It came!

 I am SO excited today! Coach Stoops finally got me my jersey and pants and helmet for the big game next week! I think Ms. Paradise helped a little bit...thank you Ms. Paradise!! As you can see from the picture with the very nice man at the front desk...not everyone is an Oklahoma fan here in Texas. He told my Grandma that since she was a guest of the hotel, he would have his picture with me, but he wasn't going to be happy about it LOL!

Tomorrow, it is back into my fire attire (another vocabulary word for today), as I will be going out to Bastrop County (have you found it on a map yet?) and help some homeowners clean up their property. It will be hard dirty work, but lots of people need lots of help and that is what bears do!

Max

Max in Colorado in 2007

This is Miss Paradise writing.  I was going through a box of Gilbert's things (he gathers stuff as he travels, and he leaves it all at my house!), and I found this picture of his friend, Max.  Max was traveling a couple of years ago when he was DOGNAPPED!  It was very sad.  He was in the airport in California, resting after his flight from Oklahoma and before he got on the plane to go to Hawaii when someone decided they would take him with them.  :(  Max was a good friend to Gilbert, so I thought he might want to see this picture.  I hope that Max has been in a good home for the last couple of years, and I am sure he is still teaching wherever he is.  If you have seen him, please tell him we all miss him!

Happy Thursday from Austin Texas! I thought I would pick a  random picture of my past travels and try to catch everyone up to date on what I have been doing!
This picture is me with my Aunt Ann. She is Grandma Pat's sister and she lives in Cascade Maryland. It is a mountain top community in near an old Army fort called Ft. Richie. It is also very near a place called "Camp David". Camp David is a large home and woods that our Presidents go to when they need to get away from work and get some rest. They fly in on a helicopter from the White House in Washington DC. No one can see them when they are there as it is very secluded ( a new word for you to ask Ms. Paradise to add to your vocabulary lesson!). They are VERY protected from anyone that is not supposed to be there because they have lots of Secret Service men or woman standing guard at all times.
I was in Maryland because I was with Grandma Pat at a school for emergancy preparedness in Emmittsburg Maryland which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Gettysburg, the site of a large battle in the Civil War. I will post more pictures from there later.
Anyway, meeting with family, especially those that I don't get to see often is always very nice and I enjoyed my dinner with Ann.

what I saw yesterday

Grandma Pat took me out to a large area of Texas called Bastrop County. It is one of the many areas of Texas  that had HUGE fires this year. No one knows exactly how many of these fires started, but I am afraid some were started because people were careless and did not think of how their actions might effect the lives of others. Some may have been smoking, never a good thing, but if you do smoke you should NEVER put the end of the cigarette on the ground as it could still be hot and catch the grass on fire.  Some people may have not put out campfires properly (ask Ms. Paradise how to do that!). Some of the fires were started by lightening. Regardless of how they started, the destroyed lots and lots and lots of homes and businesses. It is very sad. It is hard to see, but at the end of the driveway is a large pile of ashes that was once a lovely large home.
Part of what Grandma Pat does is help the elected Congressmen and Senators help people who lost their homes or businesses. Remember, she used to work for a Congresswoman in Oklahoma? Well, now she works for the Federal Emergancy Management Agency or FEMA and her job is to work with those offices so THEY can help the people that elected them.  FEMA  has  teams of people who do different jobs to help communities in an emergancy or a disaster. Some people help the families find a place to live, some help them get food, some help them clean up their property. We all work together as a team to help families that are hurting feel better again.
Now that I have this blog, I will go back and post old pictures of different places and tell you about that picture. However, for now, I am tired and need to get some rest as tomorrow is another busy day.

Am I doing this right?

Here I am, ready to work.  I'm traveling with Miss Paradise's Mom while she works with FEMA down in Texas.  We are helping people who have been affected by the wildfires.  I will be telling you more about that later, but I wanted to practice this blog thing.  It is new to me, and I'm not quite sure what I'm doing!