Shelby turned 18 on the 17th.  My youngest sister is actually 18.  That’s crazy!  We had a party for her at my parents’ house.  It included pizza they had delivered all the way from Gino’s East in Chicago.  Yummy!

Happy Birthday, Shelby!

Dad’s birthday was the 26th.  We went out to eat at Red Lobster to celebrate.  We had a great waitress.  She had several of the wait staff sing Happy Birthday to Dad.  He got a kick out of it.  After supper, we went back to my parents’ house and had cake.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy!  I love you!

(The photo above was taken in January 1981.  I’m not sure that I was even a month old at the time.)

This was the view out the front door of my house on Christmas morning.  While I remember a couple of Christmases where it snowed a little bit, I don’t remember actually waking up to a blanket of snow.  It was a gorgeous sight!  I was glad that everyone was coming to my house Christmas, though, because there would be no way I would drive myself anywhere in this!

As mentioned, my immediate family and my dad’s mom came over for Christmas dinner and gift exchanging.  Having a house to host dinners in is something new for this holiday season so I was excited to have everyone over.  I got some great gifts for Christmas.  My dad built me a dining room table that seats 8 with a bench that seats 3.

How were each of your Christmases?

Happy Birthday, Daddy!  I love you!

I went to North Carolina Memorial Day weekend.  The weekend before that we all went up to Grayson & Lindsey’s place in Missouri.  Mom & Dad helped Lindsey plant some flowers.

Lindsey & Grayson have a female cat that has had more than one litter of kittens.  They still have a kitten left from the last litter.  It isn’t real friendly but it did let me get relatively close to it so I just shot several pictures in a row.

Shelby & I drove around the farm a little bit and I took some pictures.

We were sitting around the yard enjoying the nice day and I caught Dad whittling a stick.

I’m not really sure how this picture came to be.  I can pose Shelby but there’s no way we can pose Bo so it is cute that it worked out that we got them posing for the camera.

Speaking of Bo, isn’t he the cutest dog?  (He actually is full-grown and not just a puppy.  He’s a mix of something that makes him smaller than what you’d expect.)

The Northwest Arkansas Naturals opened their 2009 home season on Thursday evening at Arvest Ballpark in Springdale.

The first home series of the season was against the San Antonio Missions.  The Naturals won the series with 5-4 win on Thursday night and a 5-2 win last night.

Thursday & Friday night I sat in my regular seats, which are located kind of behind home base.  My view is what you see in this picture.

Saturday night me, Shelby, Mom, & Dad got tickets to sit up in a suite.

Both views are great.  I like sitting in my regular seat because of how close it is to the action.  I also like sitting up in the suite because you get a whole different perspective on the action.

Friday night was a special night called “Pink in the Park”.  The Naturals wore pink uniforms.

The uniforms were auctioned off at the end of the night with proceeds going to the Susan G Komen Foundation to help fund breast cancer research.

As I mentioned in a blog entry earlier this afternoon, northwest Arkansas has been fighting the rain off and on all weekend.  Both Friday & Saturday evening games saw rain coming down pretty steadily at times.

We saw a rainbow on Friday night.

Saturday night’s rain required the tarp to be rolled out.  Luckily, the rain quickly passed and, as you can see in the picture above, the Naturals crew got to put the tarp back up and finish the ballgame.

Springdale resident Vance Wilson has joined the NWA Naturals this year.  He has previously caught for the New York Mets & Detroit Tigers.  He has been rehabbing from elbow surgery and is expected to join the play rotation soon.  There were lots of VDub fans in the audience each night.

Check out my photo album from the Naturals-Missions series.

Feeding in the Ice - Taken by Shelby

The worst ice storm in Arkansas history may be over but the clean-up process will last for many more days.

Many people are still without electricity.  The electric companies are working very hard to restore power and repair lines & poles that need it.  It is really amazing how electrical workers from other states have joined in the effort down here to help the local electric companies.  My mom’s parents had been without electricity since noon on Tuesday.  Theirs came back on yesterday evening.  My dad’s mom still has no electricity at her house.  Hers went out about 6 am Tuesday morning.  She’s been staying at my parents’ house since then.

There are very few trees in the area that don’t have some sort of damage to them.  Now that the ice has melted off of most them, it’s so sad to drive around and see the damage.  Many people have lost whole trees, either because the ice uprooted them or because there was so much limb damage.  I don’t know how my parents’ trees are going to fare.  Dad started cleaning up Friday afternoon and is still working on it.  The poor trees are going to look pretty sad, in some cases, because half of their limbs or large chunks of limbs are missing from them.  My parents do have a couple of trees that branches didn’t break out of but that were completely bent from the weight of the ice.  I’m happy to see those bounce back up (though still leaning a little bit).  On the up side, my parents will have some firewood for next winter.

As I mentioned the other day, I have been staying with my parents this week.  I finally went home last night and slept in my own bed.  I don’t think my apartment ever lost electricity (not sure about the other utilities, though).  I’m a little upset at my apartment complex, though.  I got home last night and almost couldn’t walk to my door.  The ice hasn’t melted as much in the complex, for some odd reason, as other areas.  Because of that, there is still quite a bit on the street, sidewalks, and grass.  I started walking on it thinking it would be slush like everywhere else.  Instead, it was a solid sheet of ice.  I’m a little upset with my apartment complex because I can’t seem to figure out why they haven’t spread some salt or used shovels to make it safer for us all.  We live in apartments so it isn’t like we have shovels and such to help or I might actually be happy to shovel myself a path if necessary.  I’ll have to go to the office to pay my rent today or tomorrow so I might mention it then if nothing is done between now and then.  I just thought I’d rant here in the meantime.

It is so nice out today.  It’s supposed to be sunny and almost 60 degrees again.  I’m hoping that will finish melting all of the ice and allow clean-up/repair crews to get significant progress made.  I can’t imagine what the current situation might be if the temperatures never warmed up after the ice.  I’m pretty sure we’d still have quite a few more power outages and the clean-up process probably wouldn’t have gotten started very much, if at all.

We (Mom, Dad, Shelby, & I) attended the Arkansas-Texas basketball game Tuesday night.  Arkansas beat Texas by a score of 67 – 61.  This was the 2nd time in 2 weeks that Arkansas beat a top 10 (Big 12) team – #4 Oklahoma last week & #7 Texas Tuesday night.

We got our tickets somewhat at the last moment so we literally sat in the top row.  There isn’t a bad seat in the arena, though, so we had a great view.  (Plus, my new camera zooms wonderfully even in the poor lighting of the top row and without a flash.)

It was a GREAT game.  There are just no words to explain the atmosphere in Bud Walton Arena when the fans are completely involved in the game.  It is loud and ridiculous (in a good way).

Former Razorback head coach Eddie Sutton was even in attendance.  (I’m pointing to him above.)  We were quite oblivious to this fact, though, until John George announced him as being there (which required him to stand and wave to the crowd).  I made sure to glance over at him across the way a few times after that to see what he was doing.  (Was he clapping?  Was he calling the hogs?  Etc, etc.)  Shelby says she saw him clap but I never witnessed it.  I don’t think it was lack of liking on his part of the Razorbacks.  I just figure the coach in him was watching the game too intently.  He did get a good workout having to stand every couple of minutes while we cheered and carried on, though.

Arkansas starts SEC play on Saturday with a home game against Mississippi State.  While I’m very, very excited about our starting 12-1 record, I’m also holding out my extreme excitement until we’ve played an SEC game or two (or maybe even a road game).  I did see someone mention today that the last time we started this well was in 1995, which is when we made it all the way back to the national championship game (after winning it all in 1994).  There have also been several “experts” already predicting what seed we are going to be in the NCAA tournament.  I guess we’ll see how the SEC schedule pans out for us.  Go Hogs!

Here is my collection of photos I took at the game.

Don’t forget to vote for Casey Dick’s pass to London Crawford in the final seconds of the Arkansas-LSU football game as the Pontiac Game Changing Performance of the season.  If Arkansas wins the final vote tally, the $100,000 prize money will be dedicated to US Veterans scholarships at the University of Arkansas.  Click here to vote.  Thanks!

(The slogan I used as this post title was taken from a t-shirt for sale in the Hog Heaven store prior to the basketball game.)

Speaking of our visit to Lindsey & Grayson’s house…I, of course, took my camera with me up there last night and took some pictures of the Christmas tree & decorations and also of the family.  Here are some of the best ones.

Thank you Lindsey & Grayson for having us up.  It was fun!  Your house looks great all decorated for Christmas!

I am always sharing photos that I take with you.  I thought I’d turn the tables a little bit and share some photos of me as a baby and toddler.  Enjoy!

Me at 2 days old

Me & Dad - January 1981

Me & Mom - December 1981

My cousin Devin & I - December 1981