I was super excited to drive to Lawton, Oklahoma and visit my dress sponsor Crowning Around. They were holding a trunk show with the latest designs from Tony Bowls (my favorite!), Sherri Hill, and Ashley Lauren among others.
I was looking forward to nailing down the final details for my custom Tony Bowls competition gown for the Mrs. International pageant next July. I was also hoping to get the remaining pieces of my wardrobe figured out.
First, I have to tell you how awesome the customer service is at Crowning Around. Lawton is three hours away from my home in Tulsa and a five hour flight from my home in California but I’ve never received such amazing customer service at any other shop and it was worth the drive to know that they would be doing their very best to help me with everything that I needed. I wasn’t disappointed!
It was so great to visit with Cynthia who helped me find the items I was looking for. She’s so kind and helpful and I feel like I’ve made a lifelong friend. I was also excited to see Victoria Wiggins, the new Mrs. Kansas USA. I met Victoria when she was a teen and competed in one of our Oklahoma International regional pageants. I’m super excited for her new title and I love how she bent over backwards to help me over the phone the first time I called the shop last month.
All in all, it was a fabulous day. I’m excited for the sponsorship, I’m excited for the awesome wardrobe, I’m excited to have new friends! Thank you, Crowning Around!
Since the first time we visited the 18 Wheeler Diner, I’ve been fiending a piece of their pie.
Look at that BIG pie!
We hadn’t moved to Sallisaw when we first saw this pie case. And when we found a place to move, it turned out to be less than a mile away from the pie case.
I told David that we could walk to the diner, have pie, and walk home and it would sort of negate the effect of eating the pie. But we decided that we would only eat pie if someone came to visit us.
So I told everyone. On twitter, on facebook, in real life. Come visit and we’ll eat pie!
And we hadn’t had any pie at the 18 Wheeler Diner until yesterday.
I got a surprise message on facebook from my friend Laura. “We’re coming through Sallisaw, can I buy you a slice of pie?”
Woo hoo! We were finally going to have pie!
So, like we said we’d do, we walked over to the diner to meet Laura and her husband, Scott.
Then it was a BIG decision, because well, it’s BIG pie!
I ended up with Strawberry Cream.
David got Chocolate.
Laura got Peanut Butter Chocolate.
And Scott got Fried Cherry Pie, something I wasn’t even aware they had since I couldn’t get away from the visual of the pie case. 🙂
The pie was delicious! The company was fabu!
So who’s next? Who’s coming for pie?
Many thanks to Laura and Scott for treating us to pie. xoxoxo
Today is National Girl Scout Cookie Day! I love Girl Scout Cookies and I know you do, too.
I was a Girl Scout back in the day. But I wasn’t a real Girl Scout. I was a troop hopper and was known for having the shortest Girl Scout uniform in school. But today’s Girl Scouts are quite an impressive group.
Back in 2009 when I was kicking off BartlesvilleLive.com (now defunct) for KJRH, I covered the end of year awards program for the Bartlesville Girl Scouts. I was SO impressed with how Girl Scouting had changed since I was young.
Girl Scouts today are taught about financial responsibility and managing money. That is what the cookie sales are really all about even though I’m fairly sure the Samoa was made just for me. 😉
This year, the Girl Scouts have made it easy for you to find their cookies if they don’t find you. Â They have a cookie finder app for iPhone!
This app is worth it just for the cute video at the beginning. It got me all choked up. And please tell me that the skills these girls are talking about are not important to the girls of today. Even the girls of yesterday.
So download the app, locate yourself some cookies and celebrate National Girl Scout Cookie Day with me.
I’m the guest blogger over at The RHOK today! Be sure to head over and read about my new abaya that I’ll be sporting when we hit the ground in Riyadh. 🙂
So, we’re still here. The question that Nikki and I are asked at least three times a day is, “So when do you leave?” We don’t know. It’s Ramadan in the Muslim world and that particular detail hasn’t been nailed down yet.
Now that all the hard throwing out and packing up work is done, we decided we needed some diversions. So we planned a road trip to Alva, Oklahoma. Why Alva of all places? I have an amazing friend there, Becky McCray.
Becky has cows and a liquor store which seemed like more than a good enough reason to head to Alva, a place where neither of us had been before.
We arrived about lunch time and Becky took us to lunch at The Sandwich Shop in downtown Alva. The sandwiches, all named after people, were amazing! I had the Ralph. Roast beef and swiss cheese on a hogie roll.
Becky pointed out some details of the downtown that indicated how old it was including the horse tie ups that still remain on some of the sidewalks.
Then we went to the booze portion of our trip, Allen’s Retail Liquor Store. Nikki and I each picked out some wine to take home.
Becky thought these would be a perfect choice for me.
And then this one, which I knew would match the shirt I photographed it with. 🙂
And then, Becky took a photo of Nikki and I. Our first! And what a perfect backdrop. 😉
We’d taken enough of Becky’s busy day so she gave us a big circle to drive with things to see along the way.
We first went to the Alabaster Caverns State Park.
I’ve never been on vacation with Nikki before so we had to do the silly head thing.
Then we went down a bunch of steps to start touring the caverns. Spelunking, if you will. 😉
Yeah, Nikki had great caving shoes on but I was the one who slipped. LOL! It is slick in there!
It’s also very cool, around 58 degrees. So after weeks of extra hot weather in Oklahoma, it was great to be in the cave. Even if there were bats in there.
We also saw a spotted salamander. And he just sat there, prettily, while I took his photo.
It was a cool tour in more ways than one. Alabaster Caverns is the largest gypsum cave in the world that is open to the public. All of the other caves are limestone according to our guide, Gail.
At the end of the tour, Gail loaded us into the tram and took us back to the top.
Then we went off in search of the Gloss Mountains. These are kind of like mountains, Oklahoma-style.
Nikki was thinking “Colorado” and wouldn’t believe we had truly found the Gloss Mountains until she saw a sign. 😉
We finished our big loop and ended up back in Alva for dinner at a restaurant that will remain nameless because it was just that bad. Who ever heard of a Mexican restaurant running out of chips? They were out of a lot.
After the disastrous dinner, I decided to check with Becky before making a breakfast decision. She assured me that Cookie’s Bowl and Cafe was good. I poked that into Tam Tam and we couldn’t find it. We drove up and down the street looking for it and still couldn’t find it.
I turned down a side street and decided to come back from a different direction. Nikki said, “What is that building with all the cars?” And then, “No, that’s the bowling alley.”
Lightbulb!
Cookie’s Bowl (as in BOWLING) and Cafe’. LOL!
So, yes, we ate breakfast at the bowling alley.
We probably should have had dinner there as well. They had the most amazing pancakes that were as big as the tabletop.
After fortifying ourselves with the fabu food, we headed for the “moos” part of our trip and to see the star, Bubby.
Becky took us to her farm and the cows were EXTREMELY interested in us when we pulled up. She said it was because they knew she was going to feed them.
We met Bubby!
And fed him.
And fed him.
And fed him some more. 🙂
That other little guy is Jethro. So cute they are!
Then we got our cowgirl bath.
And we headed for home.
Many, many thanks to Becky McCray for showing us a fabu time on the Moos and Booze Roadtrip.  We had so much fun in the wild, wild west. 🙂
I saw this tweet come through my stream last night:
I love this time of year-cool air, family & football!
Hmmm. In the 7 1/2 years I’ve lived in Oklahoma this is, without a doubt, the coldest winter ever. Â The air isn’t just cool, it is by most accounts FRIGID.
And football? Well, the season is almost over. The Super Bowl is on Sunday.
An odd sentement to read yesterday to be sure. I wonder when it was set up to automatically tweet? I wonder if we’ll see it again in, oh say, June?
Twitter is for engaging. Actually being present, talking to the followers you have and those you are following. That is how real relationships are formed and sustained.
This is a particular soap box I like to climb on when I get the opportunity because the auto generated tweet confuses me. There is no engagement going on. When world events cause everyone who is actually present to be talking about that particular event and then you see a tweet like the one above come through, you just know that person isn’t really there.
