4:45 to 7 and then 7:30 to 10pm. In all, about 220 students taking US History and Government. One word... POOPED. One more online class starts Monday, but that's easy money.

This evening I'll be doing the usual, Friday night Chinese food and high school football with Dad. Here's a video to put us in the right mood to chow down on the buffet line at Dynasty.

Mmmmeow, I can just taste the generals chicken now.

Denise and I are taking a trip to Ft. Worth Saturday afternoon. We'll try to get there in time to have dinner, get stuffed on brochette shrimp and spicy queso dip and start to get liqueured up at Pappasito's (yep, they have one in Ft. Worth too). Then we'll head over to Billy Bob's on the North side of town and sit through a concert by the venerable Peter Frampton. We've got center seats, six rows back. Should be cool. After that we'll be gettin' a hotel room and spendin' the night in town.

Sunday morning we'll rise early and meet up with my buddy Jim, wolf down some breakfast burritos, pack a cooler and go sit in the sun and watch an Air Show all afternoon at Alliance Airport, North of Ft. Worth. We'll see the Blue Angels and all the works. Should be cool.

I'll try to get home at a decent hour Sunday so I can rest up for another week. You guys have a great weekend. I'll try to get some cool pictures and maybe post them Sunday night. Cheers.