Abilene

Recently, John planned a day trip for us and it was just what I needed. We left Saturday morning and headed west to Abilene. It was a beautiful morning for a drive. An hour and a half later, we stopped at the Visitor's Center and picked up brochures and ate a sugar cookie made from Mamie Eisenhower's recipe. We'd heard good things about the Seelye Mansion but we missed their first tour of the day and the next one wasn't till 1pm, so we decided we'd tour the mansion another time. We headed to the Heritage Center and the Independent Museum of Telephony. Very interesting little place.




We had lunch at The Kirby House and my chilled strawberry soup was delightful.
The rest of the afternoon was spent at the Eisenhower Library & Museum. We started off with a fantastic lecture given by William Allen White as portrayed by Professor Frederick Krebs. We weren't sure what we were about to listen to but it was really fascinating and left me wanting to know more Kansas history. We visited Eishenower's childhood home and the Place of Meditation; a small chapel that is his final resting place. We saw an exhibit in the Library and spent a great deal of time in the Museum. Honestly, we could've spent another hour or two there. Leaving this place, we decided we'd like to visit all of the Presidential Libraries.





Dinner was at the famed Brookville Hotel. We feasted on fried chicken, coleslaw, mashed potatoes, biscuits and strawberry preserves. Leaving this place, we decided we needed to eat here more often!

Just a great day. We love exploring Kansas and need to make an effort to do more day trips like this.

Fiesta '09

It was Fiesta time in Topeka last week. A great big fundraiser for Our Lady of Guadalupe Church with food, beer, music, dancing, rides, and lots and lots of people. And it's usually the hottest week of the year. But not this year! We went on Thursday night and it was absolutely gorgeous out. Our friend Griff met us downtown and we took the bus to North Topeka. I've never seen the line for food so long, I think it was the nice weather. But we were getting tortas, and our line was much shorter. My friend and coworker, Laura, told me about the tortas booth last year and John couldn't wait to get one again. Marinated, slow cooked, pulled pork piled on a bun with guacamole, salsa and cheese. It was just as good as we remembered and went so well with the cold beer that Griff & John kept buying.

We went for a walk past all the booths and ended up at the Washburn booth talking to Becky. Friends we haven't seen in a long while found us and we couldn't believe it...it had been a long time since we'd seen Kim & Brian, Jewel & Farhan, and we got to meet Farhan's mother.

We ended up spending the rest of the evening hanging out with Kim & Brian...missing Javier, Brenda, Genell and Cheri.


Last week we also found out that Javier has been approved for permanent residency, I guess this is just the first step, but it was very good news!

Hello Jerry

So, I've been recording old movies on TCM and the like. Rope with Jimmy Stewart, My Sister Eileen with Jack Lemmon, Woman's World with June Allyson, Bells are Ringing with Judy Holliday & Dean Martin...
It was while I was watching Bells are Ringing that I had to stop it, rewind and watch this particular scene a couple of times...Judy Holliday is convincing Dean that people are truly friendly. She proves her point by saying hello to a very grumpy looking man who is thrilled that someone said hello to him. He in turn says hello to another fellow who says, enthusiastically, "Hello!" and introduces himself as Charlie Bessemer. Charlie Bessemer looks awfully familiar and I'm sure he is, yes, he is, IMDB confirms it...it's Uncle Leo! Len Lesser who played Uncle Leo on Seinfeld. It's just a tiny part, apparently uncredited, but it was fun to spot.
I was especially tickled because one of Uncle Leo's things was saying hello. "Jerry!! Hello!!"
I immediately had to tell John & Greg about it, as we love all things Seinfeld.

I'm still tickled. I just had to tell you about it too!

Fourth

I love long weekends! John barbecued some chicken Friday night and I tried to create a healthy version of potato salad. It turned out pretty well. The chicken was delish. We headed over to Julie & Jeremy's to hang out in their driveway with a dozen other folks. We did a few fireworks, but mainly we just drank some beer and caught up. John found a new cigar buddy in Jeremy.

Saturday was relaxing. We saw a matinee of The Proposal. It was entertaining, cute but not great. Certainly not laugh out loud funny as my coworker led me to believe. We were some of the youngest people in the theater, I think the median age was 60.

That night, we went to our friends' house for a small bbq. Robin and Scott had the backyard all set up for us and Scott was the grillmaster. We hung out, ate, played a little ladder golf and had a time out for the doofus who set off a firework in his freaking hand. I've never seen anything like it, what an idiot. He did end up going to the hospital, but luckily it turned out to be a very minor injury.

I made frozen margarita pie for dessert and everyone seemed to like it. It's the third time I've made it and it's usually a hit. I'll post the recipe sometime. We had a nice little fireworks show in the front yard. Scott and I had fun setting them off.

We made it out to the lake on Sunday with our friend Brenda. We took the boat out---hadn't done that in a while. Turned out to be a beautiful day. Took a few pics with John's Blackberry...