A Great Way to End the Year!

I've had many good trips and fun times in 2012.

Some of them I blogged about, some of them I never got around to blogging about.

About two weeks before Christmas my sister and I took a drive to Santa Clarita to get some Christmas shopping done. Santa Clarita is about two hours south of Bakersfield. When we got there we happened to notice on the way out of town that there was a huge Goodwill Store right there on Lyons Avenue and we both said, "Look, Goodwill! We need to bring mom!"

My mom loves thrift stores and I've learned to love them as well through her. My sister Lisa...not so much. So today, we had nothing to do other than the normal grocery shopping, vacuuming, mopping, dusting, laundry, you know...all the normal stuff that we do on the weekends to get ready for the next week...so we took mom to Santa Clarita instead.

That in itself is not such a big deal, the big deal was driving the Grapevine. The Grapevine is notorious for having bad weather during the winter months and earlier in the week the California Highway Patrol had to escort traffic through the mountainous area.

When we left it was a bit overcast here in Bakersfield, but we convinced my mom that the weather wouldn't be bad and that once we got over the mountain the sun would be shining. I guess maybe we should have checked The Weather Channel before we left.

We hit snow! Not bad snow, but snow none the less! I was driving and I have never driven in snow. Well I've driven in snow after it's on the ground, but not during a snow storm. Well this wasn't really a snow storm, mostly a lightly falling snow. But you can see the snow from earlier on the side of the road.

You know a weird thing that I never knew about snow? That when it falls it doesn't stick to and wet your car's windshield like rain does. I didn't even need my wipers. Now it may be that when it falls heavier that it does, but this one didn't.



Picture taken by my sister from the rear window of the car.

Needless to say...my mom was not a happy camper! She doesn't like to go outside during the winter and doesn't even like to look outside. So to be in the backseat of a car at 5000 elevation with snow falling around her was sheer torture! We tried to tell her it wasn't that bad and this is a great adventure and something we will remember forever, but she wasn't buying it!

A couple of times I contemplated turning around and going back home because many times people get to the other side of the Grapevine and then it snows so much that the CHP closes the pass and you can't get back. You can go around but that adds hours to your trip. But I'm nothing if not stubborn. I figured the driving wasn't so bad. Everyone was going at a decent speed and I wasn't scared, so why not continue on and if we had to get a hotel room and spend the night in Santa Clarita, well then we would. This was an adventure after all!

I'm happy to say that we made it over the Grapevine. And it was sunny, a bit cold but sunny. We had a yummy lunch at Coco's and then took my mom to Goodwill. The Goodwill in Santa Clarita was a tad more expensive than our local Goodwills, but my mom still had a good time. I found an awesome cookbook, 1,000 Classic Recipes from Around the World! The sticker price on the front said $17.89 but I got it for $5.00. This book is like four inches thick and filled with pictures and super heavy! I can't wait to look at it and try some of the recipes!

I've also been collecting Jodi Picoult books, trying to get them all and I found another one today that I didn't have in my collection. Haven't read this one yet, have no idea what it's about, but I love Jodi Picoult books and can't wait to read it! And the sticker on the front says $8.43 but I got it for $1.99!

And my favorite thing I found was a silverware caddy. I had been looking for one for quite a few months now and hadn't found anything I really liked. My cousin Stella has a perfect one that I believe she got a Ikea or Pier 1 Imports, but I haven't been able to find one exactly like hers. This one is great because it has touches of green, my favorite color and the color of my kitchen curtains and it has butterflies, which I love and have several of all over my house.

I already got it all washed up and placed the silverware in it. Not sure this is going to work for me because the utensils tend to slip out of the bottom. I put some cupcake pan liners in there for now but I'm hoping to find some acrylic containers that might fit in there. See the butterflies and the ivy leaves? So cute!

So my sister, mom and I had a great day! I wish I had thought to take a photo, but let me share one of the three of us making Biscochos for Christmas this year.

From L to R...my sister Lisa, my mom Tomasa and me!

Yep...a great way to end the year!

Back to Work

This year I took a a couple of vacation days, the day before Thanksgiving and the following Monday, which is today. That made for a nice, long vacation. I had Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday off and I am so not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow.

Wednesday I got up early and my mom and I went into the city (Bakersfield) and had a nice breakfast and hit a couple of Goodwill Stores. My mom and I love thrift store shopping! I was searching for Christmas decor but didn't find anything. After Goodwill-ing, we went grocery store shopping for Thanksgiving items, all the pie, stuffing and mashed potato fixings.

Once we got home and put everything away it was time to make the pies. We used to make the crust from scratch, but since frozen pie crusts have gotten so much better we use those, but we do make the pie filling from scratch...well from a can but that's from scratch for us!

Thursday of course was Thanksgiving and we spent the morning straightening up the house, getting the extra chairs all ready and making the stuffing and turkey, then the family arrived and we had a wonderful meal and enjoyed seeing each other all together again.

We barely remembered to take pictures. Here's my mom and standing next to her my sister Lisa and then sitting is me and my brother Fred and his youngest, Melissa, the baby in our family and isn't she beautiful!

I had to get a picture with just me and Melissa of course!

Here's a picture of my godson and Melissa's big brother, little Fred.

After everyone left I spent about two hours getting everything cleaned and put away in my kitchen. Friday was a relaxing morning and then we all met in Bakersfield again to celebrate Thanksgiving with my dad. We took dad to Golden Corral because he loves buffets. I had a great time having all my family together again and I know dad really enjoyed it.

Here's the only picture I managed to get. This is my dad and on the right is my son James and on the left is my sister's son Isaac, who also is my Godson! Can you believe that my dad is 6 foot and both his grandsons are taller and bigger than he is???

Saturday I had to go and get new tires put on my car. My son James, (in the picture above) went with me. We had a great time considering we had to wait for two hours at Big O Tires! We spent the time playing Monopoly on his cell phone and I won!!! Of course he helped me to win and when I was almost losing he bankrupted and gave me all his money and property. Wasn't that nice of him?

Sunday I went on STRIKE and said I was not doing anything the whole day...and I didn't. I just watched movies on NetFlix and played on the computer and watched TV and read my book and chillaxed all day. My daughter's little puppy Chorizo was as exhausted and I was and laid on the little bed we've set up for her in my bedroom. Doesn't she look comfortable?

So today, the whole world went back to work...but not me :)

I decided to spend the day putting up the Christmas Tree and decorating the inside of the house. This year I decided not to put the Martha Stewart ribbon and garland that I love, love, love. I decided to try something different. I don't like it! Not sure if I am going to do it over or just live with it as-is for this year, but it's just too plain! I do love that where I put the tree this year it's reflected in the mirror, double the lights and sparkle....love that!

So tomorrow it's back to the real world and for once I'm not really looking forward to going back. I had a great Thanksgiving and a wonderful time being off. Can't wait for Christmas and tamale making and Biscocho baking!

How are your holidays shaping up? All your shopping done? To tell the truth I haven't even started, so don't feel bad if you haven't either.

 

Sciatica and the Escalator

Once upon a time there was a beautiful Princess named Sciatica and she lived in a huge castle. The castle was so grand that the king had escalators installed to passenger the queen, the princess and honored guests up and down the various floors of the castle.

Princess Sciatica loved going up the escalators but she had an intense fear of the escalators leading down. She would see  the others getting on the down escalator with no problem, laughing and joking and hanging on to the moving hand rail, but when it was Princess Sciatica's turn to go down, she would stand at the edge and tell herself she could do it, but she would immediately feel a weakness in her legs and a sense of vertigo and she knew that if she tried to take one step on those moving stairs, her legs would not have the strength to hold her and she would fall and tumble all the way down to her death!

Luckily the King had also installed elevators in the castle and Princess Sciatica would ride the lonely elevator down to the lower floors. She could hear the laughter and joy of the others racing up and down on the escalators and she so longed to join them and swore to herself that one day she would!

One day, the Princess rode the escalator to the third floor which is where her bedroom was. She needed to fetch her fencing gloves and then she quickly raced to the other end of the castle to where the King, good King Otis had installed the elevators. She pushed the down button and waited. After a few minutes, she pushed the button again and waited. Then she did what any intelligent person knows to do, push the button over and over again! That always makes the elevator come faster cause it knows your are pretty darned ticked off by now!

Yet the elevator didn't come and the Princess did not know what to do. She roamed the third floor where she found her sister Princess Lisa and her mother, the good Queen Tomasa. She was crying and telling them that she wanted to go back downstairs but the elevator would not come. The sister and the queen knew of Princess Sciatica's intense fear of the down going escalator, but they tried to convince her how easy it was and that they would go before her so she wouldn't have to fear falling. They would catch her! But fear struck the poor Princess's heart and no amount of cajoling or pleading would help. Was our poor Princess destined to live forever in the highest floor of the castle?

Apparently...yes! I know this cause it happened to me yesterday. I am Princess Sciatica!

Yesterday I went to Macy's Department Store with my mom and my sister. My mom had a gift card and wanted to use it to purchase a set of sheets for her new bed. The bedding department is on the third floor of Macys. My mom, sister and I rode the escalator up to the second floor, then the third. I had no fear going up and no worries about how I would get back down as I knew they had an elevator. Easy Peasy!

We shopped for sheets and then searched for the elevator and headed over and did as Princess Sciatica did. I hit the button and waited....then I hit the button again and waited...then my sister Princess Lisa hit the button (in case the elevator just didn't like me) and again we waited. Then I tried the old faithful move and hit the button several times in succession...nothing! Fear struck my heart! What was I to do?

My mom and Lisa tried to convince me that it's easy to get on the escaltor going down. They would help me, they would go down before me and that way if I fell I would fall on them. Aren't they wonderful to sacrifice themselves like that for me? Especially my 78 year old mother! But I knew that I couldn't do it. I no longer had the leg strength. Not since the great Sciatica Debacle of 2010!

For some reason, ever since I had that awful bout of Sciatica in 2010; where I had to take almost a month off of work because I was in the most excruciating pain I have ever had (it was worse than childbirth. I had two kids, one natural and one c-section...trust me, it was worse than childbirth), I don't have the strength in my left leg that I used to. It's hard just to climb stairs using my left leg. So I have to climb them by putting the right leg on the step first and then bringing the left leg up, then the right again, then the left. It's quite embarassing!

So there we were on the third floor. I can't use the down escalator and my mom and sister can't just leave me cause I drove and I had the car keys! We asked a couple of the sales clerks if the elevator was working or not and they really didn't know. Then I saw an official looking lady in a navy pin-striped suit and I asked her. And bless her little pea-picking heart, she saved Princess Sciatica! She told us that they were doing some work on the elevator so they were not working, but that she could take us down using the service elevator. I think she saw my elderly mom and thought she would do a nice thing for the sweet, elderly, gray-hair woman.

So she takes us through some double doors by the elevator and we're in the back of the store. And she was so sweet and she pretended like she was giving us a tour and pointing out products and joking with us. She was wonderful. Then she pushed the service elevator button and the doors opened. She then opened up this cage thing and she stepped in and said, "C'mon in!"

 We were all a little apprehensive. It looked scary. My mom even asked her in a timid little voice, "You are going with us right?" Our little Guide assured us that she would never leave us alone, "Oh nowhoney...I wouldn't leave you alone, Oh Heavens No!" So we had no choice, we walked on in. Our little tour guide then proceded to close the elevator doors and then manually pull down the gate door. Now we were in the Belly of the Beast! The elevator started. It was slower than the public elevator so it took a little while for the elevator to get to the bottom. Our little guide just kept chattering to us about various "behind the scene" things at Macys. We were almost to the main floor when my mom felt she had to make one thing clear. She turned to our little guide and she said, "The reason we needed the elevator is because my daughter is scared to go down the escalator." And then she pointed at me!

Can you believe that? My own mother threw me under the bus like that....lol. You have to admire her though, she didn't want to be thought of as some poor elderly lady that needed help getting around. Oh no! Not her, she's very proud of still being strong and independent! But dang-it...was my face red! Poor Princess Sciatica...

Rough Start to 2012

It's been a rough start to the new year for me and for my family! That's makes it a little hard to be the happy-go-lucky person I normally am, hence the grumpy Care Bear picture. That's about how I feel right now.

My dad, who is 80 years old is my main concern. This past Saturday my son called me to tell me something was wrong.  Dad lives alone and up to now even though we all worry about him, he's been ok. My son checks on his "Tata" every day.

Saturday my son called and told me that he drove up and my dad's truck is wrecked and he went inside to check on Tata and couldn't understand anything that Tata was saying. Now normally, that's not odd because my dad's first language is Spanish and my son's only language is English. Dad sometimes forgets his grandson doesn't speak Spanish and will babble away at him in Spanish, therefore Son has picked up quite a bit of the language. But Son said he couldn't understand anything that Dad was saying, he said that Tata was just making noises.

So I rushed right over and saw that my dad's truck had both front tires flat and the step-side on the passenger side was now in the bed of the truck and the passenger side mirror was just hanging on by a wire. I tried to get Dad to explain to me what happened to his truck but it was really difficult to understand. He seemed totally calm and was just sitting there watching TV but still he wasn't clear on how the accident had happened.

He said he thought he hit a parked car and went up on the curb and he remembers braking and stopping his truck before it could hit a fence. He said the police came and so did the fire department and the EMT's checked him out and he was fine. They called a tow truck for him and gave him a ride home and he didn't think to call anyone to let them know what had happened.

Needless to say he scared the crap out of me and my son. On the way to Dad's house I had called my sister and left her a voice mail that something was wrong with Dad, so shortly after that my sister got there. The more that we talked to Dad the more that we realized that something was wrong. He was having a really hard time getting his thoughts together and an even harder time verbalizing them. Pretty soon he was just babbling, making incoherent sounds and you could see by looking into his eyes that he realized that what he was thinking and what he was trying to say was not what was coming out of his mouth.

We realized that he might be having a stroke so we decided to take him to emergency. On the way out of town I told my sister that Dad had mentioned he had not eaten and the day before he thought he had food poisoning and he had spent the day vomiting. I told her that we were probably going to be in emergency for hours and it would be a long time before he could eat so maybe we should stop and get him something to eat. I know it sounds weird, but I also know my dad and I know that lack of food and the drop in blood sugar can really affect him.

We got him a burger and even though he still wasn't making sense in speaking he happily ate it. By the time we got to emergency he was making sense off and on. It turns out he did have what is known as a Transient Ischemic Attack aka TIA Mini Stroke. They admitted him and he did spend the night but he was allowed to come home the next day.

Now it's up to my sister, my brothers and me and all the various spouses concerned, to decide what step to take next with Dad. The great thing that came out of this is that we've all come together and everyone is 100% on board with doing whatever it takes to take care of dad. I'm very proud of my siblings and their spouses. Time will tell what we end up doing for dad, but for now he's ok and at home and everyone is checking on him often.

But that's not the end of why 2012 is rough year. Earlier this week my daughter was assaulted by a woman while in the course of her job. My daughter manages a motel. Part of her job description is that when "guests" don't want to check out at check out time, my daughter is the one that has to go and convince them that they must go. Well this time when my daughter knocked on the door to speak with the "guest", the "guest" came out of the room and shoved my daughter! My daughter of course said, "Don't you touch me" and at this the "guest hauled off an punched my daughter in the face and a fist fight ensued!

I've never known my daughter to fight. To stand up for the rights of others...yes, as she did for this child, see story HERE. But I have never known her to fight physically with her fists! But from what she says she got the best of this woman and hurt her more than she was hurt herself. Not that I care about that other woman, what I care about was seeing my poor baby bruised and battered. She called me right after and told me her employer wanted her to go to Urgent Care, so I left work immediately and went with her. She had a huge bluish knot on her left temple and the bridge of her nose was swollen. Luckily she was okay physically, but they never did catch the woman who did this. It's amazing to me that people feel that they are entitled to check into a motel and not leave when they are supposed to and not only not leave but injure innocent employees of the motel who are just doing their job!

So then a couple of days later my sister goes to the doctor for a simple rash. The doctor gives her some antibiotics and pain meds as it is very painful and inflamed. Sister returns to the doctor a few days later and they decide they will have to drain the infection using needles and my poor sister never thought it was going to be so involved or so painful. She called me right afterwards, sobbing in tears from the pain! She's going to be ok, but she is still in a lot of pain.

So there you go...what's next? I hope that all this drama in the beginning of the year means that the rest of the year is going to be nice and smooth and peaceful for my whole family.

Family...you all be careful! We've had enough of emergency rooms, urgent care rooms and doctors!

On a Cruise

Today my sister left on a cruise. I'm so happy for her and I hope she and her husband have a wonderful time. She sent me these great pictures before the ship left and a couple after the ship left. Wish I were there with them *sigh*

My sis Lisa and her husband, the best brother-in-law in the world...G! It's great to see them so happy :-D

Don't you love the sunset? I'd love to be sitting there at that table with a glass of wine or a Margarita enjoying it with them!

Just a reminder, this is the last day to enter my giveaway. Just click HERE or you can click the image at the top of the sidebar over to the right. Good Luck! Hope you Enter!

The Winchester Mystery House

In March I accompanied my sister to a Conference for the California Association of Public Cemeteries. The Conference was held in Sacramento and you can read more about the actual conference and costume party they held HERE. But today I want to share with you a side trip my sister and I made to a place we have longed to go to for years! The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California.

If you've ever driven anywhere North in California on Highway 99 or I-5 or Highway 1 or 101 you will see signs for the Winchester Mystery House. Every time we would see one of these signs we would say how much we've always wanted to go there, yet we never had.

San Jose is about 120 miles from Sacramento, so it wasn't just a side trip, we actually took the whole last day with the thought in mind that we were going to make this trek and finally get this out of our system.

The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion that belonged to Sarah Winchester, who was the wife of William Winchester who was the son of Oliver Fisher Winchester who was the manufacturer of the Winchester repeating rifle. Mrs. Winchester was married to William in 1862 and they lived in Connecticut. The couple had one daughter named Annie. Annie unfortunately died in 1866 of a mysterious childhood disease and William died in 1881 of tuberculosis, leaving Sarah alone and in a deep depression.

Legend has it that Sarah sought the guidance of a spiritualist who told her that the reasons for the death of her loved ones and for her being left alone was because of all the spirits that had been killed with the rifles manufactured by the Winchester family. She convinced Sarah that she was next, but that she might be able to appease the spirits by moving west and building a house for them and if the house were to be continuously built then the spirits would leave her alone and she might even have eternal life.

So Mrs. Winchester moved to California and in 1884 she purchased a lot with an unfinished farmhouse about three miles west of San Jose. Building then began and non-stop for the next 38 years! Sarah did not hire an architect to build this house, she was her own architect and that is perhaps why this house has 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and 6 kitchens! She had doors that led into ceilings and doors that opened out into nothing. In the very top picture of this mosaic you can see double doors. If you were to open them from the other side and not pay attention you would drop down into nothing!

The tour that we took included the inside of the house, but not the gardens, which was a shame because the gardens were beautiful and I wish we could have gotten photos of them. We did walk around the back of the house after the tour and took photos of the back part which had some pretty gardens, but nothing like what we could see out the windows during the tour in the front of the house.

We had a good time touring the house and hearing more about the history of it. It's out of my system now and while I would never pay to see this again, it was worth it the first time just to know that we did it! Now we just need to visit with World's Largest Ball of Twine and we'll be done!

Just kidding...it's a memory my sister and I will always have and I thank her so much for taking me and I thank her husband for staying home so I could go!

Have you ever visited the Winchester Mystery House? If you would like to go and need information on pricing and directions, or just want to read more about it, please click HERE.

And I'm joining Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.

Famous People in History visit Sacramento

Last week on Thursday my sister Lisa and I headed to our state capitol for the annual conference for the California Association of Public Cemeteries. My sister is the District Secretary for our local cemetery and they held the conference in Sacramento. Normally she takes her husband to these conferences and meetings. But once a year she likes me to go with her to the one that hosts a costume party and dance. Last year we went to Seaside and the costume theme was the "70's", you can see those pictures HERE.

This year it was a little tougher to come up with costumes as the theme was "Famous People in History". The theme was fitting since the conference was being held in Sacramento, our state capitol, a city filled with so much history.

Lisa and I went through a lot of research trying to find a female person in history; keeping in mind also how easy/difficult it would be to create the costume. Lisa decided to go as Helen Kane. American actress and singer Helen Kane may best be remembered as the original "Boop-boop-a-doop" girl. A native of the Bronx, born Helen Schroeder, Kane got her start in vaudeville working with the Marx Brothers at age 17. In 1927, she made her Broadway debut in A Night in Spain, a musical. In 1928, Kane appeared in the musical Good Boy the show that produced her signature song "I Wanna Be Loved by You" with its boop-boop-a-doop tagline that Kane sang in a little girl's voice. She eventually became a contract player with Paramount and appeared in a few films. While at the studio, she became the inspiration for the animated cartoon character Betty Boop and launched a whole new series for animator Max Fleischer. Boop was first drawn by Grim Natwick who used Kane's face and physical features and combined them with those of a French poodle. In 1950, Kane was played by Debbie Reynolds in the feature biography of songwriters Kalmar and Ruby. When Reynolds sang "I Wanna Be Loved by You," Kane dubbed in her famous line.

Helen Kane battled breast cancer for more than a decade. She had surgery in 1956 and eventually received two hundred radiation treatments as an outpatient at Memorial Hospital. She died on September 26, 1966 at age 62, in her apartment in Jackson Heights, New York. Her husband of 27 years was at her bedside. Her remains were buried in the Long Island National Cemetery. Lisa based her costume on the fact that Helen battled breast cancer and she wore pink (as you can see in the picture to the left) as part of her costume along with a breast cancer awareness pin.

We arrived on Thursday thinking that we were going to take a tour of the Capitol before the Meet and Greet that day. Unfortunately it was raining cats and dogs in Sacramento and as Lisa and I are made of sugar and would melt in all that rain we stayed in the hotel and had a drink and popcorn at the bar and whined about the rain!

That evening we went to the Meet and Greet where the vendors in cemetery products had set up booths and displays. After the event we met up with my sisters boss, Tim and four members of the cemetery board to head over for dinner at a very popular restaurant in Sacramento called Aioli Bodega Restaurant. They have a varied menu and specialize in Tapas and Short-ribs. (I had the chicken, what can I say, I'm not the bravest of diners.)

The next day dawned bright and beautiful and poor Lisa had to attend seminars and classes but I had the whole day to do whatever my little heart desired. So I went shopping. I had wanted to take the Capitol Tour but the day got away from me and I headed back to the hotel to help my sister get herself ready for the costume party. Here are some photos I took to capture the evening. Whenever they ask me if I'm going to dress up I tell them I can't as I'm the official photographer!

Getting ready in the hotel...makeup has to be perfect!

Then we had to take some pictures before we headed downstairs to join the other famous people. Here's Lisa sitting in the window, you can see the view. We were on the 7th floor.

 Lisa really loved the pink gloves that she was able to find to match the long string of pink pearls. She said she felt like a Flapper Princess!

And here's one of the two sisters ready to head out. Everyone kept asking if we were twins the whole time we were there. We don't see the resemblance but I guess a lot of people do. What do you think? Could we be twins?

There were lots of people dressed up, I didn't get a chance to take pictures of everyone. I did get group pictures but because the reception hall was so dark the pictures didn't come out very well.

Here's Helen Kane and Wyatt Earp. Isn't he handsome? Love a cowboy!

And here's Helen Kane with Benjamin Franklin...he left his kite and key behind because of the bad weather. Good thing because we didn't want lightening to strike him while we were partying!

Helen Kane with ...yes, you guessed it!! Little Miss Shirley Temple! This young lady was adorable as Shirley Temple! She had tap shoes on and just tapped her way around the whole night! She was a lot of fun on the dance floor!

Helen Kane with Athena, Goddess of War. Let's hope she was there to defend California against more taxes!

Helen Kane with Ben Franklin again and now they've also met up with Albert Einstein. A trio of great minds!

Can you guess this next one? She's the wife of one of the characters above. No clue? It's Josephine, wife of Wyatt Earp.

We had a couple of Julius Cesar's in the place, here is one of them with Helen Kane of course! Helen Kane was just everywhere "Boop-boop-a-dooping"!

Here's another Julius. This one is also my sister's boss Tim, and of course Helen and Josephine.

Helen Kane and Shirley Temple with Cleopatra! Isn't she regal and beautiful? I just loved her costume and her eye makeup. Oh...by the way, you can click on any of these photos to enlarge them and see more detail.

There was one very special couple that joined us that evening. They are members of the Cemetery Board for the cemetery my sister works for. This couple came as Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower. The costume that Dwight is wearing is the actual uniform that this man wore when he served his country! Can you believe it still fits him? He just added the four stars since he only made it to Liutenant and not General.  Mamie's costume is also original. The hat, glasses, gloves, jacket, pearls and brooch all either belonged to Beebs aka Mamie or to her mother! How sepcial is that? To save all these items!

Oh and one other special thing I want to mention is that this beautiful couple is celebrating their 60th Wedding Anniversary this year! 60 years....can you even imagine that? How blessed are they! Congratulations Dave and Bebes!

Here's General Eisenhower with Shirley Temple. What's the connection here? They are the winners of the Best Costume female and male! I think Lisa should have won for the females, but I may be a tad prejudiced. These two really did a wonderful job. Mamie was a runner-up!

These next pictures are of the other two members of the board with Dwight and Mamie. Can you guess Superman? I'm pretty sure he is one of the most famous people in history (no one said they couldn't be fictional). And beautiful, sweet Florence Nightingale was there to nurse us if we needed and to provide the best bubble blowing in the room!

Such a cute picture! Florence Nightingale blowing tiny bubbles for Julius Cesar! How fun are cemetery people?

Here's the group shot. My sister Lisa as Helen Kane; her boss Tim as Julius Cesar; Dave and Beebs as Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower and Kathy (Mayor of the City of Shafter) and her husband Bill as Florence Nightingale and Superman.

After the socializing, the contest and a fabulous buffet dinner we danced our butts off...literally! I've never had such a good time and seen such great dancers!

I had to add this one last picture because I played around with it and tried to make it look like the era of the Flappers. Isn't this a great shot? Thanks for taking me Lisa! I had the best time ever!