Griffin Girls' Visit

We are so glad we got to spend some time with Tara and Adelaide! They came for their first visit back to Texas since they moved to Australia... We miss them so much and can't believe how grown up Adelaide is - I was there when she was born, you know!? We got to have lots of fun talks, good food and laughs together.

Here's Adelaide making faces while sucking on a lemon - always so funny.

Casey and Adel have been good buddies from the get-go. Here they are swinging "apside" - which is where Miss Curly Q prefers to be at all times.

Love you girls and miss you already. Give Randy a hug for us!

Jeff's 30th Birthday

We love Jeffrey. We've really enjoyed getting to know him over these past 9 years that he's been in our lives. To celebrate his milestone birthday, he and Casey (and Matt and Kent - who Jeff doesn't know, but Casey invited because he likes them...) went golfing. Jeff came over and had some pancakes and bacon and we took pictures of him because we were so impressed with his wave-of-a-do.After golf, we headed to the Sr. Hauns house to celebrate together as a family. Here's a picture of the Haun kids and their significant others. Good thing Barron made it in the picture - we were thinking Kaye might make him sit one out, since he's not official yet. In the spirit of celebration, we got to wear temporary tattoos - compliments of Beau. My options were a blue octopus on my chest, which unfortunately was defective, or an anchor on the nape of my neck. Sorry you can't see it in the picture, but it is there! I even wore it to a wedding I attended the next day :)
We headed to Babe's fried chicken, waiting in the freezing cold, ate way too much home cookin' and had a great time. They even sang to Jeff and tried to make him dance, but he would have none of it. Isn't cowgirl Jeff cute?
We had a cute waitress who sang on a microphone throughout the restaurant while she wasn't serving us. She brought Beau & Brady the wrong drink, and apologized, calling Beau sir. He was very impressed that she thought he was a sir. I think they forgave her for the mistake because she had a magic coloring book trick that they were pretty impressed by.
Love you, Jeffrey. Hope your day was memorable and your year is full of lots of unexpected happiness. And we hope the gray hairs don't take over that full head of hair too soon!

Happy Birthday, Mom

Today is my mom's 66th birthday. She is one amazing person and I love her so much. She is uniquely made and graciously accepts and celebrates other people's differences. Since my dad died, she has begun an organic grass-fed beef operation at our farm. She has 7 cows now and hopes to have two calves in the spring. She LOVES her cows. She loves raising them and feeding them in an environmentally and physically healthy way. (Did you know that grass fed beef is closer in fatty omega-3 acid levels to salmon than to grain-fed beef?) She is such a woman of faith and prayer and for that I am eternally grateful. I'm so thankful for her spunky, funny self. I think I'll keep her...

Murder Mystery Dinner

Ashley and Jeremy hosted a Murder Mystery Dinner. I was Shania Vain - a country singer - and Casey was Peter Jenkins - an exotic animal / game hunter and dealer. A fun time was had by all in the whodunit dinner and Casey played such a believable character that no one even suspected that he was the killer, not even me!! Conveniently, his Nacho stache transitioned well into his killer role.