Hi! for Saturday, January 21, 2006

Hi! Everyone,
Have you had any time to post to the blogger recently? I hope everyone is well and doing fine.

We had a beautiful day today even with a little cool weather, from the 30s to the 60s. We are supposed to get rain, maybe tonight or tomorrow. It has been over 2 months without rain. I know Kristen and Llew would love to balance out their rain with our drought. I wish we could trade some, also.

Ken and I went about 30 minutes north to the Yearwood's hangar for our monthly AAA meeting at Bar VK Airport. Looked like over 100 people attended with many planes. We have missed two meetings at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but were happier to be with family in Pullalup and Ken on his cruise. We caught up with visiting all of our wonderful AAA friends.

The farthest traveling were the Capps in their 70s from Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City who usually drive down, and a new friend, Jared ? from Ranger, TX, an hour's flight west of us, but not as far as Abilene, who is 19 and been around airplanes since he was 3. We gave hugs all around. Former president, Jim Dougherty has lost 40 pounds with LapBand surgery. He is looking healthier. Ann Pellegreno, next door neighbor, finished her 3rd book about aviation in Iowa, and gave us an autographed copy.

We sat next to friends Marge and Leonard Ritchie, who live a little north of us at Heritage Creek. She is a pilot, an artist and now children's author. I bought 3 of her laminated books. I think they are quite good. Maybe some day she will become famous and her characters will be on TV. That's how we get most of the children's TV characters on PBS, Nicklelodean, etc.--from children's author's books. Llew? We should team up and write and illustrate children's books together! The L & L Sisters--how does that sound? I bet Wanda Wack Wack and the other animals would give plenty to write about.

We are excited that Lowe's has opened in Decatur--doesn't take much to excite us, does it? I hope we go tonight and check it out.

Tomorrow, I go with some other NISD librarians to hear Kate DiCamillo speak. She wrote "Because of Winn Dixie" that became a movie. We heard her speak at our Texas Library Conference in 2002 after "Winn Dixie" was voted the best Texas Bluebonnet book that year by over 2,000,000 3rd-5th grade students in our state. Our school's voting for the students' favorite Bluebonnet book is this Thursday with an ice cream and Bluebonnet cake party in the cafeteria. I estimate that about 200 of our students who have read at least 5 of the 20 books will vote that day. I bought 5 of each copy and we began reading in November.

Take care. Love, linsue