Dinner with the Stampers

On our way back from Christmas we stopped at the Conservatory again.  We were able to get together for dinner at Saltgrass with Wayne’s son, Greg, his wife, Teresa, and their three children.

On the left is Austin who is a senior at Lago Vista HS this year.  He has a nomination to West Point for next year.

The pretty girl in the middle is Jessica who is a senior majoring in Business Management at Southwest Texas in San Marcos this year.

On the right is Clay who is a freshman in high school and hasn’t decided what he wants to do.  He has lots of time for that.

We had a great visit and are looking forward to many more once we get closer to them.

Christmas with the Newlyweds

Michelle and Michael got married on December 14, 2012 outside of Pittsburg, PA where Michael grew up.  They expect to spend most future Christmases traveling to PA rather than in Texas so they decided to host Christmas at their new house in Mansfield, TX this year.

We decided just to do stocking stuffers this year so we all  brought our homemade stockings.  Mine was made by my great-aunt, Grace, when I was a baby.  Michael’s isn’t finished yet but all the stockings looked great on their mantel.

People got carried away with stocking stuffers so the bags on the hearth are overflow.

Normally Michelle and Michael cook together in their large kitchen. 

However, Michael wasn’t feeling well so Michelle did most of the prep work herself with some help from her mom.  She even made an apply pie from scratch with two kinds of apples.  Here Nola and Michelle posed for Uncle Todd with the pie dough as he took their picture with my camera.

This is their back yard and no the picture isn’t blurry.  It is snowing!!

This was just the snacks  prior to dinner.

In addition to family, they had invited Michael’s best man and his wife and one of the groomsmen and his wife and two kids.  For someone who’s not sure she wants children—Michelle sure looks content feeding the baby.

This is their front yard on the morning of the day after Christmas as we all headed home.  Some of the snow was stuck to the ground but thankfully none on the roads.

It was a memorable Christmas for all.

The trip us also provided for a life-style changing move for Wayne and I.  We will be moving back to Austin, Texas and living in a senior independent living apartment in early January.  This had been in the thinking stage since we got back from out trip this summer.  We stayed there at the Conservatory in Wells Branch on our way up to Mansfield and they showed us an apartment that would be available on January 1 that overlooked the pool. 

Nice view, no one above us, etc.  I thought it was the perfect location so we decided to take the leap.  Pictures will follow after we move in.