Fall Decorating

I hope you're all enjoying a little cooler weather! We have dropped about 10 degrees this week.
Still hot but more bearable. My brother and sis-in-law were here for a week so now I'm getting back into the groove around here.
Hubby offered to help me get some decorations out and we started with the outside.

Here are some pics of the front yard with his huge mound of impatiens. He plants everything with Miracle grow and mushroom compost.

Got the covers out for the rockers.

Unpacked tons of pumpkins!

Made a little pumpkin patch.

Speaking of which..... lol

These flowers have exploded and are growing up the front tree. lol They are requiring soooo much water each day, it's not funny!

Hung a pumpkin head on the tree. I painted it many years ago. He's such a happy fellow with that huge smile. lol Some have said he looks like Buddy Hackett. Anyone remember that actor??

Hope you're having a fun week so far. Thanks for stopping! Till next time!

Convention in Washington, DC

Hope you all are having a wonderful week!
Our recent trip to DC was for a Shaklee Convention. Shaklee is the largest supplier of natural vitamins in the U.S. We have used their products for over 30 yrs. The U.S. Olympic teams use their products as well as the Space Shuttle program.

It was held here at the beautiful and HUGE Gaylord National Convention Center.
Around six thousand members attended.

They have amazing cleaning products. Oprah has featured them two or three times on her show. The Basic H is one of her "Favorite Things".

The White House uses the products as well.

The convention center is located on the Potomac River. Beautiful location.

We had some interesting speakers in those 4 days. One of which was Captain Mark Kelly that had just brought down the Endeavor Space Shuttle on it's last voyage. He showed a film of himself and his crew in outerspace. It showed him taking his Shaklee vitamins.   So funny to see all their antics in outerspace!

He is also the husband of Congresswoman Gabby Gifford who was shot in the head in AZ last Jan. He told us she is making progress on her long road to recovery.

It was an honor to meet and visit with him.

The next day we heard from Aron Ralston. The name may not be as familiar but I'm sure his story is!
In 2003 he was hiking alone in a remote part of Utah and climbed into a crevice and a boulder rolled in on top of his right arm. He was pinned there with no cell phone for 5 days. He did, however, have a video camera and small knife. He recorded himself each day telling his feelings to his parents.

He had tried earlier cutting through his arm with a small knife but could not get through the bone. On day 5 it dawned on him to break the bones in his arm (yes 3 of them) and then he proceeded to cut his arm off........ At that point the girl next to my hubby fainted dead away.  Yep,  he had to hold her up in her seat so she wouldn't hit the floor.

Aron ceased his speech and the EMS were called.

Aron did get to finish after a 30 to 40 minute break. Long story short he hiked 8 miles back to his truck.

Having a mechanical engineering background, he helped design his new arm with a "claw" like hand. This a real pic of him trapped, taken with his camcorder.

He's sitting here on the edge of the stage with Roger Barnett, the owner of Shaklee, waiting for the EMS to transport  the girl who fainted.

Hubby with Aron.  Good time for photo- ops!

The last night was a gala dinner. In the nation's capital it was a patriotic theme, of course.

Check out the violinists.

This is the owner and his family.  Roger and Sloan Barnett with their three children.  They are the sweetest people.  
Extremely interesting family to research.

Sloan is an attorney, consumer advocate, journalist, author, and the green contributor to the NBC's Today Show.

We are Directors in Shaklee and part of the trip was awarded to us!   That was a wonderful perk and we were so glad to have the opportunity to go.

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you're having a wonderful week!

The Pioneer Woman

Ree Drummond's new Cooking Show started Sat. on the Food Network. Did any of you see it? I think it will be a huge success for her and I wish her well.

How many of you have ever heard of or keep up with The Pioneer Woman's blog? ( http://thepioneerwoman.com/) She has giveaways that are incredible, and I mean incredible! WARNING--this post is a bit lengthy and has more pics than normal. Grab a cup of coffee. lol

She has been blogging three years and is such a hoot as she writes about her life on a cattle ranch. She's the daughter of an orthopedic surgeon who was on her way to law school when she met the "cowboy", better known as Marlboro Man and her life changed forever. She found herself out in the middle of a western ranch with cattle and hundreds of wild mustang horses that they care for. Four children later she decided to write a cookbook with recipes she has developed and feed to her family, friends, and ranch hands. They are tried and true.

I can attest to how wonderful they are! I have her cookbook.

The rest of this post is a revisit from 12 '09.

On Sunday a friend e-mailed and asked if we wanted to go to Atlanta to her book signing at Borders. I saw the e-mail after church and right before I went to a funeral in the afternoon. I called her in the car and said, "Wow, I'd love to meet her but this is such short notice!" (The book signing was Monday evening.) I told her I would have to think about it. After the funeral it was back to church for the Children's Christmas program. We came home and didn't talk much more about it. I was having company on Tues. evening for 7 people and had many things to do.

Monday a.m., Hubby and I went through the house, did some laundry, & banking and sat down to eat some lunch at 2:00. We both looked at each other and said let's leave and meet Debbie, my friend) in Atlanta. I got on Priceline at 3:00 and secured a great room for a great price (I always bid my own price) and we took off. ( Hubby was grabbing a few things and throwing them in the car while I was on the computer .)

Here is Ree Drummond's new cookbook. It's made the New York's best seller list.

Ree is a fantastic photographer and all the pictures in the book are taken by her. She loves to go step by step doing her recipes and documents them with pictures. Very easy to follow that way.



This page tells of her life and the silhouette is of her cowboy husband.

The next few pics are of the crowd gathering hours before the signing.

Here's my friend Debbie who got our wrist bands ahead of time for us so we would have a spot in line. Thanks Debbie!

Hubby and I with Debbie and the crowd.

Ree just came in and was thanking everyone for coming and making her book a success. She' s holding the mike.
Her blog has won several blogging awards in 2007, 2008, & 2009. In 2009 it was awarded top prize as Web Log of the Year.

She travels with different people. Sometimes her kids and hubby and other times friends or family members.

This is Ree and I while she was signing my book. She is friendly, and very personable and will not leave until the last customer has their book signed. They were estimating that she would be there till midnight on Monday. She started at 6:00. We actually talked to her for a few minutes, while my hubby was kidding about staying at their "Lodge". (They have a guest house built on their ranch for family and friends). You must go to her site and see the pics.

Debbie and Ree.

She had her sister and a good friend with her that night. Their job was giving out T-shirts. They thought my husband was hoot, which he is. They were calling him night in shinning armour because he ran down the escalator to catch a lady that left her camera behind.

Ree's friend starting taking our picture with Ree's sophisticated Nikon. It's a dream camera.

We were tired from our two hour drive and standing in line for two hours so we went for a bite to eat at Houston's in Buckhead.

Remember I said Hubby got a few items together while I was making priceline reservations-- wellllllllll, he forgot a few things----like pj's. I know what some of you are thinking--but I rest better with them. We ran to Target at 10: p.m. Have you been to a two story target before?

Actually, I have once before in Los Angeles. They're BIG!

We passed the Lennox Mall which is always a nice shopping experience.

We checked into the Grand Hyatt and crashed. If you haven't booked through priceline, I would recommend it. We get 4 Star Hotels that run up to $400.00 a night for 65 to 70 dollars a night. Unbelievable I know.

Some night shots of the city.

The hotel is just beautiful.

The breakfast bar was fantastic.

This is Hubby's plate, notice all the meat. lol

We sat next to doors leading outside where they had a waterfall to look at.

On the way to check out I snapped some of their chandeliers.

A lounge to relax in.

Time to drive home and for a pic of the outside.

I know some of you live in large cities and have lots of traffic and traffic lanes. We don't so I thought I'd snap a pic of the six lanes of traffic leaving Atlanta in the rain, no less.

On our next trip to Atlanta, I'd like to go to Ballards. Have any of you been there? I read about it on some of the blogs.

Thanks for hanging in their till the end.

She posted about her Atlanta book signing here and our getting to meet her. http://thepioneerwoman.com/blog/2010/01/memories_of_atlanta/

Hope you've had a great weekend!