Birthday Present

When I got back from Trek, my parents had my birthday gift ready for me. I opened it up, and I saw a Arlington High Colts T-shirt, a pair of khakis, but the biggest gift was a Toshiba Laptop. I was very surprised. I am enjoying it greatly. I haven't had an official birthday celebration with family yet since school and Trek kind of overtook things.

Hurricane Gustav

Our church is taking in 150 evacuees from Hurricane Gustav, so be sure to remember them in your prayers. Also, pray for all of the workers working with the evacuees. Our Family Life Center has been turned into a room full of cots, chairs and tables in preparation for this event.

Trek

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of going on Wilderness Trek in Buena Vista, CO. Our youth group drove up to Amarillo, spent the night, and then drove to base camp at Noah's Ark. We spent the night in large weather tents. The next morning, we got ready, ate breakfast and went to go climb and rappel. I was not a very good rock climber, and I became very hesitant to go rappeling. Thankfully, my foot slipped on the giant rock where we were rappeling, and I had the experience of going rappeling. It was very nerveracking. That afternoon, we went whitewater rafting down the Arkansas River, which was adjacent to Noah's Ark. I went 10 miles down, with up to class 3 to 3 1/2 whitewater. Our guide was wonderful. He had us doing 360s and telling us what certain rocks looked like as we passed by them. The next day, we began our trek. My group was dropped off about less than 40 miles from Aspen, CO. We began, and I felt how physically tiring it was. Thankfully, we made it camp later that day, so I could rest! The next day was August 12th, which was my 17th birthday. It was the coldest it's ever been on my birthday. It just so happend that that day was the summit day. Thankfully, and with the Lord's strength, I made it to 13,200 feet at the Continental Divide. My group had our lunch up there. We later began going down, and with the elevation we were in, we crossed some snow. At that point, I was afraid that I might die. The snow was about a foot deep and tapered off to some rocks that continued to go down the mountain. Before anyone in our group had gone down, our fearless leader made tracks in the snow for us to put our feet in. Thankfully, one of the adult sponsors from our church helped me across the snow. Our packs were then picked up by our other leader, and sent down the snow to a small plateau where everyone was waiting for everyone to come down. Once the packs were sent down, we had to ladder climb with our hands down the snow to get to the plateau. For most of the way, I slid, which was a scary experience. I was able to make it down the rest of the main and rocky part of the mountain. We camped that night, and continued our trek the next day, with a much easier path (after crossing more rocks and coming farther down a mountain). We made it to base camp later that day, and to my liking discovered that there was a porto-potty right around the corner from camp. CIVILIZATION!!! Most of you who have been on trek know what biffing is, and the porto-potty took care of me not having to biff in the woods! At dusk, we were waiting for our fearless leader. And we were told that he had been helping another group. But, what really happend was that he had hitchhiked his way into Buena Vista to get us some ice cream and fixins, and had been brought back by a friend of his to our camp. We ate that evening and enjoyed the warmth of the fire. The next day, we didn't have anywhere to hike, so we just relaxed, shared a few life stories, ate lunch and jumped into a creek. There were some cylindrical culverts that everyone, including me, jumped off of. I jumped, hit my tailbone on a rock, but came out having trouble breathing because the water was so cold! Later, the bus came, got us and we went back to base camp where we spent the night, and went to Amarillo the next day. After spending the night at the Central Church of Christ in Amarillo, we came home. It was a very exciting, exhausting but fun trip to do. I am very blessed to be able to have the experience to do this.

2008 McGregor Family Vacation

At the end of July, our family took a vacation to Taos, Albuquerque and Canyon, TX. We decided to drive to Taos, which is about ten and a half hours from Arlington. We left at about seven in the morning and drove all the way to Taos, where our good friends were renting a vacation home. We decided to stay at the El Pueblo Lodge in Taos, which is a good place to stay at if you are ever in Taos. Over the next few days, we shopped and sightseed in the beautiful 70 to 80 degree mountain weather. On Sunday, I wanted to go to the Taos Church of Christ, so we did. There were fifteen people in attendance that day including our family and two friends. As expected, it was a very traditional Church of Christ. The people were very friendly, and even the preacher, his wife and his daughter and son-in-law went with us to lunch that day. Sunday afternoon, we took a little trip on the Enchanted Circle to Red River, NM. Red River was probably my favorite place on the trip, because it was like an old west town in the mountains. The weather was very nice there, too. On Monday, we drove down to Albuquerque. On our way there, we stopped in a small town called Madrid, which is where the film "Wild Hogs" was filmed. It seemed a little like a hippy town and was interesting. We made it to Albuquerque that evening and went to our bed and breakfast called "The Inn at Paradise", which is located on the Desert Greens Golf Course in the Paradise Hills portion of Albuquerque. I would recommend this place to anyone who is going to Albuquerque. The landscaping at the inn is beautiful, and you can look out over the golf course. While we were at "The Inn at Paradise", the New Mexico Junior PGA Tournament was taking place, so it was a treat to see all the young golfers golfing. The next day, we ate our breakfast and went to Old Town Albuquerque. We went around and shopped and went in an old Catholic Church. After Old Town, we hit the road for Canyon, TX. We made it to Canyon just in time to check into the Holiday Inn Express and to freshen up a little bit before we went to see the "Texas" show in Palo Duro Canyon. I would recommend the show to anyone. It is very entertaining. The next day, we got up, ate, and drove home. We had a very nice and relaxing five day vacation.

Kadesh

This past week, I was blessed to attend Kadesh camp at Abilene Christian University. This is a camp I had the privelege of going to last year, and it's a great camp. The theme this year was "Grace", and it was encouraging and freeing! I was placed in a group mixed with people from Baytown, Houston, Coppell, Denton, Abilene, Maypearl, Northwest Mississippi (Memphis, TN area), Boulder, CO and Boston, MA. Our group got close. Our leaders were from Amarillo, but they had both attended Harding University. One of the leaders was a youth minister at the Southwest Church of Christ in Amarillo, and the other girl was his girlfriend. One day, I was walking down the stairs from our room, and there was Laura! I went up to her and gave her big hug. She then walked with me to the Student Center and gave me her contact information. So later that day, I got permission from my hall counselor to go visit her during free time. While I was there, Dan walked in, so it was really neat to get to see them while I was out there. So far, out of the two Kadeshes that I've been to, this one has been my favorite topic. Once your kids get to high school age, send them to Kadesh, because it's a great camp!

Camp Goddard

I just remembered that I had not told everyone about my camp counselor experience. Back near the end of June, I went with our church to be a co-counselor for nine fifth grade boys at Camp Goddard in Sulphur, Oklahoma which is located in the Arbuckle Mountains. It was a very interesting experience. The theme was "God's Hand", which explored God's Hand in the creation. I don't see where the kids got all their energy from! The food was absolutely horrible! There were probably around forty kids there. The stars at night were beautiful! It was also hot, but thankfully we had air conditioning in our cabins. But, the last night there, I had a big theological conversation with a few of my friends in the youth group that got me involved in the conversation and our Children's Minister. It was a very neat conversation. Thankfully, I got to ride back with an adult and youth intern, plus two other counselors. I found out that the bus the kids and counselors were riding back on had air conditioning problems, so the kids didn't have ac pluse they couldn't get the movie player in the bus to work, so it was a miserable ride home for them.

4th of July

Our family celebrated the whole Fourth of July weekend. First, on Thursday night, Lake Arlington had a fireworks show. We pulled up to an out-of-business gas station at Green Oaks and 303 to watch the fireworks. The show was okay, but here's a funny story to tell y'all about that happend while our family was waiting to watch the fireworks. We had forgotten to get lawn chairs to take to sit on while watching the show. So, we turned the backseat over in our van which mommy and I sat on, but daddy decided to take out one of the captains chairs in the van and just perch it on the ground, it was funny. When he did that, it made us think that we were rednecks! Next, on Friday, our family woke up and went to the Arlington Parade, which is one of the best parades around! We had a nice spot, but we were a little late. I got to see my friend from church, who is one of the Drum Majors in her high school band. We also got to see other floats that came by our area. Later that day, our friends Doug and Annette, my grandmother came over for dinner and to go see the GOOD fireworks in Fort Worth. I invited our youth minister, Wes, because his wife and kids were back in Tennessee where they are from. He came over, too. After eating and talking we left westbound to Fort Worth with two freezers of homeade ice cream which daddy had made. He had made a strawberry sherbert and a vanilla ice cream. We have gone to the same spot in years past behind the Fort Worth Credit Union, to watch the fireworks from Concerts in the Park, which is where the Fort Worth Symphony plays. The fireworks are always great, with a grand finale at the end. More friends met us there, and we just talked and ate together. Finally, on Saturday night, mommy, daddy and I went to our shopping center called the "Arlington Highlands" to see a fireworks show. The show was probably the least best of the three shows that we saw. The shopping center had a jazz band that was there playing. All in all, our fourth was good, just like all the other ones.

Virus!

Our computer has been down for the last few weeks with a big, bad virus. We had to end up calling a geek to work it all out. We are glad to be back with a computer that is up and running now.

Arlington Work Camp

Last week, I was able to participate in Arlington Work Camp, which is where the youth of the Arlington, Grand Prairie and Mansfield Churches of Christ come together and paint a persons home who can't afford it, or are not capable of doing it and do other things around the house that keep it kept up. There was also a youth group from Richardson and a youth group from Denison participating this year. My group had a sweet 80 year old lady in East Arlington whose house was yellow, and we painted it chocolate brown and a light khaki color. Our first day, we asked her what she wanted us to sing to her, and she said Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up" which we did not have ready the first or second days of the three day camp. On the last day, I had printed up the lyrics to "You Raise Me Up", and our group sang it for her. I love Work Camp, because you meet new people and it's fun, plus you get to be the hands and feet of Jesus by blessing others. It's a great summer kick-off. I think there were around 200 teens this years, and we all pay to be able to do this.

Schlitterbahn

This past Monday, I got to go with my youth group from church to Schlitterbahn. We got down to New Braunfels Sunday night, and came back Monday evening. It was my first experience at Schlitterbahn, and I liked it, except for the big, bad sunburn I got. I rode a few of the rides and did a wave pool/lazy river combination that was fun. I also floated in other lazy rivers and got in one hot tub, because one of the lazy rivers was cold. At the end of the day, I was tired, and we made it back home safely.

The DSO

A few weeks ago, our family had the pleasure of attending the Dallas Symphony in which we saw their Pops Concert "My Favorite Choruses" which included many different songs from Broadway to Classical to Patriotic. We took my grandmother with us, because my parents got tickets from the Arlington Master Chorale benefit. They bid on the tickets and we got four for only $50! The seats were by the cellos, and in the fourth row! It's always special when we get good tickets to something and save a lot of money. The original price of the four seats together was $260!

End of School Excitement

Tomorrow is the last day of school, but there have been some exciting things that have happend to me over the last few weeks. First, I got my TAKS test scores back and passed all of them with commended performance in science and history. On the history TAKS, I didn't miss a single question. I had to take English, Math, Science and History TAKS tests. Secondly, I was exempt from all my core class exams, which is the most that I can be exempt from in my Sophomore year. The only exams that I have to take are: P.E., French 2 and Orchestra. Next year, I will have the chance to be exempt from all classes (except orchestra doesn't exempt anyone). Finally, our head director in orchestra announced that all new symphony members will be able to play at graduation "Pomp and Circumstance" and a piece called "Proud Heritage". I told her today that I would do it. I will get to play at the Nokia Theatre in Grand Prairie. I am ready to get out of school, but it has been an exciting few weeks.

Baseball Game

Last Saturday, our church youth group went to the Ranger game. There were several people from our church that were there. My dad was going to go, but he wasn't feeling good, so it was just mommy and me. We had pretty good seats under an aluminum roof in the outfield, and you could see the game pretty well. It was an exciting night, because the Rangers beat the Oakland A's 8 to 4. After the baseball game was over, we hiked up to one of the highest tiers of the stadium and watched a fireworks show. During the fireworks show, they played Beach Boys music throughout the whole thing. We had a somewhat obstructed view, but it was a good show.

New Lawn Mower

Today, I was about to mow the yard with our used 20 year old self-propelled Honda lawn mower that we got for $100 from a place that sells used lawn mowers. I got it out, and loaded it up with more gasoline, and tried to start it, but it wouldn't start. My dad came over to help me, but he couldn't get it started. So we hooked the spark plug up to it on the outside of it, to see if we could get a spark-didn't happen on two spark plugs that we tried. Daddy then went over to a used lawn mower place to see how much a new coil would cost. He found out that it would cost $126.00! I then called another used lawn mower store, and they gave me an estimate that it would cost about $89.99! Daddy and I then decided that we needed to get a new lawn mower. We first stopped at Costco, which had an MTD Pro which had a Honda engine, and was self-propelled, but it would've cost us with tax over $400.00! We then proceeded to Lowes where we found a Troy-Bilt that was self-propelled and had a Honda engine, but it was about the same price MTD Pro, just about $10 cheaper. Daddy and I then went to Home Depot, where we found a Cub Cadet that was self-propelled and had a Honda engine, and it was only $259.99 plus a 3 year warranty. We went ahead and purchased it, took it home to use on our front yard, and it work fine. My dad then humored himself by going over to our old Honda and just trying to see if it would start after we had bought our Cub Cadet. He pulled the pulley, and it started! I guess that sometimes in life things need to have a little rest before going back to them and trying them again.

P.S.-We will still probably be keeping the Cub Cadet.

New Orchestra

This past week, I tried out for the Symphony Orchestra at my school. This group is the highest group in the orchestra program, and has received UIL Sweepstakes for thirty consecutive years. This was my third time to tryout, because I did it at the end of last year, and I did the tapes that the syphony kids did to try to get in at the semester. This time, I tried out, and our head director told me to pick two scales from the three that I was practicing on. So, I chose the "G" and "C" three octave scales, which go high up the violin. I messed up a little on the "G", and re-started it, but still messed up a little bit. I played the "C" scale fine, and she told me the excerpts to play, so I played them for her. The excerpts were from "Danse Bacchanale" by Saint-Saens, and a symphony by Borodin. I then did the sightreading, which was fairly easy. On top of this, she was recording me on my excerpts. She then told me after my audition that if I had remembered what she had told me from last year, which was when she thought that I wasn't quite ready for symphony. She then picked up a piece of paper that she was writing comments on, and at the bottom, it said-"Recommended Orchestra: Symphony", I was so excited that I had made it! She then proceeded to tell me that I had done an excellent job. I asked her if I could give her a hug, and she let me. I am so excited about being in symphony next year!

Internet Phone

Recently, our family switched from AT&T home phone service to the T-Mobile Internet Phone service. We are enjoying it very much. For $10 a month, we get phone service and caller I.D., which we never had before (and love). We are saving quite a bit.

Last Weekend

Last weekend, my dad and I had the privilege to go camping on a father/son campout with church at Cleburne State Park. We were there Friday night through Saturday. Our church combined with the Boy Scout Troup that meets at our church. The first night, we arrived, set up our Taj Mahal of a tent (4 room tent), and my dad got the camp stove going to boil up some water for coffee. While we were setting up our tent, one of our youth group members got his pellet gun to go shoot a water snake. He shot the snake, and one of our youth group sponsors skinned it with his pocket knife. Then, some of the youth group members cleaned it. Of course, some of the nerves were going nuts in the snake, and it was moving around. Then, one of the youth group members put it over the campfire (we didn't eat it though!). Later that evening, my mom had purchased a birthday cake, because daddy's 59th birthday was April the 25th. We surprised him with a cake, and we then had a flag retirement ceremony that the scouts put on. The retirement was very interesting. That morning, I went and played ultimate frisbee in a field with the youth group, while daddy played forty-two. We later left, after hot dogs, and got some beautiful pictures of the Texas wildflowers. There were some beautiful pink buttercups on the side of Highway 67, we also got some pictures of the bluebonnets while we were still at the park.
That evening, we met with our friends and tried our new Cheesecake Factory restaurant. The food was great, but we didn't have any cheesecake, because they fed us sooooo much of our main course. We had a fun weekend.

Mountain Peak Experience in the Midst of the Storm

Tom and I were filled with great anticipation as we neared our opening night performance of the Brahms' Requiem. Thursday evening, we were to be at Trinity United Methodist here in Arlington for our call at 7pm, as the concert would begin at 8pm. As most of you know, our area had been forcasted with a grim night of weather to include severe thunderstorms with lots of hail. But, the show must go on, so we trudged on hoping that the weather report would not come true and affect our music. Our choir president told the audience that if we needed, we would stop our performance in case of an impending emergency. And, it happened. As we were in the middle of the second movement, we could hear the hail pounding on the building. We watched our conductor to see when he would stop us. About the time time of a grand entrance, some of us heard the sirens sounding. We made it through the second movement, at the end of which our conductor, Randy, motioned for us to be seated. And then, he left his podium, entered the audience, and very calmly said that the people were released to go if they so chose, and could save their ticket stubs to return to Friday night's performance at University Christian in Fort Worth. Several actually did leave; however, they came back in after they saw that they could not make it to their cars for the heavy downpour. So, Thursday night, we finished the concert with rave reviews afterwards.
Friday night, was our mountain PEAK performance. University Christian's accoustics were very "live" as they say with wood ceilings and tile floors. The only fabric in the building was the cushions on the pews. All else was made of hard surfaces. The sound of the orchestra and our choir literally RESOUNDED, RANG, and REVERBERATED. It was the MOST EXCITING performance of which Tom and I have ever been a part. The Requiem lasts for one hour and a half, but that time seemed to fly because everything came together. Our feet and legs were very tired because we had to stand for that whole length of time. My left foot went to sleep, and when I exited the stage area, my legs were stiff. But, it was all worth the hard work during the past four months. The music of Brahms was a work of genius that only God could orchestrate. Tom and I had mixed emotions when we finished. We were ready to see how our audiences would respond both Thursday and Friday nights (we received standing ovations both nights), but we hated to leave such an indescribably AWESOME experience behind us. We are anxious to get our recordings. We received RAVE reviews, one of which was the choirmaster at University Christian, who is also the man over all the choirs at TCU. He told Randy that we were amazing and that we did things with the music that he could not believe we accomplished since we are primarily an amateur chorus. That means so much to all of us. We worked VERY WELL together...as a team with all the players giving over 100%!! We are still basking in the beauty and the message of the music. I don't think we will EVER forget this experience!!
As for next season, our president told us that we may sing Carmina Burana and Leonard Bernstein's Chitchester Psalms. There is even a rumor about a venue at the Meyerson in Dallas!!! We will see!!

Brahms Requiem

Tonight, Tom and I took off a little before 7pm for our Monday night rehearsal with the Arlington Master Chorale. We are enjoying that time SO much!! We will be performing Johannes Brahms' Requiem in English rather than in German a week from this Thursday and Friday nights with full orchestra. I can't tell you how beautiful, melodic, and inspirational this choral work is! It has 7 movements and lasts about 1 hour and a half. As we sing, I envision Heaven, worshipping God, and thinking that maybe, just maybe Jesus will remove the "veil" and allow Mommie and Daddy Mac and Daddy Dwight to see and hear it! The music is absolutely angelic and majestic, in that I envision and think that it must be a close resemblance of what the heavenly beings must sound like! A Requiem is a funeral service, but this one by Brahms does not have the traditional Kyrie, Agnus Dei, In Paradisium, etc. This one surrounds itself around the theme of "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted; and, "Blessed are they who die in the Lord." I wish all of our family could join us for one of the performances and experience the beautiful voices along with the orchestra!! Tom and I have never sung anything like it. If you have not heard the work, you can download it from Itunes for about $10. That is what Tom and I have been practicing with between rehearsals. If you can come, we will be at Trinity United Methodist Church on Thursday evening, the 17th at 8pm in Arlington, and on Friday night, the 18th, at University Christian Church by TCU in Fort Worth at 8pm., AND we have tickets for sale.

Aviation

As some of you may know, I am a huge Commercial Aviation fan. I love the airport and airlines. Some of you may know, that it has been a sad week for the airline industry. Three airlines went down in one week. Only one of these closing airlines is affecting DFW airport (our home airport). The three airlines were: Aloha, American Trans Air (ATA), and the Ultra Low-Cost Columbus, Ohio based Carrier Skybus. The only airline that is affecting DFW is ATA. Sadly, it will be ending a route from DFW to Chicago's Midway Airport. Hopefully, when the Wright Amendment is repealed in the coming years, we will receive a route to Chicago Midway on Southwest Airlines. Some other interesting airport news, is that KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has begun new nonstop service to Amsterdam (the only one offering this service nonstop from DFW). Some other carrier news is that British Airways and American Airlines have transitioned their London service from Gatwick to Heathrow. This is bittersweet news for me. The reason for this, is that we will only now have one nonstop airport choice if we ever go to London, because I believe that the last nonstop Gatwick flight will depart around April 12th. Also, if we need to connect on British Airways, we might have to take a bus around London to Gatwick, since BA has different destinations served from both airports. Anyways, hopefully we can get some more airline service to new destinations nonstop from DFW.

Working Weekend

The weekend of April 4-6 has been a busy one. Seems like we worked all weekend. Friday afternoon, Stewart did not have to work at his part-time job. That was a blessing because he and I were to be at his high school (Arlington High) by 5pm to help sort and price ALOT of stuff for the Orchestra's annual Parking Lot Sale which was held on Saturday. One could hardly walk in the orchestra hall that evening. We had sections marked office, electronics, housewares, toys, babies, furniture,clothes,and seasonal. Many volunteers like Stewart and I showed up to help perform this monumental task of getting all the "merchandise" ready for sale. Tom stayed at home because we had a special donation from our garage that we were giving up in addition to all the items I had already gathered. For a couple of years now, we have had Mommie and Daddy Mac's organ stored in our garage for lack of a place indoors since redoing our living room several years ago. We have not had much luck finding a new home in which for it to live. So, there in our garage, it stayed. Tom stayed home to help the boys load it in their truck. Well, it is gone now, and hopefully, Stewart will discover who took on that project as it needed some work for it to play again. If he finds out where it went to live, I'll include that information on a future blogspot entry. So, maybe NOW, we can get our garage cleaned out again and GET OUR VEHICLES IN OUR GARAGE before they get SMASHED with hail this spring!! We McGregors seem to have a very hard time keeping our garage clean and organized!! By the way, the parking lot sale was for 3 scholarships to be awarded to deserving senior orchestra students at their yearly banquet to take place in mid May. So, that was Friday night.
Saturday, we slept in, and then Stewart had a chance to work at a childrens' consignment sale at our church building and make money that would be put in his summer activity youth account. So, Tom gladly drove Stewart to the church to work so we would not have to foot some of the expense of summer activities such as ACU Kadesh camp, Work Camp, etc. He ended up working 6 and a 1/2 hours. Way to go, Stewart...WooHoo!!! Tom was finishing up a car that he had been working on for a lady in our Bible Class at church and I was cleaning inside the house as we had our Bible study group at our house tonight (Sunday). We did take time out to go eat pizza at a place called the "Mellow Mushroom" over by TCU; they have the MOST EXCELLENT pizza.
Sunday morning, we were up early as it was our turn to sing on Praise Team. We meet at 8:15 to warm up and rehearse the program of music before class begins at 9am. This afternoon, it was back to tying up loose ends regarding cooking dinner for our group, and finishing up house chores to make things presentable for our guests. Stewart went to his high school Bible study group. Thankfully, God provided one of the senior girls to come by and give him a ride. It was a great evening for both him and Tom and me.

Saturday's Surprise

Last Friday night, we were at our fish fry, and my phone started ringing in my purse. That hardly EVER happens, as I don't use my cell phone alot on which just to "chat." Anyway, I answered it and low and behold, it was Laura asking if she and Dan could meet us for lunch on Saturday!! We were all over that, so we gladly accepted the invitation. They brought several foreign students to Six Flags that day, dropped them off, and we met them on University Drive at Blue Mesa Grill. We had a great visit. Dan surprised Stewart with a "Ticket to Ride" game, as they guys had played that on our Thanksgiving trip to Hot Springs Village. Since that time, Stewart made his own "Ticket to Ride" game and Dan was impressed with his ingenuity in producing it. So, Dan thought Stewart deserved a "real" one!! Tom and he played it on Sunday night after our Bible Study while I did all my "night jobs"...lunch, coffee-making, medications for Stewart and me, etc. I am anxious to get to play as well when I have a little more time. THANK YOU, DAN!! After we ate, we parted with Dan and Laura. They had things to do and the 3 of us just hung out for a while at the shopping center there with Blue Mesa.

Last Thursday, we had new double-paned windows installed!! They dress up our house on the outside, and we are banking on them cutting our electric bill on the inside!! We can already tell that they are making a difference. The old storm windows were leaking air, and it has been pretty "drafty" in the McGregors' home. My mom stayed in our computer room while recuperating from her broken hip, and she stayed cold much of the time. We piled blankets on her, and she would finally get warm. Anyway, we think the windows give us a great new look, and we are thinking of adding some shutters just for cosmetic appearance in the future!!

As for my mom, she is doing very well. Easter Sunday was her 80th birthday. All of Robby's family and ours accompanied Mama to church at Richland Hills and then took her to lunch at a great buffet called Vance Godbey's out on Jacksboro Hwy. She loved it and told us that she felt very honored on her day. Oh, did I mention that she has a new GREAT Grandson??? His name is Joel Thelton Sullivan and belongs to Travis (Robby's son) and wife, Kristen!! He's a real CUTIE...looke alot like Travis and "Big Dad" (Robby). By the way, Mama called today and told me that she cleaned out her garage WITHOUT her cane today!! Thankfully, she WAS wearing her Med-Alert bracelet in case she had an accident while working out there!! Way to go, Mama...Who would have "thunk" that you just got over partial hip replacement??? GOD IS GOOD to take such good care of her!!!

Springtime

I love the springtime! Our backyard and garden room has been blooming today with beautiful hibiscuses, geraniums, and daffodils. I have been getting pictures of them with my new camera. We are going to a fish fry tonight, and I'm excited. My dad and I love fish. My mom, on the other hand, isn't as crazy about fish. She will be eating hushpuppies, fries, and cole slaw tonight.

2008 Election

We are conservative Republicans, and we want to know who you are supporting currently in our election. In the primaries, we supported Mike Huckabee mostly for his moral stance. But sadly, Huckabee didn't make it, so we now support McCain. Please feel free to vote in our polls that we have provided. The first one is for who you supported in the primaries, and the other one is the person that you will be supporting for the general election in November. Thanks and have a great day!

Welcome to the McGregor's Minutes!

Welcome!

We are the McGregor's from Arlington, TX and are new to the blogging community. Please read our posts about what's going on in our family. Our names are Bethany, Tom, and Stewart, and our 8 year old Shih Tzu dog-Cupcake. Hope you enjoy our blog!