Ponytail Canasta with Joyce and Dan

Bob enjoys Newcastle Brown Ale

Wednesday, February 10, I'm up at 8:15. The morning speeds by; light breakfast, skipped my stretch-unusual for me. The low was 34 so it never froze but Bob leaves the water unhooked as we leave at 11:20 for Cedar Hills. We stop at Steve and Elaine's to drop off their Lasko heater. Nice of them to loan it to us. We chat for a bit and bid them farewell until our next return to Central Texas.

It is a quick drive to the other side of the neighborhood to Joyce and Dan's place. It's great to see them. The house smells heavenly as Joyce is cooking away. She shows me her microwave convection oven as well as her range convection oven. It adjusts recipes automatically. If you put in 350 degrees for a regular recipe and hit convection it goes to 300 degrees. Bob and Dan chat in the living room as Joyce and I chat in the kitchen while she puts the finishing touches on lunch.

Soon it's all served and it's way more than lunch it you ask me. Delightful chicken breast in a burgundy mushroom sauce, mashed potato/cauliflower casserole, green beans with chestnuts and turkey bacon, spiced apples and warm bread. It was all outstanding. She brings out a huge trifle for dessert with bananas, strawberries, pudding, cake and whipped cream.

Bob and Joyce are ready for Ponytail Canasta

Their little puppy, Titch, is so cute. He dances and plays dead for us. Dan deals out the Canasta cards. We play a practice round of Ponytail Canasta and then dive in for real; guys vs. gals. Joyce and I have St. Genevieve red wine and Bob has a pub ale. Joyce goes outside to get the beer and reports sleet. The guys win in a squeaker. What a fun game. Joyce copies the instructions for us so we can keep up our skills until we see them again. Their newly remodeled bathroom is wonderful with warm, rich tones.

Dan and Bob deal out the cards.

We enjoy coffee and my key lime pie before we bid them farewell. I'm so glad we were able to get together again before we leave town. It is misting as we head home at 5:00. We get a paper on j71 and then stop at Best Buy to get some new DVD discs to see if that's the problem with our DVD recorder. We head home to try therm but it still won't format the discs. Back to Best Buy. They tell us to bring in the recorder. So we go back home to get it and drive back down the hill where Best Buy refunds $70 (since the only one they have left is an 'open item.') We go back home, Bob hooks it up, re-scans the channels and Voila! The disc formats and records!

Titch wants to play too!

We watch Human Target, read the paper and record White Collar from 11:00 to midnight, thankfully. It's 9:35 p.m. and 39 degrees with 70% humidity. The high was 45. It was 52 inside when we got home but it is now 72 in the living room. We brought the bedroom heater downstairs until 9:00 and then moved it back to the bedroom. It seemed to work out better.