Something Great

Well this weekend MJ and I were a part of something great.

First we spent the night at the Kirkpatricks, enjoying company and new friends. That was fantastic. We all laughed a lot.

Saturday morning I was invited to golf with my brother in law Britain. It was a little more sunny than expected and I got burnt to a crisp. Shot a good round of golf for the first of the year, and actually witnessed a snake killing on the 16th hole. That was the highlight of the day, good job Ray.

Immediately following the round of golf MJ and drove to Oklahoma City to participate in the OKC Memorial Marathon. Nine runners from Childress participated and they all did awesome. Three ran a half marathon, Randy Allen ran a full marathon (amazing), and MJ and I participated in a marathon relay. We each ran a leg of the relay. Each leg was of various lengths and in the end, the five of us completed a marathon together. Our Team included Joe and MJ Waldron, Haley Allen, Lindsey Keys, and Lee Ann Dean. Our time was somewhere in the neighborhood of four and a half hours. But that is not what we ended up talking about.

During the race we all just could not help but be touched by the spirit of the event. The wheelchair participants, the runners running for a cause or to tribute someone lost, were all so inspiring. As hard as it is to explain, it is a feeling I will never forget.

Lastly, my hat goes off to Randy for doing what so few in the world would even consider. He completed a 26.2 mile marathon in a little over 5 and a half hours with the last 13 or so miles into a 20 mile an hour head wind which in his words "ate my lunch" and was "ridiculous." Pushing him through the last half was a relay member. Lee Ann Dean ran her leg of the relay then waited for Randy to get to her station and ran the remainder of the race with him. That means she ended up running nearly 17 miles or so to help a friend who could have used a little company.

This is the whole group

This is our relay team

And this is the relay crossing the finish line, minus Lee Ann who was still running with Randy Allen.


It was awesome and now we have state testing at school and the vines are being delivered on Wed. the 29th. So the vineyard will be in full swing this weekend. Planting 2000 vines as quickly as possible. anyone want to help?????

Carpet

Well we have made some progress on both the vineyard and the house. In the vineyard the long process of getting all the structure in is about done. What was going to take about 10 days has taken over a month. Don't get me started. I do not have a picture to show, but the irrigation is hooked up and running, and all that remains is the fence that goes around the whole vineyard. That should be started today.

The house has changed dramatically. The carpet was installed on Thursday. Two guys from Carpet world in Lubbock came Thursday morning at 9:00 am and left Friday morning at 6:00 am. That's right they stayed all night until it was done. I guess they finished at one in the morning and slept a bit before they drove back to Lubbock. Anyway it looks amazing. Val Podea and his brother Chris started the stair railing, and Joe Stalcup finished the stain and lacquer on the cabinets.

So here are a few pictures, one is an up close of the carpet so you can have an idea what it really looks like.

More to come....

p.s. Anyone want to help plant vines on April 25th? We need around 15 people to really make it work fast and effective. Let me know.