USAA Free Concert

Sunday was the last day of Fiesta here in San Antonio. One of the last events was a free concert presented by USAA (an insurance company that serves the military and their families.) We had 4 tickets and wanted to share the concert with someone. Chuck and Betty Wheeler decided to join us. Chuck and Betty go to our church and are spur-of-the moment people like we are so they were game for the concert. It was interesting, and a coincidence, that Chuck knew Steve, the husband of Bob's HS classmate with whom we had lunch yesterday.) Chuck and Steve both compete in shooting (guns), and together, they have competed numerous times. It is a small world.

Here are Chuck and Betty. They met when they were 5 years old. They are from the same small town in northern TX, and are childhood sweethearts, and they still seem to be sweethearts. I'm not sure how "mature" they are, but I know they have children who are around 60 years old. They must have gotten married when they were 15. Actually, Chuck said 14. We enjoyed having the opportunity to get to know them better.

The concert was held at the Majestic Theater, and it definitely had a majestic look inside.

Visit with High School Classmates and Visiting Boerne

Saturday, Bob and I met one of his high school classmates and her husband, Sue and Steve, and we had lunch and a nice visit with them. They live here in San Antonio now so Bob wanted to make contact, and I'm glad we did. We met for lunch at a place called the Scenic Loop Cafe. The manager of the restaurant happens to be a former student of Bob's. He wasn't there today while we were there, but Bob visited with him last year while we were here. Unfortunately we had such a nice visit with Sue and Steve that we forgot to take pictures. I guess our pictures will just have to be in our memory. Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to visit them again in the future. They were very interesting people.

Afterwards we drove just a little further north to a small town called Boerne. It has lots of quaint stores and some art galleries. It also had a house/store with a familiar name. Bob's oldest daughter's and her husband's last name is Weiss so we had to take this picture.

Night In Old San Antonio

San Antonio has a 10 day celebration called Fiesta. It includes many events downtown as well as other places around town. It celebrates Texas's independence from Mexico I think. Anyway there are several parades, concerts, eating events, and for several days Night in Old San Antonio. In the old part of down town, called La Villita, they set up lots of booths for food and drinks, they have music, and lots and lots and lots of people who walk through it and do whatever. It seemed to be a civil crowd, and I heard that people just come down to have a good time and are generally well behaved. Susie, Bob, and I volunteered at a French crepe stand which was set up for a conservation organization here in SA. Susie knew the people in charge so that's why we volunteered. Of course it happened to be the warmest day so far this year, low 90's, and we were in the sun for a lot of the time. But we survived.

To get down town we took public transportation for a small fee. We parked at the parking lot of the local school district's athletic center, and the bus picked us up there and brought us back. No hassle. It was great. Here we are being happy on the bus on the way to NIOSA.

This is the stand.

This is the plate with the crepe Suzette on it. You could also get a strawberry version.

We had to wear aprons and head cover. They provided this cute head cover for me.

Susie had her own head cover. Here she is getting ready to put a crepe on the plate.

Happy workers.

Bob visiting before the crowd arrived. Notice there isn't a major crowd yet.

This music group entertained us from across the way from our stand.

This is the sign showing where La Villita is. I guess I didn't realize it was in Spanish. Oh well. Some of you might be able to figure it out.

After our shift we walked around a little, but the people were so packed that you hardly had personal space. We just decided to leave.

Morgan's Wonderland

Today Bob and I went to a volunteer training session for Morgan's Wonderland. This is a special needs park with equipment adapted for the special needs. We hope to volunteer some time here before we head back up north to Iowa. Check out the website for this park. It's supposed to be one of a kind.

http://www.morganswonderland.com/

Aunt Berta

April 23rd is our Aunt Berta's birthday and her late husband's, my Uncle Roy's, birthday. Bob and I had a great 4 hour visit with her on the 19th, a little early to celebrate, but that's OK. The 19th was also the anniversary of my mother's death, and, with joy, the birth of our newest member of our family, Dreydon, my sister's youngest daughter's new son. Welcome to Dreydon. In fact, we got the call of Dreydon's birth while we were visiting with Aunt Berta.

At Berta's we showed her some family pictures, had some cheese cake and apple pie with tea, and had the pleasure of hearing very interesting stories of Berta's life. Berta is from Germany and had stories of what it was like in Germany during WWII. Also we heard the story of how she and my Uncle Roy met and how they eventually were married.

Here is Aunt Berta with the roses we presented to her for her birthday.

Here we are having tea. MMmmmm. Good!!!!!!!! The stories were even better.

Border Patrol

Bob and I took a trip to Mexico for Bob to visit his dentist again. He has some follow up work that needed to be done. I didn't take pictures except for this one. This is a border patrol stop we have to make just before we get to Uvalde, TX on the way back to San ANtonio. It's probably about half way between Del Rio, TX, the border town on the US side (Mexico city was Acuna) and San Antonio. Anyway we aren't quite sure why it's there since it really isn't on the border. They even had working dogs checking the cars, but I didn't get a good shot of one like I tried.

Pat Left and is Back Home in Boone

My good friend, Pat, left today after a very nice visit here in San Antonio. We had a great time, and if you read all my posts you can get an idea of all the things we did. One thing I did not mention was that Pat and I did some swimming. We have "swimming laps for exercise" in common. In fact, Pat and I actually met at a swimming pool while teaching swimming lessons many, many years ago. We have gone swimming with each other many, many times in the past. I did go swimming today, and it just wasn't the same without her there too.

Although Pat's flight out of San Antonio was cancelled, she was able to book another flight that got her home only a few hours late. She is now home being missed in San Antonio, but her kids and grandkids are probably happy she's home safely and soundly. One thing that impressed me was all the communication with all of them during her stay here, texting, phoning, etc. The family that communicates is a happy family.

Thanks for a great visit, Pat.

Library Program on Water Conservation and Gardens

The last night Pat was here, we all attended a talk about Water Conservation and Gardening. It was a very good talk and very helpful information for Susie. Susie needs to revive her yard, and she got some really good tips. Pat also picked up some ideas for her garden in Boone. Some of the information was helpful to Bob and me too.

Cognitive Aging Lab

Leave it to Bob. He was reading in the paper that there was a research project being conducted at the University of Texas - San Antonio, and if you participated they would pay you $20. Well Bob, Pat, and I decided to participate. As you can see it was a project studying the aged, and I guess we all qualified.

Each of us was put at a computer station to answer questions electronically. Here is Bob pondering the correct answer to this question.

Here's Pat after she was finished.

Here's Lucy after she finished.

The questions were designed to assess memory, the ability to multitask, and vocabulary. After we were finished, our brains were fried. Pat and I left the lab laughing our heads off because some of the questions were a little too close to the truth than we wanted. For instance there was a question, "Do you ever misplace items such as glasses?" Well this past week, that actually happened to Pat. Luckily we did find them. Another one was my perception of my ability to recall words presented. I was 100% sure that I could recall words they flashed on the screen. But then the reality was that I could only recall 2 out of 10 of them. Also there was a 3 task multitask section, and when I did that, I never even paid attention to the third task. I could do 2 tasks at a time, but not 3. But what was so funny was when there was a question about that task, I told the monitor that I never had done that task. She smiled. Then I realized I had not done the task at the same time as the other ones like I was supposed to. She probably died laughing inside at this old lady. Anyway we had a really good laugh. Does that help memory? You might as well laugh at yourself. Right?

Here we are with fried brains.

We loved this statue on the campus. Ole!!!!!!

Lazy Sunday and Book Store Cat

Sunday was a rainy, lazy day. We went to church, went out to eat, visited a neat book store where we saw this cute cat, and went to a movie. Nice and relaxing.

Ahhhh!!!!!!!!

Strawberry Festival at Poteet

Last year we wanted to go to the Strawberry Festival, but we didn't so we made sure we went this year. It was a beautiful day, a little warmer that what we had planned, but still very nice.





They had rides, but none of us rode any. Not our cup of tea.

We listened to some fiddlers vying for first place in the fiddle contest.

We spun wheels to win things like banners, bandaids, rice and beans, and even a trip to Las Vegas if you want to pay $50 and make advanced reservations, etc. We probably won't go.

There were belly dancers.

There was a hypnotist. Bob volunteered to be a participant. He performed well.

Pat was out in the audience. She did respond to, "You are getting sleepy!"

Cloggers.

Dancers who looked like strawberries to me.

MMMmmmm Good!!!!

Hey, Margarita!!!!

Strawberry Shortcake. We managed to get some.

Mmmmmm. Good!!!Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's chocolate covered strawberries.

The Locals.

We did.