Potlucks

I love going to potlucks at my church. I made these chocolate cake balls to take. I used this recipe http://babsinokc.blogspot.com/2012/02/pina-colada-cake-balls.html but I substituted with a chocolate cake mix and chocolate almond bark.

The food at these things is always the BEST! I always come away utterly stuffed. I love to trying new things. I wished I had taken more pictures but I was too busy eating!

My daughter is so stinking cute!

You're about to get a photo avalanche!

Sorry couldn't help myself. I did some pics of her for her senior announcements. She didn't like her hair. So... we are going to do some more.

I love how here in Oklahoma you are really never very far from some type of farm. Even in Oklahoma City there are some acres where people have horses and it's really not too surprising to see someone riding one.

My neighborhood backs up to some wheat fields and a large ranching operation.

I love watching the wheat when it blows in the wind. It looks just like waves in the ocean.

It's just amazing to see in person.

I don't think I could ever move to a large city. A concrete jungle would not be a happy place for me.

Weather

It's April now... storm season. As scary as the weather can sometimes be around here in Oklahoma, I do love how exciting it is. You won't get bored since it is constantly changing. You have to stay on your toes. I have personally seen 4 tornadoes since I have lived here. (20 years). I also almost drove into one, not knowing it was in front of me since it was rain wrapped.

 When I was working in retail a tornado was getting ready to pass right over the top of our building. People here can be so blase about it. I started to lock up since we were empty to evacuate. We were going to the cooler in the pizza place behind us. A car pulled up and wanted to come in to shop. I pointed at the tornado and said we are closing, follow me. They got mad and left!

I avidly watch the forecasts. I just want to make sure that I am prepared to be ready to take precautions. My children know our bad weather plan.

Weathermen have gotten good at determining when we are getting ready to get bad weather. Last year they knew a week in advance it was coming Sure enough, we ended up with F5 tornadoes sweeping houses off their foundation and killing people.

There are several resources you can use at work. NOAA is a great site you can use on your computer:

7-Day Forecast for Latitude 35.52°N and Longitude 97.76°W

Local new shows often have web sites and of course the radio is a great standby. You can get a battery powered one and continue to use even if you loose power.

Weather.com posted this today about hail so heavy it looks like snow drifts. You should check it out. This happened in Texas.

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/feet-of-hail-northwest-texas_2012-04-12

Please be aware, stay safe!

Davis Oklahoma

We stayed with some friends of ours in a cabin in the Turner Falls area of Davis OK. It is one of my favorite places in OK.

We stayed in this cabin.Here is the link but the web site just does not do it justice.

http://www.turnerfallsinn.com/cabins.htm

It was spacious and roomy. He had full size fridge, stove, TV and most important AC!

Honey creek runs right behind the cabin so that was where we ran to first.

Here is my husband checking out the water.

The back deck had a great view of the water.

Here is the back of the cabin.

We went into Sulphur OK to the Chickasaw National Recreational Area and hiked down Bromide Hill. --Yeah I said down. I couldn't remember how to get the bottom starting point but found the top. So we worked our way down. Bad thing was we had to go back up to the top and to get our cars. I might also mention it reached 90 degrees that day.

The sights were spectacular!

Here is the link to the park web site.

http://www.nps.gov/chic/index.htm

This is one of the natural springs that flow through out the park

This is a shot of Honey creek at sunrise. For some reason I can never sleep in when I am on vacation.

We spent a couple of hours catching crawdads in the park too.

The big ones were mean. *No crawdads were harmed during this expedition all were freed before we left.

There was a rope swing attached to one of the trees over the creek too. The kids had a lot of fun with that one.

Sunrise in front of the cabin.

How can you just not be in awe of that view.

Plenty warm enough for wading.

A lot of spring flowers were already blooming.

Another sunrise shot behind the cabin.

Yet it was still cool enough to enjoy a campfire at night.

We had a great time.