Happy Birthday to Joel

Ok, it was Joel's birthday last week, and we got together at Joel and Dawn's last weekend for a party for him. Had Joel's famous BBQ wings, chili, potato salad, beer, cosmos, and lots of other stuff -- and the German's Chocolate Cake for the big finale.

I brought a football, and Jeff, Joel, and I spent quite a bit of time in the back yard tossing it around and acting silly. Like we used to when we were kids, except the subjects of the silliness were updated and Joel and I tried cigars and had 'em hanging out of our mouths for a while throwing and catching the football. Felt quite manly ;-)

Betty showed up with her neice Sally -- who tolerated the adult silliness rather well. Tom showed up later and we all got to talk about Mom and Dad's new news... which is....

They're moving.

Wierd. This relatively wealthy guy who goes to their church bought two farms in Osage County. He wants Mom and Dad to go live on one of them in a pre-furnished earth contact home, so dad can oversee the farms. Later, this guy will build a house on the other farm and move out there. There's something about an old church out there on one of the properties, and some talk the possibility of an independent priest..... sounds odd to me. Mom & Dad's place is paid off. I'm not sure what the draw is for Dad. Although that particular part of Missouri is very pretty -- Mom and Dad's place doesn't suck, either. And its theirs.

It'll cut the distance between our place and "theirs" by about 1/2.

We got the killer fiber-optic jack-o-lanterns out... and last night hung out with Ryan and Kristie. The fed us jambalaya, we brought over leftover cake and veggies. We're headed to Eureka Springs in a couple of weeks with them for a 4 day weekend. That'll be fun.

Let's see, Kevin's getting his car fixed this week. Brian's looking for a second job to make ends meet.

Fall is here, the leaves are turning, and it's pretty pretty. Hopefully Eureka Springs will be a little later turning the leaves than here and we'll see some pretty colors when we're down there.