We recently went on a trip to Branson and stayed at Chateau on the Lake. It was beautiful. We took Sophie and received two offers buy her!
I love foggy mornings.
Our room was upgraded to a King Suite with a lake view which is $100/night more than we actually paid.
Here is the hotel’s marina which does not seem very busy on a cold fall morning.
There are quaint spots all over the hotel grounds.
Sophie – the poodle.
I got to use my china for the first time. It was so fun pulling it all out and setting a table with such beautiful china.
I couldn’t find any candles to float so I dropped in some flowers from a bouquet I had.
This is what it did today in Tulsa. Tomorrow it is supposed to be 55 degrees. Crazy!
Here are some pictures taken last week of the progress on our house being built. They have the walls up now! Yay!! These pictures were taken just after the foundation was done. We were told that even with the recent ice storm, they are ahead of schedule.
The morning I took these photos, I had walked up from the apartment complex. As I was walking I saw a man facing the road from a distance, and I couldn’t figure out what we was doing. He happend to look up, see me, and proceed to act incredibly suprised. He almost jumped. It was then that I realized he was urinating!! He acted like he didn’t know what to do, so he turned towards one of the houses being built. When he was finished with his job, he zipped up faster than lightening, and ran back inside. LOL Urinating in the middle of the city, facing the road…REALLY??
I took this picture with my iphone. It is so nice to look out the drive and see nothing…just beautiful.
And this will just make you feel cold…
I guess it could be worse. He could be in his boxer shorts! 
Friday, after Thanksgiving, this is what I woke up to on the Doll Farm (my parent’s house). It snowed the perfect amount on the perfect day. It was absolutely beautiful!
Here is a view of my dad’s farm from our house.
Sophie LOVES the farm. Did I mention Sophie LOVES the farm???
Sophie was like a flash of lightening!
There are more pictures to come. I could have dropped the camera and it would have been a good picture….except trying to catch Sophie. That was quite a challenge.
Recently I decided to be more green and use reusable bags when doing my shopping. Originally my thoughts were that it was more green and so I should do it even it was inconvenient. Now, I feel inconvenienced if I forget my reusable bags. During a typical week I can fit all my groceries into 2-3 reusable bags from Whole Foods as opposed to 15-20 plastic bags. It is so much nicer carrying up 2-3 reusable bags that I don’t have to worry about tearing and that fit over my shoulder than 15-20 plastic bags.
Jazzercise put out some statistics:
Also, I have started refusing plastic bags at smaller stores, because I can normally carry everything out to my car without a bag. If I do get plastic bags, I pick up Sophie?s poop with them. That is my form of recycling plastic bags! Hey, I am sure my neighbors appreciate it!
As I said earlier, my favorite reusable bags are the ones from Whole Foods. Their bags are only $0.99. According to Whole Foods’ website:
It can take more than a thousand years for a disposable plastic bag to break down in a landfill. Most reusable bags can be used thousands of times and there are so many reusable bag options! Thousands of customers and Team Members support our Core Value to “care about our communities and the environment.”
We have been having the prettiest days this Fall so far. The prayer gardens at Oral Roberts University are just beautiful. To get a little quiet time, I went out to the prayer gardens recently to sit and relax. I heard something behind me, so I turned around and there was a little animal walking around behind me. At first, I thought it was a rat because of its long tail. After closer observation, I decided it must be a baby opossum.
Do you see it?? My i-phone doesn’t zoom, so this is the best picture I could get… 
I sure wish my i-phone had a zoom. On the other hand, this is a great picture considereing it was snapped from a phone.
Doesn’t it have a long tail??
My husband and I went to a new restaurant in Tulsa called D’Novo Lean Gourmet. The whole point of the restaurant is to provide gourmet food without the calories. Each meal is supposed to be under 500 calories, which isn’t too bad considering some of the smoothies sold at Jamba Juice have over 1,000 calories.
The restaurant is located at 61st and Yale where The Market used to be. It is a nice shopping center, and D’Novo seemed to have an excellent image. To get inside the restaurant one has to walk through the outside eating area, which is beautiful. Check it out below…
Now that I look back at them, my pictures don’t really do it justice. You all can just use these and then imagine.
In the entrance to the restaurant is a waterfall on the left which is very pretty. The whole restaurant is white it seems. The booths are white; the walls are white, like I said everything is white. I don’t know how they are going to maintain the white booths or the white walls. It seems like they would get dirty so fast. Well, that is their problem to worry about. On to the food.
I ordered chicken with ratatouille pasta. The chicken was wonderful. I thought it would be too dry, but to my amazement it wasn’t. It was great. It was served with whole wheat pasta which definitely needed some more vegetables added it to it for the price tag.
My husband ordered a sirloin burger which was served as a wrap. His meal came with a salad.
Next time we go, I will have the Sirloin Burger as well. It was very very good.
Overall, I was pleased with the atmosphere and food at D’Nono. The man who took our order wasn’t the most friendly crayon in the box, but he seemed efficient enough. I was surprised at how quickly our food was delivered to our table. My husband and I will definitely go back to D’Nono and I would recommend it.
The restaurant is filled with chandeliers. My phone didn’t do a good job at capturing their brilliance, but you get the idea.
Last weekend I went to a high-school football game to watch my sister cheer. It was the most beautiful night. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera so I could zoom in on my sister. This picture was the best I could do with my trusty i-phone.
