Finally.

There's a restaurant around these parts that's known for it's fried chicken. 


We've never been able to go because it's over 30 minutes away and Shawn has to be that close to the hospital.  But something happened tonight.  He wasn't on call.  I don't know how that happened.  I don't think he is either.  But we decided to celebrate.  With chicken.  We're fancy around these parts.  The girls had a piano thingie at 7:30 so even though he wasn't on call, we still had to rush.  Luckily it was a miserable rainy day and the highway was almost empty and there was plenty of seating when we got there. 

If you're going for fancy, this is not your place.  You seat yourself, there's no printed menu (it's hung on the wall and shellaced into the table top), and no plates.  Luckily I'm a sucker for history so it's all okay. 
But there is one problem.  I don't do bones.  I eat meat that's on a bone...but only if someone removes it for me.  Luckily I married an awesome man who is willing to do that for me.  But I also got a BBQ sandwich just in case:)  Let me just say, I was the only one who didn't care for the chicken.  Or the sandwich.  And I couldn't have the nachos because they used canned cheese.  But the fried okra??  So worth the whole experience. 

Oh, and the windows made it more fun.



So if you ever find yourself in, of all places, Okarche, Oklahoma, stop by and get yourself some Eischen's.

And let me know if you don't like meat on the bone.  I can't be the only one.

Earthquake!!!!!!!!

I just lived through my first Oklahoma earthquake!

Our neighbor is a welder and my house can vibrate for 8 hours a day since his equipment is right outside my den and kitchen wall. When the rattling started I thought he was firing everything up. But when there was a big boom and everything started shaking I freaked out! My walls were shaking! Things were falling off the walls! I was on the phone with a friend who was at our church 5 blocks away and she didn't feel a thing! I really thought it was my neighbor then. I went outside to look down his driveway when I heard some alarms going off. I didn't think alarms would be affected by welding. So I went to the most reliable source; Facebook.

Yep. We had a 4.3 earthquake about 38 miles from us. It was felt into Kansas and Texas as well. I must say, I don't ever need to feel that again.

Some of my favorite Facebook posts about it:

-Great. All my OSU friends are going to be talking about the big fault in Norman... I prefer to think mother nature just quivers at the sight of the future 2010-2011 national champs...

-Okay...going to my house to turn the alarm off. Oklahoma is having it's own apocalypse. Snow over your head, hail as big as your head and now earthquakes. I'm getting my locust spray ready.

-I'm glad my husband wasn't home this morning when the house rattled - I so would have blamed him for it and accused him of eating the forbidden Big Truck Taco...

- The ground is moving because of my awesomeness! Don't be fooled by the news reports!

-Just want to say "Congratulations" to our local science museum on their earthquake simulator. That was exactly how it felt at my house this morning!

-EVERYONE RUN! EVERYONE PANIC! THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING! AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

- That wasn't an earthquake; that was a herd of people running towards my car lot. They are just excited about the savings.

-I love that you can get all your information from FB about natural phenomenons......

I am glad I have humor in this scary situation!

For all my friends who live where that can happen a lot, I am praying for you!!

And let me just say for the record, if there's a tornado in San Francisco while I'm there, I'm going to assume it's me:C)

Perfect Coloring

As I was leaving Wal-Mart last night I had to stop and take some pictures.I pulled over again exactly 7 minutes later to take this. God did an amazing job of coloring the sky in...didn't He?

More Family Fun

The third day of the Funk family visit found me once again dragging Carrie out of bed for a workout. I wonder if she'll ever do a half marathon with me again. Well, if she does, I doubt she'll visit during the training.

I had to go to work and stage a house so everyone I left behind spent the whole day poolside. When I came home I was met by this on my driveway.

Best Cousins:D

I also came home to this.

See what I see?

No, not the trash can.This.

My baby.

In the tree.

Over the top of our two story house.

We both survived.Apparently three full days of fun was too much for poor Amelia. She was up and ready to go soon after her little snooze though. Maybe we all should have taken one!Carrie wanted Ashley to see Bricktown and I wanted to take some practice senior pictures of her so we loaded up and made the trip.

This is my favorite one.We parked so that we could head straight to the fountains.

A good time was had by all.Kennedy wasn't quite sure if she wanted to get wet or not.Even at 14 McKinley can't stay out of the fountains.Reagan...oh my sweet Reagan. She was all about the water.As this picture shows, Kennedy did get in the water.

She will kill me for this picture at a later time. I'm sure of that.This move right here (and the fact that she did it about 10 times) will explain the hairdo she's sporting in the next picture. It took two days to work our way through the tangles.See what I mean?Of course we had to go to the statues.

They all started calmly enough......but soon enough, everyone went crazy.Sweet memories, great pictures, and family time. What could be better?!

Oh, I know what could be better. Getting to be up close and very personal with a dream car.

Did I mention we had snow?

Since I was happy to stay at home during the Oklahoma Blizzard I missed out on getting some good pictures. I searched the local news stations but didn't find anything blog worthy. I did find some good examples of the force of the 60+ mph winds right down the street though.

See how the wind blew the snow up into a ridge and left the grass exposed at the same time?And here, this looks like the sand at the beach after the waves pull back. Just beautiful.But still, I wanted to see how the storm had affected people. Enter Facebook. My friend Mindy had these and I had to have them.

This is a car that is stuck at a busy intersection in the next town. No really, there's a car in there.See!They're making progress.Can you believe there was a car in there? It took a little over five hours to free it. Amazing!And today, 14 days later, we still have piles of snow hanging around. And I slipped on packed ice three times on the way to school.

Now that's a storm!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve at our house traditionally involves going to our church's Candlelight Service and coming home for Mexican Stack-Ups, Layered Dessert, and playing games. I spend the morning and afternoon assembling as much food as possible for that night and Christmas Day so that I can spend some time relaxing with the family.

This year things were slightly different.

We woke up the morning of the 24th to the sound of ice hitting the house. We knew a winter storm was coming with the possibility of 1-3 inches of snow but the ice first was not a good sound. As the ice kept falling Shawn and the girls left to buy my Christmas gift.

Let's just take a moment to discuss that he'd been home every day at a decent time and had waited until that day. I was not amused and freaked out constantly until they got home. But Christmas morning when I opened my Chi it was all worth it.

Okay, discussion over.

As the ice changed over to snow the winds picked up. Up to the 60 mph mark. It was awful. Things were blowing off my porch and it sounded like our house was falling down around us.

I braved the front porch to snap a picture of my snowman and chalkboard. The chalkboard had already been blown off the bench where it usually sits.A quick look in the backyard and I could really tell it was getting bad.Just a few hours later and I checked the front porch again.

Hello snow drifts! My snowman's nose looks quite chilly.

The girls had waited as long as they could.For the next three days they were in and out over and over again. I had piles of soaking wet jeans, socks, and gloves in my entry way and patio. We're still working on the laundry. And by we I of course mean me.

Church by this time was cancelled. My Aunt Janis made the drive over but she was quite frightened and relieved to be here. She had brought the necessary items to spend the night. Smart thinking! She had planned to stop and pick up my Grandmother and Aunt Pat but couldn't get in their driveway! Shawn put the Expedition in 4 wheel drive and had a blast going over and back. Boys. We spent five hours waiting for my cousin Tyler to make a normally 15 minute trip from work to us. He would call every time he'd make it a few blocks. He spent an entire hour and a half at one intersection and never moved! He finally made it when he got on the phone with Shawn and went down some neighborhood roads to avoid the traffic. He ended up staying with us two nights!

After putting the milk and cookies out for Santa and kissing the girls goodnight I stepped outside for the last pictures of the day.Even my wreath and horseshoe were sporting some snow.The last official measurement was 14 inches. In Oklahoma, that's a blizzard!So how was your Christmas Eve? Even though ours was different it was just as wonderful. Good food, safe family, and a fire in the fireplace. I enjoyed it until everyone was asleep....then I spent over an hour getting everything out and set up for the next morning.

The work of a mom is never done!!