Scattered Thoughts . . .

A s I mentioned in my previous blog entry, we spent the day out for Sheila's birthday.  Most of the day was really nice while some of the day was pretty disgusting as will be described later in this blog entry.   The drive up to Burlington was nice...  the sky was clear and it wasn't snowing for a change!  The mountaintops clearly have snow but the snow at our lower elevation was mostly gone over the past few days and wouldn't return until the following day.   Sheila had gone for a massage in mid-morning in Waterbury so we were heading up to Burlington a little later than we normally would have started out.  She enjoyed her massage so that is good.  By the time we arrived in the Burlington area, it was a bit later in the lunchtime hours so we were pretty hungry.  We had decided to have lunch at a new Mexican restaurant in Willison called "Casa Grande" since we had never been there before and we do like Mexican food.  I think we visi...

After our cruise on the Spirit of Ethan Allen on Lake Champlain, we headed to a restaurant for a nice meal.  We usually head up the hill from the waterfront to a restaurant on or near Church Street.  I can't remember why we didn't do that this time but we instead went to The Longhorn in Williston.  We all enjoy the food and service at The Longhorn so that is always a place to play it safe for a good meal.  When Sheila was going through cancer treatment, we stopped here on most days to eat lunch since it is so close to the hospital.  We were very much regular customers at this restaurant but then we stopped going to all restaurants for three years during the pandemic.  A couple of the same waitstaff are still working there so we continue to be recognized and treated very well.   Ace really likes this restaurant because of all the cows in paintings and art throughout the restaurant.  Every now and then he will notice another herd of cows and wi...

O n our day of shopping up in the Williston/Burlington area with Lukey and Kenzie, we stopped at Agave for lunch.  By the time lunchtime rolled around, we were all starving.  We briefly tossed around the idea of going to a sandwich shop but the kids wanted to go to Agave and I have no problems with going out for Mexican food so we went to Agave!  Sheila and I like Agave but I was a bit surprised that the kids wanted to go there.   I think Lukey and Kenzie wanted to play Table Shuffleboard but I know they like a few of the dishes there too.  While Lukey tends to stick to Americanized (rather boring) ground beef tacos, I opt for more authentic tacos.   I had a Carnita taco with Mojo pork, slaw, pickled fresnos (which added a nice depth of flavor) and chimichuri (which added some nice heat).  I think they must have a new chef because this was the first time any of our food had some authentic Mexican spices and heat.  In the past, I found th...

We've missed most of Lukey's hockey season due to Sheila's health issues over the past seven months but we did manage to get to a couple of games this season. Actually, we've missed most of everything over the past seven months but we were fortunate enough to be able to make a day of Lukey's last hockey game of the season a week ago... Lukey is number 10... Lukey has become a fairly quick skater since we've last seen him play... For Mallory and Kenzie, this was more of a snack and socializing day...  Unfortunately, I was stuck shooting photos through puck-marked glass. This made for less-than-sharp photos, at best. Some of the photos have reflections and some are slightly obscured by puck-marks on the glass. I still managed to capture some decent photos though... These next four photos are a great series...  in the first photo, Lukey is blocking a shot with his skate... the puck is hard to see because it is blen...