September 5th, 2015

Theodore Roosevelt: "It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things."

So it's not Friday Night in Winslow but rather a Saturday in Marble Falls, AR.  If your wondering where the bleep is that, I don't blame you!  It's located on highway 7, between Jasper and Harrison. Home of the old amusement park, Dogpatch U.S.A which is being revived.  The park opened in 1968 and was based on the comic strip, Li'l Abner.  From what I gather, they are not trying to restore it into an amusement park but they are trying to clean it up and save the old buildings!

They were having an event, Pirate Invasion, though I don't really get where the theme came from there were quite a few folks that got involved and dressed up.  Their FB page talked about explosive demonstrations, a parade, music, vendors, and more.  I located a flyer when we arrived that boasted of much more than that but it was a two day event and there was no schedule of events.  I'm a planner so it really sucked to not know when things were happening.  They desperately need an organizing fanatic (such as myself), to help them in their marketing and planning.  The site didn't give enough information to find your way there, let alone know when the events were.  In fact, their FB page told you the wrong place to enter and park!!  

At any rate, we arrived in enough time to see the "parade" which consisted of about a dozen ladies and gents dressed as wenches and pirates and they walked 20 feet or so into the "square".

After that, they gather around and played some music.  We walked around and checked out the vendors and then explored the park a bit. It was cool to see the old place and made me wish that somebody had gotten to saving it sooner.  I know people that have been there back in the day, including Damon.  I wish I could have seen it in all it's glory.  Anyway, really cool that someone is trying to save it!

Afterwards, we stopped off for a cold beer and some air conditioning (it was unbelievably humid that day), then headed back to the hotel to kick back and relax.  We stayed in Harrison because it was the closest we could find someplace to stay to Dogpatch.  We had dinner at a nice little Italian place called Roma Italian Restaurant and it was really good, didn't look like much on the outside but we were pleasantly surprised.

Before heading home, we realized how close we were to where some of Damon's family was many, many years ago.  We found the cemetery where they were buried and visited on the way back home.

Until our next adventure.......or maybe just a quite night in little ol Winslow, who knows!

August 28th, 2015

Ville Valo: "Life is like a puzzle and my pieces are spread all over the world."

We're all caught up on Sherlock, only a few episodes which SUCKS but it's suppose to have a special this Christmas, which makes me happy.  It's a really great show that you definitely need to check out!

After work, some of my co-workers went out to celebrate my bosses birthday.  We went to Ozark Escape in Fayetteville.  If you haven't heard it's where you get locked in a room with some other folks and you have to find the clues to unlock the door.  I had no idea we had one of these in Fayetteville but did read about one in Tulsa and have been wanting to go really bad!  Of course, I'm a little twisted because it sounded like some crazy Saw shit but I was down to try!

I will admit that we didn't get out of the room before the buzzer went off, I completely and utterly blame my teammates.  I, on the other hand, was doing some serious Nancy Drew shit lol!!! Seriously though, it was fun and I would definitely like to do it again!

Anyway, now it's time to relax, curl up on the couch with a glass of wine and my hubby, and watch a movie.  Thank God It's Friday!!!!!

Until next time!

August 21st, 2015

Benjamin Franklin: "Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy."

Now that we are done with our mission of watching every "Best Picture" Oscar winning movie ever made, and have also now finished binge-watching all 8 seasons of House M.D. on Netflix, we've started on a BBC series called Sherlock. It's about what Sherlock Holmes would be like and how he would solve his crimes in modern-day London.  He is played by Benedict Cumberbatch (Who was In the Best Picture Oscar winning movie 12 Years a Slave and was in The Hobbit as the voices of Smaug and Necromancer) and his sidekick, Dr. Watson, is played by Martin Freeman (who was also in The Hobbit as the star, Bilbo Baggins). The show is really great! we just started and there aren't that many episodes yet, but it's a pretty awesome show.

After work a friend and I stopped off at Grubs Uptown for a cold drink and some delicious cheese fries!  The fries were really good and a full order was way too much for the two of us but we had a good time hanging out after a long week at work!

Another Friday Night in Winslow and it's time for our first homemade wine tasting!  We have now finished making our first four batches of wine.  Our first four batches were made with frozen strawberries and somehow they all came out tasting more peachy than like strawberries.  Damon made slight changes to the recipe of each batch as he was making them, so we saved out a small sample of each batch so that we could come back later and sample them all side-by-side and see which recipe we liked the best!

We, and when I say we, I mean Damon does most all of the actual making of wine, while I help him with the drinking!  I'm just offering up my taste buds for a good cause and quality control, don't ya know! 

Keep in mind, it takes about three months from start to finish to make a single batch of wine, so we've been working up to our 4 batch comparison tasting for awhile.  After many months, we have now ended up with samples of four slightly different batches of homemade strawberry wine.  So now on to the comparison testing!

I know, that looks like a lot of wine right?  Who cares, it's Friday and the end to yet another crazy long week!!!  After the two of us sampled all the slightly different recipes, we decided that our 3rd batch was the best and have ear-marked that recipe for the next time we want to make some strawberry wine!  But for now, we are moving on to making grape wine! We plan to do the same thing as we did with the strawberry wine, by making four slightly different batches of the grape wine and having another side-by-side wine tasting for the best recipe when we're done.  Might take us awhile, but stay tuned!

Happy Friday All!