It had been late when we checked into the hotel the night before, so I was very excited to notice when we got up the next morning that the hotel had a baseball theme to its decor, what with it being right next to the ballfield. There were pictures all over the lobby and hallways of players that were originally from Oklahoma. I thought that was so cool.

We spent a good part of the day that day touring the National Weather Service in Norman. Candice, the Schiele Museum employee who was the leader of this trip, is a meteorologist by training, and the other leader is finishing up her degree to literally be a rocket scientist – I cannot remember what the field was called – but this was a trip heavy on science, which was very different from anything I would have planned, and so much fun.

The National Weather Service is actually on the campus of University of Oklahoma, so we took time to drive around the campus before heading out. It was beautiful and impressive, as so many campuses are. Because they are such a big football school .

After we spent most of the day at the National Weather Service, we had a couple of hours at Science Museum Oklahoma. There were some great exhibits. Since we’d just been to the weather center, I especially enjoyed the cyclone exhibit. You could stick your hand in it to disrupt the cyclone, but then it didn’t take much time before the wind had it going again. Pretty cool.

Supper was at Toby Keith’s “I Love This Bar” and Grill. There were truck tailgates everywhere for folks to sit on – great photo op 🙂

That night we went on a boat tour down the canal in Oklahoma City. Our boat captain was very entertaining and it was a great way to end a special day.

On our trip we flew into the Will Rogers Airport, and there were these great displays about the Museum of Women Pilots that is there on the property near the airport. We didn’t get to stop and tour it on this trip – that will be for next time.

When we checked into our hotel for the first couple of days, we found that it was right next to the minor league ballpark there in Oklahoma City. We couldn’t see the scoreboard & had no idea what was going on, but it surely made for a cool view from our window.

It’s been almost two weeks since Meg & I flew into Oklahoma City with the Eclipse Explorers from the Schiele Museum in Gastonia, NC, to spend eight days visiting the area, and of course making sure we were in the Path of Totality for the eclipse. Our first stop was at the National Okahoma City Memorial, commemorating the bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in 1995. I didn’t get just a ton of pictures – it was just so moving and so emotional that I forgot to take them a lot of the time. I did get this list of some of the offices that were located in the building – there were two lists like this, with different offices, but of course the one with the day care center listed was so sad.

Just going back and looking at these pictures is bringing tears to my eyes again. We learned that every player for the Oklahoma City Thunder NBA team is required to tour the museum before they are signed, to learn what Oklahoma City is all about. It’s a pretty emotional place.

I was so glad we got this picture of us with all of the grand ones.

Mallory’s birthday was the day before Easter, so we had a little celebration for her while everyone was here. Adam took my camera & got several (SEVERAL) pictures of her opening presents.

What a beautiful day yesterday was, celebrating Easter at church and then with a family gathering here at our house afterwards. Lindee had a bad sick migraine, so she & Jackson weren’t here, but the girls came to church and then here afterwards. We got this picture while everyone was still dressed up.

Finally got everyone here & got this picture of all six. It’s always a wonderful time when I can get them all together.

Last night was our final program in the Performing Arts Series for this year at the auditorium here in town, and the season definitely went out with a bang. The show was a reenactment of, literally, one night in Memphis, when as just sort of a fluke, Carl Perkins was recording at Sun Studio there, and Jerry Lee Lewis was playing with him. As it happened, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley both stopped by the studio while they were there, and they all four just started jamming together. AND the engineer that had been recording kept the tapes rolling, so it was all recorded. Someone at the studio went and told the newspapers what was going on, so a photographer came over and took pictures of the event, and the next day the article in the paper had the headlines The Million Dollar Quartet – and that’s what they were known from then on. I had never heard that story before – and they told lots of other ones. Just such a fun, fun show, and the musicians were fantastic. I just wish the pictures had turned out better.

Wednesday Jeff & I were at Castle Heights Middle School in Rock Hill to watch Mase in action. I had absolutely poured down rain as soon as we got there, but it didn’t last too long, so the kids got out on the track pretty quickly. I got this picture of Mase running the 400 lap on the medley relay. They came in second on that event.

He tied for first in the high jump. With the rain both he and the boy he tied with didn’t jump as high as they normally would, and he said every time he hit the mat the water just sprayed out all over him :-), but we were still very proud. Of course,

Tuesday Sherri met us at South Pointe High School in Rock Hill to see Adam in action in the pole vault. He did a great job – hit the 9′ mark again – and is getting closer and closer to 9’6″.