Good Friday Fish Fry

For the last few (at least 8) years, my family has gotten together with some family friends for a Good Friday Fish Fry. We switch locations every year, so each family gets a chance to host it. This year it was out at Bill & Dolores's in the country.

The day before they had just gotten two 6 week old puppies who were so cute!! We spent a lot of time out at the barn with them.

I sure do miss sweet, snuggly puppies sometimes!

This one I can tell is going to be quite the mess when she gets older!

They had a nice case of puppy narcolepsy!

They fell asleep wherever they were last sitting.

Toes made great chew toys!

They were held a lot that night! And oh my goodness, the crying when we finally had to leave them! I do not miss that horrible crying!

My Shiner Beer advertisement

Dolores and her granddaughter, Jenna

Each year, mom & I make deviled eggs. Ross eats about half of them himself!

More puppy lovin' after dinner

And then we tried to get a pic with the dogs in the bluebonnets.

This is what most of the pics looked like!

Running away!

Lots of hand gnawing!

Finally a good one!

They ended the evening by having an all out fur-pulling, tail-chewing fight.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This was a low key V-Day for us. We both had work to do, so we didn't get to spend too much time together. We did make dinner yesterday evening, but that was it. I am not a big fan of Valentine's as it is. I think it's just turned out to be all for making money.

I did make some cupcakes though! Red Velvet with White Chocolate Cream Cheese frosting. YUM! They turned out pretty well. The cake was a little dry, but the frosting was delicious!! And earlier last week, I melted some red candy melts and piped it into hearts and "LOVE" words that I put on the frosting. They turned out really cute!!

Josh said his coworkers loved them! And he even caught one of them throwing out the red heart from on top because he thought it was wax or something! Ha!!

65 Years

On December 27, my grandparents, my dad's parents, celebrated their 65th Wedding Anniversary!

They are both still with us at 91 years old, but they are starting to slow down some and are now in the nursing home. So, my dad and I made a lunch of ham and sweet potatoes and took it up there for the whole family to celebrate.

5 of their 6 kids - Monica, dad, Ralph, Doreen, & Annette

Kids and spouses

6 of 14 grandkids - Joel, Summer, Sarah, Ross, me, Ryan

Grandkids & spouses

Grandma's brother and his wife

2 of 12 or so [with one on the way (not me!)] great-grandkids

There is also one great-great-grandchild!

Sarah & Cindy

Monica and her husband Don also celebrate their anniversary on the 27th. They are a little behind though, only 6 years! :)

My dad stuck his hand right into the side of the cake!

Cutting the cake

Now back to our regularly scheduled Christmas 2009 recap...

I'm a horrible procrastinator. I know this. I embrace it. But it's over a week after Christmas and I'm still posting about it. Yeah, that's a little sad. But this Christmas was pretty good. And I took a ton of pictures.



This is going to be all about the tons of food we ate during the Christmas weekend. It's a little sickening. You've been warned! :)

My dad's sister from Vegas was down and she was in a food/candy making mood! Most of this stuff is courtesy of her ideas!

Of course, I made red velvet cake balls!

And I made cinnamon sugar pecans which are always a huge hit!

These pralines were courtesy of my aunt!

My dad decided that he wanted to make homemade poppyseed kolaches for the weekend. It was a huge undertaking, but they were soooo good! My grandpa even said they were really good!

Kneading the dough

You wouldn't believe how many kolaches come out of a ball of dough this size!

Almost ready to go in the oven

Fresh out of the oven!

All of our baked goods ready to go!

Christmas Eve buffet!

Pretty cake balls!

My dad also decided he wanted to make a Lemon Meringue Pie with fresh lemons. It turned out really good!!

And this is just the dessert table for Christmas Day. I completely forgot to take a picture of the rest of the food!

We were all so full every day! It took me a few days to get my system back on track and to even get hunger pains again! And I also have a few extra pounds to get rid of!! :)