Oklahoma Ice

We had lots of ice over the weekend and throughout Monday. There was no school on Monday, so the kids stayed at home with MBV. The roads are a mess and lots of folks don't have power. All morning long we heard the trees splitting and breaking. Kids and I went for a walk around the neighborhood around lunchtime. We watched and heard trees breaking all over the place. Here are some of the pictures of neighborhood trees....

These pines are right outside the library. I wonder if they will stand up again?

If I had a chainsaw I could make lots of money in the next few weeks....

Looks like tomorrow will be another ice day for the kids. Will have to see when Mother Nature is going to warm us back up!

Love,

4Vs

Merry Christmas Lights

We bought a 6 foot tall lawn Christmas ornament. Our street has a couple of neighbors with lights up but we are the only ones with colored lights and the only ones with lights on their BBQ grill.

New Pics posted all the way back to August 2007!

Big Ice Storm of 2007

The OKC weatherman are in their happy places predicting Armageddon and the end of the world with the cold temps and freezing rain coming down this weekend. It got below 32 degrees and rained several inches last night. Yes, if you were wondering above that is lightening striking right near my feet when I snapped the picture; this might be a signal to stop stretching some of the truth in previous blog entries...if this is the last blog you see then you will know that the local weather guy was right that Mother nature's cold icy grip of terror has rained death and destruction upon OKC.

There are some snow flurries every so often but the main weather anchorman is on call and reporting in every hour and the back up weekend guy is out walking around town checking out how icy the curbs are reporting in from the field. We just hope we survive without having to eat the dog or something like that. Brock and Grace are wishing for school cancellation. Mike is hoping for a day off too to catch up on the blog. Mary Beth is hoping they all go away soon so they don't put mommy over the edge.

Ice Storm pics

Snow Meister's tree on base

Frozen berry tree

Frozen lights

Plano Vs Mesquite

We went down to Tx to see the family for Thanksgiving and ended up staying an extra day to see the Plano Senior High Wildcats play in a divisional 5 A playoff game against Mesquite.

The last time Mike went to a Plano game was his senior year when they won the Division 5A state championships in 1987. Brock was very excited to sit on the 50 yard line. Also we had the opportunity to listen to our very own Uncle Matt Cone give the play by play on the Radio. He produces the game calling with another announcer over the Internet.

Plano won pretty easily with a score of 28-7. It was still an exciting game to watch as there were several big turnovers for both sides and Plano held Mesquite from scoring on the goal line several times. The Wildcats now have 1 more game to go I believe to make it to the State Finals.

Playoffs continue. Listen to the witty and colorful commentary of announcers Bryan Sutcliffe and Matt Cone for Plano's next game on Saturday 15 Dec.

Pregame will start 30 minutesprior to kick off at this site:

http://k-12.pisd.edu/schools/pshs/radio/wcat/football.htm

Announcers: Bryan Sutcliffe and Matt Cone

Technology Engineer: Tina Cone

Producers: Matt Cone and Tina Cone

Go CATS!

Tinker TItans Basketball

Here is Brock about to start the tip off agains one of the two other teams in his under 12 year old league. The girl he is about to go up against is Keila who is a sixth grader on a junior high team off base.

#12 is Mario. You would know this by going to the game and hearing his mom scream his name loudly from the bleachers until your ears bleed.

Ice Leaf

Grace found a big frozen leaf

Icicles of death about to fall on our head

Bailey the Boxer

We watched Bailey the boxer neighbor dog. She is just the right size for Daisy to play with.

The both ran around and jumped and bit until they were panting to death.

Girls just want to have fun...

Ahkuna Matata

The kids pose on one of many bronze zoo statues. This one is with Mufasa, Nala their lion pride. These statues are great and fun to climb on except you tend to burn your biscuits when it is above 90 degrees out and the statue heats up to egg cooking temperatures.

Two little monkeys pose for a pic.

Speaking of strange foods....

We love Sonic. We love Sonic even more than we realized before we left for Japan. Sonic embodies all of the things you cannot get in Japan. Conveniently, OKC is Sonic mecca. The headquarters for Sonic is here, there is a Sonic every two miles in every direction and we are repeatedly shown Sonic commercials on tv. This summer, we pulled in to Sonic almost daily to get cold, frosty American drinks- the food we are not so wild about, but the drink selection is endless! (diet coke with Lime, strawberry limeade-it's heaven!)

Those folks at Sonic are always pushing something new. Again, the Vaughns are basically drink people here, but we always chat about some of the strange things they promote each month.

November's special seemed to be too much- even for Oklahoma. Sonic was pushing "Mac & Cheese snacks". If you look closely, you will realize that these are actually fried balls of (Kraft) macaroni and cheese. Is this really necessary? Do people actually eat this? We have been to the State Fair of Texas many, many times and even they don't fry up mac and cheese!

Even stranger- did you notice on the Sonic sign that they are pairing the "mac and cheese snacks" with Diet Dr. Pepper? Again, I am stumped....

Eat something healthy today!

Love,

4Vs

Oklahoma Trail Mix

One of the things we love in Oklahoma City is the zoo. It is about the same size as the San Antonio zoo and Mike got the family a zoo membership this summer when we got here. It only takes about 10 minutes to get there from our house, so we like to go often. Sometimes we will just drive out there and walk around for an hour or so and then leave- the beauty of the family pass! We like to see the animals and people watching at the zoo is always fun as well.

Last month, I took our kids and our neighbor's two kids to the zoo on an afternoon when school was out. We enjoyed strolling and chatting and visiting with the animals.

Zoos are of course, a magnet for small kids and the stroller set. (Lord knows I took my stroller to the San Antonio zoo countless numbers of times!) Sometimes when you wander places where there are small kids you will come across a little trail of cheerios or goldfish that the kids like to snack on while they ride along in their strollers. Do you know what I am talking about?

Well at the zoo that afternoon, the kids and I came across a little trail of snacks. It was a trail of what we affectionately termed "Oklahoma Trail Mix". There was a small trail of a mix of cheeze its crackers, 'nilla wafers and (I am not making this up) one inch pieces of cooked bacon. Who eats something like this? There was a little trail of this stuff- like a small kid had dropped it while they were rolling along! The kids and I laughed and laughed over this :)

Yee hah!

Love,

4Vs

Turkey Trots

In mid-November, Tinker AFB scheduled a family turkey trot on the jogging trails here on base. We signed the 4Vs up and were happy to head out to the run on a beautiful Saturday morning. The adult route was right at three miles and the kids route was 1.5 miles. Since we couldn't just send the kids out on their own, we all ran the 1.5 miles together.

There weren't that many people at the race and not many kids at all. As a result, I am proud to report that Brock came in third for Boys under 18 and Grace came in 6th in Kids overall. Brock got a medal, a little watch and a $10 gift certificate. He was thrilled. Both his name and Grace's name were listed in the base paper. Grace was beyond excited to see her name in the paper!

On Thanksgiving Day, Brock and Mary Beth met Elizabeth in downtown Dallas to run the YMCA Turkey Trot. There, with about 30,000 strangers, we jogged a three mile route thru downtown. The weather was perfect! There were dogs and kids and old people and folks in costume everywhere. We had a great time!

Here are some of my favorite hats! This one was a very pretty turkey :)

This lady was with a family of folks wearing cooked turkeys on their heads. Sadly, I could only get her to stop!

We had a great time! As far as results for this race go, I can't be sure, but I believe that Brock came in 19, 872 nd place, Elizabeth was 19,873 rd and I finished us up at 19,874 th. What athletes!

Love,

4Vs

It's the Holiday Season!

We had the annual holiday season kickoff at the club last week. There was a nice little parade, cookies and hot chocolate. They also emptied the closets of all the character costumes on base- The Grinch was there, Scooby Doo, a lady dressed as a Christmas tree, SpongeBob, an angel, a really tall bear, assorted dogs and penguins, a hawk (?), our neighbor, Sparky the fire dog, of course Mr. and Mrs. Claus and many, many others.....

Those of you who are familiar with Grace Vaughn can imagine her holiday terror to be surrounded by such a menagerie of really friendly characters!

The 4Vs have seriously neglected the blog for the past few months. If there is anyone left looking at this thing, we are pledging to get back on track! I promise a new entry every day for the next thirty days in order to get caught up with our Oklahoma past (albeit a rather unexciting past, but we do have lots of pictures!)

Have a great December Tuesday!

Love,

4Vs

Tinker AFB Honor Guard

Here is Tinker's finest leading the holiday parade before the Tree lighting at the Club at beginning of December.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving with our Plano families. This was the pre-meal display at the table at our brother and sisters house. We had all the traditional fixings. We made the rounds and saw everyone over the long weekend so that was very nice. On Thanksgiving as we sat down at the table with 4 Vs with Matt & Tina we realized that is was kind of strange being the only adults at the table for the holiday without our parents or Grandparents. Then Matt made the comment that Mary Beth was the elder person at the table which at the time was very funny and broke up the weirdness that we were all grown up adults carrying on our family traditions.