Category: Grandma Ruddell

October Happenings

Woohoo! It’s finally October, and maybe only a few more days of high 90* temperatures. Everyone is so tired of the heat, but we may have a bit of a reprieve next week. Bring on the Fall!

My husband was supposed to leave tomorrow, for a 4 day Men’s Golf Outing, in San Antonio. About 8 guys from our church were going to go. The spouses, including me, had great plans for our weekend. Unfortunately, the friend that headed up the golf outing, has become seriously ill in the hospital. Please put him on your prayer list!

I have talked my hubby into going to Little Rock, Arkansas, for our tour of P.Allen Smith’s big garden estate, on November 1st. We’re going to make it a weekend trip. I hope to go to see the Clinton Presidential Library. Dick is hoping to play golf with a friend. I have our tickets reserved for the garden tour. Woohoo! And a friend, very nicely, volunteered to have us stay with them. Wow.

Cut and Paste

My grandson, Isaac and I have been having Nana School. He just turned three. He’s learning how to use scissors (no easy skill!). He loves to Cut and Paste. He’s learning to count and I put out some numbers, and he has to put that many counting teddy bears to add up to those numbers. Then Isaac makes a pattern out of the bears. He’s loving it! Yesterday, he painted a Jack-O-Lantern form, and then we played Please Don’t Spill the Beans!. Fun.

Learning to color in the lines, and making a pattern

Painting a Jack-O-Lantern

My daughter, Jessica, had a birthday recently. She got to use the Red Plate. We only use that for special occasions, and then I write down who used it, and what we had to eat.

The Red Plate

Our church just had a Live Auction. My donation to the auction was a Dinner for 8, followed by Mexican Bingo. I couldn’t believe it! A group of my friends bought that for $725. Another friend bought a second one for $700. My word! This should be fun.

Mexican Bingo

Another friend, Lorraine Sheppherd, gave me her extra ticket to see “Phantom of the Opera”, with her and her kids. It was at Bass Hall, and it was spectacular!!! Love it.

Phantom of the Opera!

How is your fall going? October is going to be a great month. What are your plans? Let me know if you enjoyed this post.

Grandma Sherry

WE’VE HAD TWO WEEKS OF FUN!

Boppa turns into Cat Boy!!! If you want to find out about this transformation, read my blog.

Wow! This has been a busy couple of weeks! We celebrated two birthdays, had a grandson stay with us for a weekend, and visited several neat places. I’ll tell you later about the newest addition to our house, that I’m in LOVE with.

Boppa is Cat Boy.
The birthday boy with his PJ Mask cake.
Liam and Mark Twain, sharing a book.

Our youngest grandson, Isaac, celebrated his 3rd birthday on August 13th. We celebrated then and also at his party on the weekend. He received everything possibly made with PJ Masks . He is really in to Cat Boy. Just a month or so ago, everything was Paw Patrol. Now we’re on to PJ Masks. He had a great party, with both sets of grandparents and his cousins, plus lots of other friends. We were delighted to have Liam, our oldest grandchild, to stay with us for that weekend.

Lunch at the Kimball Museum
The Japanese Bridge, over Monet’s Lily Pond.
This would go nicely in my Dining Room.

My birthday was on Aug. 15th. Dick and I went to the Kimball Art Museum, to see the exhibit of “Monet..the Later Years”. Oh. my. gosh. It was fabulous! I told Dick that I wanted one of the paintings of either the Japanese Bridge that went over his lily pond, or one of his bigger paintings with beautiful pastel colors. My sister, Toni Wood, who is the marketing director for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, in KC, told me that I really deserved one of those! But she also said that one of Monet’s paintings sold for $85 Million, and the most recent one sold for $110 million. OK…we bought the coasters instead.

The Chickasaw Indian at the Chickasaw Welcome Center and Bedre Candies.

This weekend, we went for a weekend at Winstar….a major casino, just across the OK/TX boarder. We had two free nights. We spent Saturday morning and afternoon driving to Sulphur, OK, where the Chickasaw National Recreation Area is located. It was great. Dick did some hiking on one of their many trails. There were lots of water things happening, with little falls, springs, places to swim and go tubing. There were enough campground spots for half of Ft. Worth. We also saw buffalo. I will spare you the buffalo poop photo that I sent to my grandkids. LOL I’d recommend this place to anyone who loves nature. We ended that trip by going to the Bedre candy factory.

Silly Liam

Silly Libby
Silly Isaac

I have some silly grandkids! They wanted me to take photos of them with their tongues sticking out. Why do kids always want their tongues sticking out in pictures???? Can you tell which one just finished eating blue ice cream?

And now…my new household item! My son-in-law, Nathan, had been to Lowe’s. He found an LG Dishwasher, that had a tiny dent on it, that had been $900 and was on sale for $200. He called and said “Get down here fast, if you want it!” We went and there was another guy who wanted the same machine. After hemhawing back and forth for awhile, he suggested we flip a coin. We won!!! I feel really guilty, but OHHHH I love this dishwasher! My old one was so noisy we had to turn the TV up really loud. This one, you can barely hear it. Life is Good.

How has your week been? Do anything exciting? We have two weeks and then we go on a cruise. I can hardly wait. Are you all done with any trips?

Have a good week,

Grandma Sherry

A Trip to the DoSeum

Last weekend, I visited my grandchildren and their parents in Buda, TX. We had a great time! As a treat for Grandma, they wanted to take me to the museum that they had joined recently. It was the DoSeum, located at 2800 Broadway St., San Antonio, TX. Wow! What a place!

The DoSeum is a children’s museum that promotes learning through activities and interactive exhibits. They were focusing a lot on energy, the day we were there. I only have a few photos here, but if you look on their website, there are a ton of photos. The museum is two stories, just packed with fun.

Check out the DoSeum...a really cool children's museum in San Antonio!

Liam’s favorite part was using the virtual reality headset. He spent quite awhile using it. I’m not sure what he was seeing, but he loved it. The area behind him was a place to create things. Kids could use pieces of wood and other things, hammer nails, use a screw driver, etc.. They had safety glasses to wear and adult supervision. It was a busy area.

One of the things that I was fascinated with was the robot. It was a tall robot, and if you stood on the stool in front of it, it would “read” you. If you moved your arms up and down, it would do the same. It was really cool.

Another area had little robot cars. There was a place to program in how you wanted the cars to move, and then it would go.

Kids love to build things, or stack blocks and make things. There were many opportunities to do that. One area included the pyramid shaped block area. Not only were they fun, but they were colorful.

Libby and her mom, reading in the pod.

The book room was great. There were lots of books and then about four big pods that you could sit in, and read. Libby and her mom read several books.

One section was about light and sound. There were instruments to play and listen to their sound. At one point, I pulled out some bar, listened, and heard the man across the room talking. Cool! You could walk through a tunnel with lights changing around you. I liked the big wall which resembled a giant light-brite.

This museum was fantastic. If you get a chance, and you have kids or grandkids, be sure to visit . It’s one of the best children’s museums I’ve experienced. However, I can see that it might be a bit overwhelming for a child with sensitivity issues. There is a cafe to eat at, and a store.

I need to go back! I didn’t get to see everything. This was my grandkids second visit, and they STILL didn’t see everything. It’s a winner!

Where have you been recently that was fun for the whole family? Leave me a message and tell me. Press LIKE, below, to let me know you enjoyed this post.

Grandma Sherry

A Travel Back in Time

It’s always fun to go visit one of our former cities that we lived in!! Check out our Toledo visit.

Two weeks ago, Dick and I visited Toledo, Ohio. We used to live there, before we moved to Texas. We moved to Texas 16 years ago. It had been 7 years since we had been back to Toledo. It was so fun to see all of our friends, our old church, and former co-workers and students!

We stayed with our great friends, Janet and Alan Hazlett. Several of those days, they were working. But Dick and Alan got in two big games of golf. Dick barely won, but Alan thought it was incredibly unfair because Dick was using the Senior Tees. LOL

My former co-workers at St. Clement School.

I had lunch with some of my former co-workers…teachers from St. Clement Catholic School. I used to teach music at that school. Those were good days! That school has since closed, so we all caught up on where everyone was working by now. It was so fun to see them!

My former student, Brittany Barnes, and me.

Funnily enough, I received a text that day, from one of my former students. She was in town for just that day. Could we meet up? So we met and caught up with each other. The last time I had seen her, she was in 8th grade. Now she’s 31. Brittany and I are Facebook friends. I also saw another one of my students, Ryan, in the parking lot of Target. He was there with his wife and baby. Love it!!

One huge Dollar Tree store!

That day, I also visited one of the biggest Dollar Tree stores that I’ve ever been in. Wow! It used to be a pharmacy. It was big, clean and very well organized. The Mystery Shopper in me would really rate it high!

Our wonderful friends in Toledo
Dick and Barb Burnett

On Sunday night, Janet had a dinner and get-together with three other couples. We all used to do things together, and had lots of memories to share. Eighteen years ago, we went with those four couples and one other couple, on a Caribbean Cruise. We celebrated being married for 25 years. It was so fun that several of us went on another cruise, a couple of years later. Now we’re talking about going on another one. I sure do miss these friends!!

My cousin, Sandy Esser and me.
Donna Esser and granddaughter, Eden.

On Monday, we went to Sterling Hts., Michigan to visit my cousin, Larry Esser, his wife and granddaughter. We’ve gone way too long without seeing them. It’s always fun when we get together. We also had lunch with Sandy, Larry’s sister.

It’s great to go on vacation, but it’s also great to come home. Where do you like to go on vacation?

If you enjoyed this post, please press LIKE….it’s below this article. Have a good week.

Toodles,

Grandma Sherry

A Trip to Waco, and “Magnolia”

Is a trip to Waco and Magnolia on your bucket list? Check out my post about my day trip.

Who doesn’t like Chip and Joanna Gaines, from “Fixer Upper”?? I sure do!!! I had been to Waco, TX a few years ago, when they first opened the silos. I had a sudden free day, earlier last week. Waco is about 95 miles south of Ft. Worth, so it made for a nice day trip. Sometimes, it’s fun and relaxing for me to just go on an adventure, at my own pace and places I want to go. I wanted to see how things had changed at the Silos.

It started out to be a nice, breezy day. I parked about six blocks away, in the downtown area. The first thing I encountered was a rally/demonstration by people who wanted to free the children from the immigration camps and reunite them with their families. The man was a good speaker. It was all calm and positive. I listened for awhile and then went onward.

I knew there would be a long line at the bakery, at the Silos. I decided to eat downtown at Schmaltz’s Sandwiches. Had a delicious Chef Salad! Seemed to be a popular place for the locals.

By the time I walked on to the Silos…stopping to tie my shoe at the Dr. Pepper Museum….it was getting hot, and I was a sweaty mess. You can see how lovely I looked by then! LOL There were people in line for the bakery, but the line to get in to the Magnolia building was non-existent. Yes, there were plenty of people there, but it was a Tuesday and the crowds were not like on a weekend.

The main building was a lot bigger than the last time I’d been there. And no, I still couldn’t afford much of anything. But I got ideas! In the big side yard, they had a bunch of picnic tables where people could eat and a lot of food trucks. They have a lot of activities there.

One of my favorite parts of the compound was the garden area. Outside the fence were some wooden planters attached, filled with green plants…herbs and other things. It was gorgeous! Inside the garden, they had some climbing green beans and lots of plants. From a short distance, it looked like a gorgeous bed of blooming plants. Yes it was, but they were a bunch of zinnias!! I filed that away in my brain. I have a few zinnias, and they’re easy to grow…they just looked so lush in this mass. They also had a charming little garden cottage in which they were selling seeds and other things.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip. Though I didn’t take any pictures, I drove across the river and enjoyed the beauty, peacefulness, and the historical bridges. Waco is a great town!

Let me know if you are a Chip and Joanna fan. Have you been to the Magnolia area? What has been your latest adventure?? Press LIKE if you enjoyed this article. Leave me a comment!

Toodles,

Grandma Sherry