A Jeanne in the Kitchen

I am taking a slight detour from our Texas Thanksgiving adventures to share the fun Christmas gifts that I have already received. If you are one who waits until Christmas before opening all your gifts, SPOILER ALERT!!!!! I am not one of those people. I am like a little kid, and I just have to open presents as soon as I receive them. By the same token though, when I give someone gifts, I want them to do the same, because I get so excited when seeing the smiles on the faces when they open them. 🙂 🙂 🙂

I have always said we have a real tight knit “family” and community here on WordPress. And everyday, I feel the bonds growing stronger and stronger. Gail, from http://snapshotsincursive.com/ sent me a delicious jar of her festive pecans and nuts, direct from her kitchen to mine. This little surprise package was waiting for us upon our return home from Texas. 🙂 Thank you so much Gail. Perfect timing too. As much as I hate to share these delicious treats, I will. We are having our annual Christmas Ornament exchange party on Saturday, and I will put these festive nuts out on the table too. Though I confess, I will hide them a bit, making them harder for everyone else to see. 🙂

And my dear friend Julia, from http://retirementrvdream.wordpress.com/, also sent me a beautiful present from the heart. Those are ALWAYS the best gifts. As many of you know, Julia is an exceptional artist, fabulous cook, and gifted in so many other ways too. She drew her own Christmas card for me, knowing how much I love Santas, and sent some dried basil from her garden, along with a pair of beautiful turtle earrings and a froggie/wine tea towel. She knows me SO WELL!!!!!! I LOVE turtles, and have a collection, along with many other sea creatures, all around the house. And the froggies have a fun story behind them too. When I was teaching H2O Aerobics, which now seems like a lifetime ago, one of my favorite exercises was “froggies”, so all of my peeps started giving me all kinds of fun things with frogs on them. So I also have a fun collection of frogs around too.

And when we visited with our nephew Jared and his family in Pratt, KS, https://ajeanneinthekitchen.com/2025/12/04/our-texas-thanksgiving-part-2-pratt-ks/, we exchanged our Christmas gifts too. Our niece Lexi knows how much I love wearing scarves, and she gave me a beautiful Christmas scarf, as well as other beautifully fun gifts. Here I am modeling it. We had our first Christmas event on Thursday, so it was the perfect time to wear my new Christmas scarf. 🙂

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays everyone. ‘Tis the season to be jolly and to celebrate with loved ones. I am very blessed indeed to be gifted with so many wonderful, thoughtful friends and family. Thank you all. 🙂

We had another full, busy day in Beaumont. Before meeting with my cousins Donna and David for lunch, and all four of us once again visiting with my Uncle Clarence, there was something else I had to do while in the Beaumont area. I had to visit my mother, my grandparents and aunts and uncles. My mother is buried just a few steps away from my grandparents, and I have many aunts and uncles who are all buried at the same cemetery as well, including my mom’s oldest brother, my Uncle Raymond and his wife, my Aunt Gloria.

Mom is buried near the Four Apostles. She is well protected and surrounded by the love of so many of her family.

I talked to my mom, told her I loved her, shed more than a few tears, and then visited with the rest of the family there. Once we left the cemetery, it was time to visit with the family who are still here. We met with my cousins Donna and David (Raymond & Gloria’s kids) for lunch, and then all four of us went to go visit with our Uncle Clarence.

At first, we weren’t sure how Uncle Clarence was going to be since we tired him out the day before, but all six of us had a great time and shared a lot of fun stories from the past and a lot of laughs. It was a beautiful day so we all enjoyed our visit out on the front porch of the nursing home.

I couldn’t clean this picture up any more, since it was heavily backlit, but at least we are there with big smiles and a lot of love. My uncle said he felt real loved with all of us being there and spending time with him.

Family, no matter how far away, is the best gift. Make time for your loved ones today. Tomorrow is never promised.

After visiting with Uncle Clarence, Aunt Ginger and Karen, we worked up an appetite, especially since we hadn’t really eaten much before our visit. Karen recommended the Black Bear Diner that was close to our hotel.

As you would imagine, there were images and artifacts of black bears all throughout the restaurant.

The service was great, and the staff were all very friendly, serving up as much Southern hospitality as they did the very large TEXAS portions of food. Larry ordered a steak sandwich with a salad.

I ordered fried chicken. There was NO way I could eat everything on my plate, so Larry finished what he could, after eating his own meal, and then the rest became lunch for another day. I didn’t try Larry’s sandwich, but my chicken was EXCELLENT.

The Black Bear is a a small chain of restaurants, with locations scattered in a few different states. It was originally founded in California, and still operates like a small family restaurant, focusing on good, wholesome family food and great service. Nothing fancy, but it sure is delicious. Often times, simple is best. 🙂

After leaving the Dallas/Ennis area, we headed straight down to Beaumont, Texas for a visit with my Aunt Ginger and my Uncle Clarence. We had another 4 hour drive from Ennis down to Beaumont. Clarence is the youngest of my mom’s brothers, and is the only one left. He is also my only uncle left, and Ginger is my only remaining aunt. (I think. I am not sure about my Aunt Sylvia in Australia. She disowned us a long time ago because we visited other family and friends the last time we were down under, and didn’t spend all of our time with her. But that’s a whole other story.) Clarence, now 84, almost 85, was the baby of the family. Sadly, my uncle suffers the family curse of dementia, but so far, he doesn’t have it nearly as badly as everyone else had it. We had a real good visit with both of them, as well as my cousin Karen, Uncle Clarence’s daughter. We were there visiting for about 4 hours. We tired poor Uncle Clarence out. My Aunt Ginger said he was really looking forward to our visit, and everyday he would ask her if “today was the day we were coming”. Visiting with them was really the impetus of this trip.

Visit and spend time with your loved ones while you can. None of us are getting any younger, and tomorrow is never promised. This is why today is the present. It’s a gift to be treasured.

We randomly picked a restaurant in Ardmore, OK, for dinner, not knowing anything about it. We went to Two Frogs, about 30 miles from the OK, TX border. Little did we know that Two Frogs is a pretty famous hot spot for musicians.

The owner is a famous rock photographer and has autographed photos and guitars from many, many famous musicians.

The food was very good too. We are entering bayou country, so a lot of good Cajun food, as well as other choices, was on the menu. Larry ordered crawfish Alfredo.

I ordered blackened catfish with crawfish and voodoo sauce. Both were delicious, but I liked mine better. 🙂

After dinner we drove straight through to Ennis, TX, outside of Dallas, where we stayed for the night. It was a long day, but it was filled with lots of fun adventures. 🙂

Pratt, KS is only about 40 minutes from the Oklahoma border, and we needed to go through OK to get to Texas. Most of our day was a driving day. Without stops the drive is a 6 1/2 hour drive and is 438 miles or 686 km. But we made a couple of stops along the way, since OK was a new state for us (we have been to most of the 50 states, and are down to only single digits of states we have not yet seen).

The Kansas/Oklahoma border.

Of course we had to make a few necessity stops, but we took advantage of those too, and made them fun. We have started a fun trend of taking selfies of the day to share with everyone while traveling. One of the pit stops had a dog park that was all ready for Christmas. And everyone knows we are big dog lovers.

These pictures were taken from the car, while driving.

We had definitely entered The Bible Belt region of the country.

We also made a fun and necessary stop at the OK City Visitor’s Center. While there we asked about things to see and do on our way.

One of the suggestions was to go visit the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. OK is a large part of cowboy country, as was the whole area we visited, so off we went. The museum did a good job of covering all aspects of life in the western and cowboy states. I highly recommend it. It mostly featured the way of life for cowboys, but it also covered everything about living in the high plains and the west, and the western movie classics, and the rodeo way of life. They did a good job of featuring the different Native American cultures of the areas too.

This is the giant sculpture that you see when you first enter the museum.

Then there were big statues of Charleton Heston and John Wayne,

Ronald Reagan,

and, of course, Abraham Lincoln.

We toured the outside gardens first.

Larry was trying his skills as a roper. It’s a good thing we don’t have to rely on those skills. 🙂

The outside gardens had replicas of different Native American homes and lifestyles.

Life was difficult for everyone, cowboy, settler or “Indian” in those days.

People moving west would pack up all their earthly possessions, food, and their family into these covered wagons to make their long, arduous trek westward.

Long live the cowboys!

After touring the outside gardens, we ventured inside once again. Once of the large displays was a replica of any western town throughout the nation, complete with one-room schools, churches, hotels, and jail cells.

Larry was practicing his sermon

while I landed in jail.

We saw A LOT of cattle along the way, all throughout this trip, and we saw a lot of Texas longhorns too.

If you are interested in how the west was won, I highly recommend visiting the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, OK. It was very informative and very well presented. It’s a good family excursion for locals and tourists alike.

After making sure Ollie was OK Our Texas Thanksgiving – Part 1 – Hays, KS, we headed 2 hours south to Pratt, KS to visit our nephew Jared and his family. It just so happened that the town of Pratt was displaying it’s annual Christmas display for the season’s first night on the day we were there. They did a beautiful job.

First, we went to the park in the daylight hours to see the day’s festivities, where Santa and one of his reindeer were greeting visitors.

Then we strolled around taking in the sights and letting the boys have some fun. There were lots of fun family activities for everyone to enjoy.

Larry, our nephew Jared and his youngest son Callen at the deer toss.

Jared, Callen and Gentry doing a reindeer race.

All six of us took a hayride around the park too.

It was still too light for the Christmas lights so we decided to go out to dinner first then come back for the lights later. We took Jared, Lexi and the boys out to dinner at Cancun Mexican Restaurant. The food was very good.

After dinner, we went back to the park to see all the Christmas lights. Pratt did an excellent job of lighting the parks up. One park was random and the other park had a theme of the 12 Days of Christmas. The Christmas displays were beautiful and very creative. These are just some of the highlights. I just love seeing all the brightly colored Christmas lights.

After driving around to see all the lights, the boys were tired, so we all went back to Jared and Lexi’s house for a fun family game night and presents. Both Gentry and Callen woke up again for presents and games. 🙂

We all had so much fun together. Next stop – a drive through Oklahoma before landing in Dallas for the night.

I know. It’s confusing when I call it our “Texas Thanksgiving” and our first day is in Hays, KS, but we drove and Hays was our first stop. Hays is where Larry is from and his mom Ollie still lives there, and still lives by herself at 96.

We left Friday 11/21, around noon, and arrived in Hays just in time for BINGO. Ollie loves BINGO. We went with Ollie and Phillip, one of our nephews. Collectively, we won over $400, and Ollie’s rule is that all the winnings are split evenly. So we all came out of BINGO $106 richer than when we entered.

BINGO was a huge win for all of us. After BINGO, and the next morning, however, we had a big scare. Ollie fell as we were going to bed on Friday night, and really banged herself up badly. She wouldn’t let us take her to the hospital and insisted she was OK. The next morning, she fell again, and almost fainted in Larry’s arms. We called 911 and they were there instantly and took her to the hospital. The doctors checked her heart and her vitals, and said it was not a heart attack or a stroke, which is great news. But the bad news is that we don’t know what is causing these falls (she has fallen quite a few times lately). But, after about an hour, the hospital released her and let her go home again. We stayed to make sure she was OK, and Larry’s sister Jean, who lives nearby came over. Ollie told us she was OK and told us to leave for the rest of our trip, to drive safely and to have a good time.

Next stop is in Pratt, still in KS, to visit our nephew Jared and his family.

I’m back. Did you miss me? We got home late last night, and now we are transitioning into the Christmas season. We had a great trip, visiting with family and doing all kinds of fun things, but as always, as soon as we get back from a trip, I hit the ground running and have tons of things to do. I am just now getting my busy day started, but just wanted to let you know I’m back. I will start posting and sharing again in a few days.

I also wanted to share something else with you that I saw as I started my arduous task of going through all my emails.

Congratulations! Your site, A Jeanne in the Kitchen, passed 500,000 all-time views, and counting! WHOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!! This is because of ALL of YOU!!!!!! Thank you so much. Let’s keep this trend going!!!! 🙂

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe, stay well and Happy Holidays.

Larry and I are off once again. This time we are headed to Texas for a Texas Thanksgiving with some of my cousins. We are leaving today, and will be gone for about 2 weeks. Once again, I will be out of touch for the duration of our trip. I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. I will see you soon.

Live it up, and enjoy your day with family, friends and loved ones, and just remember, the Thanksgiving calories don’t count. 🙂