It Was A Beautiful Day At The Park

UNTIL......


Lawson fell in the water...........Law and I went to Heardmont Park, Sunday afternoon, to let him enjoy the beautiful afternoon. He stopped to play with these little black bugs that were covering the rock....you know boys and bugs! When he tired of that he skipped off ahead of me....telling me that he was going to see if he could jump over the water. There is a spot that has a very small amount of water flowing over the walkway. It is actually part of a small stream that is usually almost dried up in that spot. There is also a bridge close to the spot (who wants to use a bridge???) but last summer, the spot where the water flows over the walkway, was low enough that Lawson could jump over it. Well, he got there and it was way too wide to jump over...you know all that rain we have had lately. I was closing in on the few steps he was ahead of me but before I could get to him......he decided to try to tiptoe across....yep, you guessed it.....he fell.

Soaking wet on a January day.

We had to leave...of course. His feelings were really hurt. We stripped off his wet clothes in the car as I blasted the heater. He wanted to take off ALL his wet clothes.....I told him I would have a hard time explaining to a policeman why I had a "nekkid" little boy in my back seat!!!! So, he rode home in wet underwear and socks. He thought that was kinda cool. BOYS!

Our Family Christmas Cards 2011

One of these days I will write "the stories behind the Christmas card"....because there always is one. I love making these pictures and sending them. It is a little record of our family. How....I wish I had done one every year. Sometimes...when I mail out my cards I think....nobody wants this card and then someone will tell me how much they enjoyed the card and it is all worth the effort. I love getting Christmas cards..picture or no picture...but I really love seeing a picture of your family. I save all my Christmas cards and we look through them every year at Christmas. My daughter in law, Kim Lawson, of Kim Lawson Photography does my card for me every year. A great before Christmas present!!!! This year my son in law, Dave Long, edited the picture for me.

John & Joy's Family

BACK

Brady and Kim Lawson's Family

inside

back

David & Courtney Long's Family

Back

Tuesdays with MeMe

It was a "Rip Stik" kind of day!

CATHY

"If there ever comes a day when we

can't be together, keep me in your

heart, I'll stay there forever"

Winnie the Pooh

Hallmark moment

Can't you just picture the wording that would go with this picture in one of those cute Hallmark cards!

Hard to Believe

He's SEVEN!!!!

Happy Birthday

To.... MeMe and Pops.....little BIG man. We love you

The Flag

I put a picture of this flag on my FB page right after we got in our room in NOLA. It was flying from our balcony and we could see it from the window in our sitting room that was attached to our bedroom. We got a kick out of it when we realized we would be looking at it for 3 days. BUT...................................................................................................................

when we woke up Tuesday morning after the game this is what we saw!

The Game

I don't think I put the name of the B&B we stayed at in New Orleans. Since we were so pleased with our stay I thought I would put their name on here. Park View Guest House. www.parkviewguesthouse.com.

John and I walked here for about two hours while we waited on our room to be ready. It is beautiful and has a lot of shade so you can enjoy it on a warm day. Which it turned out to be the whole time we were there. The last two times I was in NOLA for a bowl game we wore our long wool coats!

Tulane University was right across the street from our B&B and Loyola was right beside Tulane.

The church on Jackson Square. Not sure if those Bama fans are praying or looking at the ceiling

Riding the trolley to the big game. Standing up in front of us were the sweetest couple. He was an Auburn fan and she was an Alabama fan. He told us that he loved her dearly and that he supported Alabama when he could. He said he was going to the game with his AU shirt on and with his AU shaker and every time Alabama did something good that he was going to shake his shaker and that she did the same for him. They were really cute!

Trent Richardson's Uncle. He was a hoot. He came to the back of the trolley where we were sitting and talked to us and shook our hands.

The blimp and the dome. Words can not describe the mess it was to get into the dome. I am not sure what the problem was but we stood in line for 1 and 1/2 hours to get in. They only had two entrances open!

The coin toss. Let the game begin.

Wow.....I never dreamed in 1992 ( when we won a National Championship that we could not go to because of the accident that Curt had ) when I asked John to promise me I would be at the next National Championship....that I would be at two in the space of 3 football seasons. We almost sold our tickets. I am so glad we didn't.

John holds his emotions pretty steady.....but if you had been in those stands when the clock hit 00:00.....you would have seen him whoop, holler and swing me around. He was one happy man!

Can you hear the crickets chirping??? The LSU fans were all gone before we made a touchdown

And here is the Crimson Nation. Still there a hour and a half later

One happy couple. Thank you, honey. On the way home, John started talking about next year. I didn't realize where he was going....first he said that he thought that we would have a "good" team with "good" talent but that talent would need to be molded and trained so.....he did not think we would be going to the BCS Championship Game next year but.....just in case....he was telling me now that he was not going to Miami!

Celebrating after the game on Bourbon Street. John and I got home at 3:00.

They were replaying the game where we ate supper....at 2:00 AM. John went in a drug store and bought us some alka seltzer....just in case!

This seasoning was on the shelf just down from the alka seltzer. I couldn't resist a pic.

LET'S ROLL

TIDE ROLLJohn and I headed down to New Orleans for the big game.

We did not decide to go to the game until Thursday. We had our tickets since 2 weeks before Christmas and were lucky enough to get them for face value. We decided the Tuesday before the game to try to sell them. I knew the only way I would sell them would be if I could get a really good price for them. I was uneasy about my decision to try to sell them. I was also uneasy about spending the money to go to the game after we had gone to the Rose Bowl BCS game in 2009 so.....I felt like if we got a big price for the tickets that I would know it was just meant for us to stay home. We put them up for sale the same day that The Tuscaloosa News came out with an article about how the price of the tickets were going to drop ( we only saw 2 tickets for sale in NOLA ). Well, we only had one call and they didn't call back. John called me Thursday morning and told me he had decided to forget selling the tickets .....he wanted to go! That was all I needed to hear. I got on the computer hunting a place to stay. I was a little worried about finding a room. Well, I did find rooms....for 399.00, 499.00 and 599.00 a night. Nope...not me...I refuse to pay that for a Hampton or Holiday Inn...plus they required that you stay 3 nights. We only wanted to do 2 nights. I am too old for 3 nights of NOLA!

I guess fate just wanted us to be there. I just kept clicking through Google and came upon a B&B that had a great room, would let us stay for 2 nights, the total was less than one night at the other places and we could ride the street car to the French Quarter. So....I started packing

Then guess what.....the next day John's phone started exploding with calls of people wanting to buy our tickets. One person offered to buy our room also. John told them that we had decided to go and they should have called earlier. (the ticket prices did not go down)

The B&B

the park beside the B&B

our first night on Bourbon Street