Recapping the weekend...

We had a wonderful long weekend, but it is never long enough. Saturday morning we got up and ate breakfast, only to end up falling asleep a few minutes later on the couch and chair. We finally got motivated about 11:00 am and I went out to put the last coat of paint on a door that I was refinishing and my hubby cleaned up his Harley. We decided to go into town and catch a matinee movie. We made it in for $10, but by the time that we grabbed something for "lunch" it ended up being a $31 date. We headed to gas up for our trip to the Ranger's game and made a stop by the Harley shop. Big mistake...more to come on that later. We grabbed a few groceries and headed home to grill some yummy steaks for dinner.

Sunday we went to church and then ran to see if a local store had Nathan's hot dogs (because nothing else will do!) and I found a cute bag in the process. We went home, ate our leftover steak for lunch, hung the door (which looks beautiful and I will share pictures later) and then my hubby headed to the deer lease. Since we were going to the Ranger's game with a big group including kids, I figured that I would make cupcakes and cookies for the tailgating party. It turned into a bake-a-thon. I broke in our double ovens with two dozen cupcakes, three dozen peanut butter cookies, three dozen chocolate chip cookies, and almost two and a half dozen of these...

I bought this cookie cutter the other day (that is 5 inches wide) so I could make these for our China kids and take them with us. I decided that the Ranger's group would be my test subjects. I ended up getting 28 cookies from a couple of batches of sugar cookie dough. By the time that my hubby returned from the lease, I had turned into Betty Crocker and our counter was full of yummy treats. We went over to some friend's house for dinner (where we ended up buying a smoker that they had in their garage sale pile) and when we got home, the icing commenced. I made my first ever double batch of royal icing and we both got into action. This is not a perfect specimen, but it is pretty cute if I do say so myself. Hubby did all the stars, while I started icing the cupcakes. We were beat by the time that we finished and 5:45am came pretty a little too soon!

Monday we headed out to meet everyone for our trek to The Ballpark. We ended up not taking our car and rode with friends and four kids (2 junior highers and 2 elementary kiddos...not too overwhelming!). We met up with everyone (25 of us all together) and fired up the grill. After stuffing the kids full of hotdogs and cookies (which were a hit) and the adults full of burgers, we cleaned everything up, left the grill smoking, and headed in with just minutes to spare. In fact, we had just arrived at third level (we were in the nosebleed section) when they had the moment of silence and the National Anthem. On the last line of the Star Spangled Banner, four Texas Army National Guard helicopters did a fly over the stadium. Talk about impressive! You couldn't help but cheer for the country we live in, the people who fought for our right to live here, and the men and women who continue to serve on our behalf. Then the Yankee's started playing some ball. I say the Yankee's, because the Ranger's didn't really show up that day. The final score was 11-1 and we missed the only run by making our exit in the bottom of the ninth. They did come back and beat the Yankee's last night, but Monday's game was great anyway!
I only took a few pictures, but I was most impressed with the star that the groundskeeper put between the baselines. My hubby said that he is going to try this in our front pasture...sure! This picture is right after the Ranger's tagged A-Rod out. He is trotting back to the dugout. We were only about eight rows from the top of the stadium, but if we were three rows lower, we would have spent the day roasting in the sun. We hiked our way back down the ramps, picked up the semi-cool grill (surprise, it was still there) and headed for home. We were all wiped from the day, but it was a fun one. The kids slept most of the way home and the adults played name that song with the iTouch. Can't beat a happy ending!