Happy (early) Birthday, Staci.

Guess who is having a birthday tomorrow! Hint....she got two new can openers from my weird husband who quite apparently does not approve of the one she has at her house.

So, just like we did for Don's birthday, we headed to Shreveport for the horse races. What is so fun is that we probably had 15-20 or so additional people show up t o play with us. Shreveport is about an hour and a half away from home, so everyone had to actually travel to get there! Oh, and take off work on Friday! It was a surprise for her, and we all showed up around 1:00pm.

It was opening day for the racing season. See? This is Paula and Linda Lou. I can't believe Linda Lou got off for a day. She works about as much as I do! And this weekend is recital week! So, LOTS of work this week!! But, she snuck away! As did Veronicia and Wendy. Veronicia was coming off a week of supervision of a big time field trip for elementary school 4-Hers! She was in need of a little par-tay!
This is Tammy and Mike W. We all just call him W. In fact, hardly anyone knows his actual name. It is always just "W"! Then, listen to this story... Tammy married (and divorced) Staci's first husband, Shannon. (Shannon is Hunter and Hayden's daddy... and they married young. The whole situation of all these people being together is CRAZY! Remember, we all just beebop along as one big happy family!
We had a betting machine right there in our suite! Johnnye was so impatient. He kept breaking line! TURD! Staci and I had a no brainer on this race! Horse number 11(!) was named Jinnie Jones. That was JinJin's maiden name. Cool, huh?
Jinnie didn't win us any money.

This is Sam. He is always a trooper. Some of the things we do as a group are not as accessible as we would like. For instance, in the suite, it was tri leveled, and Sam couldn't go down to the main balcony to watch the horses. We rearranged the top level so he could see the horses running around the track. We are all just kinda hanging around, and we go look out on the track and see this....Awwww... our poor little no friends, Sam! We were like, SAAAAMMMM!!! And Linda Lou, Paula, and I went down to join him! I couldn't believe he was Mr. Adventurer and headed down there without even telling anybody.

Once down there, we knew he was onto something. Check out these pictures...

Just so happened that I was betting on Sarah's Something (the #5 horse in the next race).
So as he passed, I probably broke every rule and yelled, "Yay, Sarah!" The jockey looked back at me and kinda whispered, "Yay. Sarah!" WHile down there, we kept hearing, "HEY, PAULA!" and we looked up and saw all these little birdies on a balcony! That was our crew. Here is another shot of Thathey's bestie, Veronicia. and here with her very sweet sister, Melanie! who made her sister this for her birthday.I made it at the Inspired event. It is a little trough ring with a gold wing and "hope" in it. Obviously representative of Jake and "HOPE' is St. Jude's motto. (Hey, St. Juders. I see where you are still checking in on us late night! I have a site meter and can see who's on line from where at what time. So glad you St. Juders are still there. We love you!)

Oh, and here is Staci's gay husband, Don! Don actually stopped and posed for this picture!

and this one! Gay-ness! And not in a homosexual/phobic way. Just in a goofy, extremely goofy way!
This is Carl. He was our bartender. It was an open bar, which may explain this...
Todd stole W's camera and took pictures of doorframes, people's feet, closeups of nostirls, ears, and labels...I am sure he was thrilled when he got home and looked at his pictures!
Want to see a bunch of losing tickets? That could have been any of my many from the day... ALL losers! I hate gambling! ( But horse races are really fun!)
This is Staci with her cake. I told her to just pretend there were candles and pose as she "blew" out her candles.
And after telling my photo story, I somehow came to the end and had these two pictures left over. Does anyone have the same problem as me? When I WANT to delete pics, I can't figure out how! When I don't want to delete a picture, inevitably, I am trying to take spaces out of my pictures/ text, and sho nuff... GONE!
So, with that. Enjoy these final two pics of me and Todd which didn't find there place inside the above storyline. I always just upload pics I think I may want to use, then find a spot for them when I am telling the story based on the pics I chose. NOT sure exactly why I uploaded these!

Oh, and did I mention a Kenny Chesney concert later that night?! YEP! Staci has pics of that so be checking her blog and pestering her to post more pics!
Anyway... HAppy Birthday, Staci. You are my favorite sister!

Melanie Susanne