Ford Trucks Red, White & Blue Balloon Festival
An event for the entire family is coming to Sam Boyd Stadium on January 13 & 14, 2007. The Ford Trucks Red, White & Blue Balloon Festival will feature twenty-five special shape balloons and forty race balloons. Making it the second largest Special Shape Balloon Festival in the country.
We went there.
They didn't launch the balloons and they did last year. There was no wind, so that couldn't have been the reason. The balloons were only inflated for less than an hour. And to top it all off, the DJ for KOMP radio said there was no smoking at the outdoor event. Ummmm. So thats the way its going to be.
Between the balloon event, and the short New Years fireworks display, I have to wonder what's going on.

The car runs GREAT now...nothing like those 100,000 mile tuneups.
The car stereo didn't work on the back right, because the speaker was missing...hmmmm.
Did I take it out, or was it already missng. That's a very puzzling question.
What's my name again?

That is kind of funny about your Mom. Me, I thought Renee was being a normal teenager, until she met Junior.
What a creep Junior was.
Renee started stealing (really bad) while she was with him. She really lost it.
Badd seemed to help her, by getting her away from Junior.
I think she's going to have a wonderful life.
As far as her sex thing goes...wow.
I don't know what she's told other people, but I do know what I've seen and heard.
I don't think your going to find a lot of 18 year old virgins out there...for that matter, 15 year olds.
In the past generations, is it really that odd to think teens are sexually active.
Just look at the way kids dress for school. That should give parents a clue.
Label kids perverts, sinners, or any other bad name you can think of, but most of us had sex when we were teenagers. 
I'd think thats normal all around the world, for all generations past.
When did you Great Great Grandmother have her first child?

They should have looked like this, but, and I don't care what the news said, they were short.
And the crowd didn't look like any 300,000 people either...
I was really surprised at the low turnout.
We parked almost right on the strips sidewalk in the Frontier parking lot, which was VERY HANDY!
The show was nice.
But I need to learn a few things.
I started clapping to the beat of the music where this guy was break dancing.
He must have taken that as an invitation to come over and do a strip tease for Becky.
That was not my intention! lol.
HAPPY NEWD YEAR

Good Morning babe
I had a great time last night. You were right about the fireworks being so short.
I really didn't know what to think about that guy that came up to me dancing.
I've never had that happen before. It was kinda flattering to me. I wanted to grab
you but you were taking a picture. LMAO!!!!!!!!. What was so funny about it
was the way he danced. I got a kick out of all of the people there. I couldn't
believe how some of those young girl's were wearing dress skirt's in cold weather.
WOW!!!!! LOL. Thank you so much babe for a good time at the strip.
I Love You
Becky

Hi babe
I Love you too!!!

HI...its nice out today.

I thought it would be.
We talked to Ida at 6am.
Sonny, Becky and I went to GMas for breakfast pizza at 9am.
We opened presents, sat around, talked and had fun.
But before I go on, I want to tell you about what I got for Christmas.
That seems pretty relavent to my favorite person (me).
- Becky gave me another Casio camera. I have an Olympus Stylus 7 megapixel, camera, but its pictures wreak (yes, I believe Casio has a better camera than Olympus these days) and I took about 100 pictures. They're great!!!
- Paul gave me a really cool Sears socket/wrench set. It has 180 pieces. I'm told Sears will replace the tools no matter what I do to them, so I could break all the tools in half, take one half to one Sears, take the other half to another Sears, and double my tool set.
After a year of doing this, I could own Sears. But thats a thought.
- Sonny gave me a bag of rocks.
I know that sounds bad, but these are sented, and you pop them in the microwave to heat them up, then wear them. 
This is not just another bag of rocks.
But I digress. Now back to Christmas at Gmas.
Gma gave Becky a do-over, which looks good.
However, I'm not used to Becky looking mature.
Becky has this innocent little girl look thats hard to beat.
So, I just don't know what to think of the make over.
We all ate breakfast pizza, then got back home at 11am.
Michelle (our neighbor) came by to tell us she had found her way back to the Lord.
Meanwhile, I added potatoes, carrots and onions to the water pan in the smoker and it caught on fire. Thats okay though, the ham and pork already looked burnt. Still, it tasted great.
At any rate, it was a great diversion from hearing about the high priest (or whatever he is called) that Michelle talked to at the Mormon Temple.
Becky's folks got to our house at 2pm, just when I was taking off to pick up Robert.
Paul and I went to pickup Robert and Joy, but only Joy was there.
Eventually, we ate smoked pork, smoked ham, veggies, and berry delight. 
Renee even called and we put her on speaker phone.
GMa and I polished off the meal with (and I'm not lying) a non alcoholic Jack Daniels Expresso.
It had no kick to it, but it was still very nice.
We unwrapped presents and all was cool.
I took 100 more pictures but I accidentally wiped them out. Oops.
Take my word, they were great pictures.
It was fortunate, that on this Christmas, I wasn't the only person taking pictures.
Gma and Becky both took pictures...ahhhh, relief.
Gma, Paul and all took off, with Robert, Joy and Amy remaining. 
Sonny's passed out.
At this point, its 7:30pm. Robert took off and said he'd be back in 20 minutes.
That was a 6pm.
We're sitting around watching CSI Las Vegas.
Becky is at the couch enjoying her Ginsu Messager.
Joy is cruising the internet. Squirt thinks we're all crazy!
Me, I'm tired. I think I had too much expresso.
Goodnight everybody.
This was the best Christmas I've ever had.

I loved your burgers and pies Becky.

We were picking up Dustin and Jennifer when Sonny called. He said the water heater had busted.
From report to finish, it took 2.5 hours!
I'd say thats pretty darned good.
That included shopping on the internet for price, picking one up at Lowes (it was on a shelf 12 foot high), uninstalling and installing the new gas heater. Not bad for a couple of KY boys.

My brisket and pork shoulder came out GREAT!
I showed Sonny how to make it. He said "wow, thats easy"... :^)
As usual, Gma's chicken fettucini was delicious.
I played with sending text messages from my web page to my cell phone (for notary stuff).
Two days ago, I installed the Internet Explorer 7.
Today, I installed Office Professional 2007 on the PC and my laptop.
They're both attractive. So far, except for some things being moved around, I haven't found many improvements.
Most of the improvements I've found were items begging to be fixed, like re-adding HTML email to Outlook.
Renee called Becky
She likes Washington state. Its cold here with little chunks of white everywhere from the snow.
I get chills when the phone rings on Christmas.
On a few occassions, its been terrible news (like Rob and Mom).

They kissed most of the way there and you could tell they are anxious to get away.
Its been a strange day, with the phone ringing off the hook.
I guess some people think Renee is really messing up.
I think she's twenty-one and she is happy. How could she be doing the wrong thing?
And who knows what the right thing is anyway.

---

I guess I'm a softy, but it always jerks a tear from my eye when I say goodbye.
We didn't see much of Renee since we've been back, but just knowing she's gone somehow seems sad.
And Robert will be leaving soon.
Guess thats just the way of Vegas