One More Day Of School

Happy Hour At Hopdoddy's,

Miracles do happen.  I did not wake until 7:30, just about missing missing Marisa before she headed off to school in her Ryders Cup tee shirt.  It's super humid as I walked outside to take a photo of her in her tee shirt and my lens fogged up.  High of 84º today and humid obviously.  We are going to Mitch's school this morning, to an assembly, the school having called yesterday to say Mitch would be getting an award, probably for the most sociable kid in the school.  Just kidding but he has had an amazingly good senior year despite changing schools.

Evie And Her Sister Jean

Yesterday we did not have a lot of time so we were up, showered and dressed and on the road by 9:30.  It's hard to do, to get up and out early, when you are retired!  We were driving to Denton, TX, in the northern suburbs of Dallas, a forty five mile drive that took us close to an hour.  Evie's sister Jean moved into this adult community called Robson Ranch almost two years ago to be closer to her daughter Jennifer and family.  It was a big change for her as she has lived in Lee's Summit, MO, for the past forty years and still has a house there.  She has a beautiful new house, in a neighborhood of fellow over fifty fivers.  It's a new development so there are lots of new trees but little shade.  The city of Denton, by the way, requires the owner of a new home to plant at least four shade trees on their lot.  We arrived close to 10:30 and it was cool enough to sit out on her patio because of the breeze.  Her house is just the right size, with enough bedrooms in case her daughter's family comes for a visit.

Relaxing At Robson Ranch, Denton, TX

We took a ride around the complex, stopped at the clubhouse where some of her friends were having lunch.  There's a grill/bar also but it was being renovated.  Both are nice places for her if she does not want to cook and a good place to have a glass of wine with friends, or to meet friends.  She belongs to a singles group which has allowed her to meet all kinds of people, sociable like her, and they get together often for wine and appetizers and bridge.  We also stopped at another clubhouse, this one dedicated to the arts.  There are separate rooms for wood working, painting, ceramics, pottery, knitting/quilting, scrapbooking, and photography.  The works of many of the residents were on display and they were amazing.  Lots of talented people have obviously migrated to this community. We were both impressed by the friendliness of everyone we met and we mentioned to one person we were from Western New York and a guy came up ten minutes later, heard we were from there and told us a place where we could locally get beef on wick, chicken wings, and Ted's hot dogs, all favorites from Buffalo.  We had a great lunch at Jean's, shrimp salad, tossed salad and french bread.  It was fun to see Jean and her new home.  We left about 1:45, so that we would miss the rush hour traffic and our GPS took us home a different way from our going.  Strange...perhaps it was reacting to traffic was just being arbitrary.

Home From School

We were home by 3:00, in time there when Marisa arrived home from school.  And when we got home, Cody jumped up from the floor, danced around, happy to see us, hoping I would take him for a walk...which I did despite the heat.  We then sat around, waiting for wine time, at 5:00, as Beth helped Mitch get his clothes organized for an awards assembly tomorrow and graduation on Friday. We went to Marisa's favorite fast food,  a local hot spot, another burger place, an easy drive or a 15 minute walk called Hopdoddy's.  It's famous in Texas, I guess, and is known for it's variety of burgers, especially its fries.  When Evie heard about their fries, it sealed the deal on where we would go for dinner.

#1 Burger Joint In Texas

Waiting For Our Burgers

Hopdoddy's was cool beans, a busy, fun place, an easy and efficient ordering system.  I can see why the lines sometimes wrap around the block.  Fortunately, we were there before 7:00 and it was still happy hour, so we got reduced prices on everything.  I ordered the most expensive burger, the Supreme, with Texas Akaushi Beef, Brie, truffle aioli, arugula, caramelized onions and steak sauce. Not your McDonalds and quite a line up of fixings, to go with great fries, some of the very best Evie's eaten in her recent travels though four states and various burger bars.  The gang ordered various burgers, we shared a couple of large orders of fries, and Evie loved her beer in a fish bowl called Saint Arnold Fancy Lawnmower, a true German style Koisch , appropriate for her reputation as the Lawn Girl.  We were in and out in less than 40 minutes, mostly because Mitch had plans to meet up with his friends.

We sat around till 8:30 watching Shark Tank.  Then, it was time to watch some Cavs as Marisa went upstairs to bed, Beth to her bedroom to watch a show, leaving just Evie and me to watch the game. It was another blow out victory, but this time for the Cavs, a boring game really.