Warning...May Contain Images Not Suitable for Young Children...

From garbage can to tied to a tree.

To dinner plate.

...

What's under the blanket??


Well, I'm glad you asked!


It's a dead wild pig, of course!!

Oh yeah, it's already been gutted and liberated from its head.


Now it's stuffed in a trash can packed on ice sitting in my garage.


This is what happens when Dodd boys converge.

Lewis Carroll was wrong?

I never particularly loved Alice in Wonderland, but I happened upon this book in the library and thought I'd take a chance.

I'm glad I did.

Classified as Young Adult, this book occupied my spare time the entire weekend. Here's the synopsis:

You know the myth...

A little girl named Alice tumbled down a rabbit hole and proceeded to have a charming adventure in the delightful, made-up world of Wonderland...

Now discover the truth... Wonderland Exists!

Alyss Heart, heir to the Wonderland throne, was forced to flee through the Pool of Tears after a bloody palace coup staged by the murderous Redd. Lost and alone in Victorian London, Alyss is befriended by an aspiring author to whom she tells the violent, heartbreaking story of her young life only to see it published as the nonsensical Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alyss had trusted Lewis Carroll to tell the truth so that someone, somewhere would find her and bring her home. But Carroll had gotten it all wrong. He even misspelled her name! If not for royal bodyguard Hatter Madigan's nonstop search to locate the lost princess, Alyss may have become just another society woman sipping tea in a too-tight corset instead of returning to Wonderland to fight Redd for her rightful place as the Queen of Hearts.

Meet the heroic, passionate, monstrous, vengeful denizens of this parallel world as they battle each other with AD-52's and orb generators, navigate the Crystal Continuum, bet on jabberwock fights and travel across the Chessboard Desert.

The Looking Glass Wars unabashedly challenges our Wonderland assumptions of mad tea parties, sleepy dormice, and a curious little blonde girl to reveal an epic battle in the endless war for Imagination.

Just beware, this is the first book in a trilogy. Luckily all are published, though I haven't read them yet. Hopefully they're as good as the first...

For Chris...too bad you ain't here!

Below is a lake house my parents are buying on Lake Cypress Springs.

From the lake looking up. There is a zig zag path going up, and stairs on the left.

Walkout basement. The main level is the upper level in this picture. I am at the top of the path that leads to the lake. The stairs in the far left also lead to the lake.

The balcony is in the Master area.

I'm standing where you'd park. The road is a little ways behind me.

Boat house and deck.

From the bottom of the stairs.

From close to the entry door. You come in and the dining area is right there (that's where I'm standing), the living room ahead and the kitchen is to the right.

The entry door is there on the left. I am standing in front of the sink in the kitchen.

Still standing by the sink, looking to the living room. Connor is coming up from the downstairs area. The refrigerator is to the right of that stool and the stove is a little closer to me on the same wall as the fridge.

Standing between the living and dining. Upstairs is the master bedroom area. You can see the hall leading to the other bedrooms and bath. The first door on the left in the hall goes to downstairs. The second is the bathroom. The door at the end of the hall is a closet. The bedrooms are on the left and right of that closet.

This one is to the left.

This one is to the right.

Standing by the stairs to go up, in the living room.

Close to the top of the stairs.

Looking out, standing in the Master.

The window is actually a door to a balcony. The balcony faces the road. The first door on the left is to the bathroom. The second door that is pretty much hidden in this picture is to the walk-in closet.

Standing at the doorway coming from the downstairs (basement).

One of two areas downstairs. In the far left of this picture is the door frame to the laundry room.

Stairs leading to the main level. I am standing in another area of the basement that I didn't take a picture of. If I turned around there would be a sitting area where they had couches and a TV. The wall looking out to the lake is all glass like the main level and has a door to the outside.

All Systems Go...

Veteran's Day Air Show
Gilmer, Texas

This Post's for You...

Summer 2000

Caleb and Berkley

Connor and Berkley

Cate and Berkley

I miss you...

Fairy, Fix-It, and Famous-Weapons-Manufactuer

Handy Manny and Iron Man

Tinker Bell

Eleven Years, Baby...

Cheesecake...need I say more?


I think not.


I first had this cheesecake eleven years ago. Since then I've dreamed about it. And I finally got it again when we went to Indiana last week!

From Whence I Came...

Brothers from another Mother...

Matthew is my youngest cousin. He and Caleb are about the same age.

And they're both crazy!

(They're actually first cousins once removed--I think.)

Well, we didn't kill anyone...

This past weekend we took a trip to Beaver's Bend. Not your typical camping trip because of our accommodations...and I have to say, I had no problem with that.

As Kim called it--"our tent".

The Three Amigos at the door to our cabin.

Broken Bow Lake.
We didn't do much here other than throw rocks into the water and try to keep the kids from falling to their deaths over the bridge.






Behind the Forest Heritage Museum.





Ride em' cowboys.

We built a fire both nights and it provided our suppers and desserts. Everyone loved the smores.

Chowing down on breakfast. The good thing--one of many-- about the cabin was that it was totally stocked with cooking supplies. We only had to bring food.

Canoeing on the Lower Mountain Fork River.

Caleb was quite unsure at first.

Cate dry.

Cate wet. She decided to take a dip.

"Horsies momma!"

We rode a miniature train through the woods. It wasn't much, but surprisingly several deer waited around for us to catch a glimpse.

And then our trip was somewhat cut short by rain. We'd planned hiking, but didn't want to do it in the mud!