First of all, Happy Birthday to DeeDee (Dave's mom) and Happy Anniversary to Pop and DeeDee. We LOVE both of you and miss you very much. We are also looking forward to having you join us at some point during our adventure.
Yesterday we had another great day with the Burmans. We went over to Billye and Howard's house again and had a nice lunch with them. We then headed to the mall to see WALL-E. It was a little different than what I expected. I had a hard time getting into the 2 robots falling in love. It was still fun hanging with the Burmans and gaining weight on all you can eat popcorn. After the movie we did some shopping in the mall and then headed back to the house. Billye had prepared a wonderful dinner for all of us and their friend Donna (Jim's brother's girlfriend). Billye is a great cook and really put on a feast for us. We had a great time visiting and cracking up over old cruise stories. Then the real challenge began!! The rematch of the Burman family marble game. So the night before the cheating boys won so the girls had something to prove. Well I'm proud to announce that the woman were unstoppable and won 2 games in a row! If you are adding (and you know I am) that is 2 for the ladies and 1 cheating win for the boys. That makes the woman the marble champions!!!!! (Editorial comment from Dave ...first, the boys didn't cheat and second, we are playing the best 3 out of 5 ;-)
Well I have to say that we had such a wonderful time with the Burmans and we were sorry to see them go. We also felt so much at home at Billye and Howards. They are the most wonderful people and we so loved spending time with them.
Today we drove to Ponca City, Oklahoma. Why you ask? Well, when I met Dave he was working for Unocal 76 and living in Hermosa Beach, CA a couple houses from the ocean. Dave had 2 roommates. One was John Hodgson. Dave and John both worked at Unocal and became good friends. "Johnny H" even played on our Hermosa Beach Co-Ed Championship Softball Team. So what does that have to do with Ponca City? Dave remembered that Johnny H had moved somewhere in Oklahoma. It happened to be Ponca City which was only an hour from Bartlesville. So Dave gave John a call and he and his wife Nani invited us over for dinner and a swim. We were so excited to see John again and to meet his family. We haven't seen John (Dave has kept up with him by phone) since he attended our wedding over 13 years ago. John is married to Nani, who is so nice, and he has 2 extremely sweet girls Courtney (7) and Summer (3). Nani had prepared a delicious meal for us. It was so nice to catch up and learn what they have all been doing the last 13 years. After dinner all the kids swam. Dave and I were so entertained by their youngest girl Summer. She was so cute, she had so much to talk about and would talk in run on sentences in a language that was half english and half her own dialect. She really took a liking to Dave and had multiple stories to tell him. She even would dip the corn chips in the salsa for Dave and hand them to him so that he would not have to reach and dip them himself. We really did have a wonderful time at the Hodgson house and we are so glad we re-connected with them. At the end of the night Nani gave each of the boys a Ponca t-shirt (which they all put on right when we got to the RV) and also some really cool whistle candy. But Sterling was so excited and surprised when John gave him a 76 football. That absolutely made his night.
