This past week, I was in Fort Worth, Texas at the Texas Floodplain Management Association (TFMA- pronounced TiFMA) annual conference. It was a lot of fun, and I actually learned a thing or two! But it was a LONG week that started last Saturday... let's recap...
Last Saturday, after the kids nap, we went to Wilmington to Todd's sister's house so we could drop the kids off and head out to Haverhill to Mandy and O.B.'s house to pre party before the Wilmington High School class of 1990 20 year reunion. Can Todd really be 20 years out of high school???
Above is Todd with O.B., Mike, and Cooch. We had a good time at the O'Brien house - eating and drinking, as we all love to do.
Here's Cooch, Karen, O.B., Mike, Andrea and Todd. Only Mandy and I are missing from this one! Thankfully Mandy sober drove us all to and from the reunion, which was at Salvatori's in Lawrence. Our guys pretty much mingled the whole night (as we expected them too... it's their reunion, right?) so the girls hung out at "the spouse table."
Obviously, we had fun. And anytime the Wilmington crew gets together, we... um... imbibe. So getting up at 8 am after going to bed at 2.... OUCH. But I had to be on an 11 am flight to DCA to pick up my friends (and co-workers) Brook and Bryan so we could fly to Fort Worth.
And boy did we have fun in Fort Worth! The first night we were there, even though I was tired and hung over, we went to Babe's Chicken Dinner House in Roanoke, Texas, on the recommendation from my friend Van. Holy moley... this food was AWESOME! You only get two choices- fried chicken, or chicken fried steak. It's family style too. It comes with mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade biscuits, and creamed corn. We had some good food while we were in Texas, but this might have been the best meal I've ever eaten. One word comes to mind when thinking of this meal: BUTTER. Actually, that word could be used to describe every meal we had in Texas. Of course... did I take a picture? No. To quote Bryan as he was eating this meal: "If you were on death row and you had to request a last meal, you ask for this." SO true.
Here's Bryan and Brook in front of Babe's. They look pretty happy despite the fact that we were tired, hungry, and the mercury was pushing 100.
The rest of the trip was fun too. And of course, most of it revolved around food. I hit up Sonic for a corn dog and some tots. It's been a while since I've had Sonic. I was really missing it.
When we were at the conference, we met a guy from FEMA (I think his name was Gary) who recommended The Ponder Steakhouse, also known as Ranchman's Cafe. This place was only mildly scary. In a way that I thought maybe we might get our butt's beaten for being from out of town. It's in this TINY town out in the middle of nowhere and it looks straight out of a movie.
Now, get a load of this meal. First, a T-Bone steak with butter all over it, and homemade fries.
Next, it was homemade apple pie (fresh daily) with ice cream!
Really, I should either be dead from a heart attack or at least 10 pounds heavier after this trip!!!!
But... we actually did a few things other than eat. One of the perks of this conference was that we all got to take 2 laps around Texas Motor Speedway in the new Chevy Camero pace cars. Um... can you say AWESOME!!!??!!
This is what it looked like from the inside of my pace car. I asked one of the guys later how fast the pace cars went and he said about 85-90 mph (although we all thought it was faster). 85-90 isn't much on the freeway, but in those turns, it was kind of scary! They also offer the "160 mph experience" but I was under strict orders from Todd not to die while I was on my trip... so I didn't do it. But Bryan did!
That is Bryan, in the blue, with his arm in the air, waving at his adoring fans (me, Hux, and Brook). He said it was one of the scariest things he's ever done. He was shaking when he got out of the car! Well, he's braver than I am! My dad did something similar at Atlanta Motor Speedway about 10 years ago and loved it too.
Here I am with the race cars behind me. A good time was had by all! But I'm SO happy to be back at home with my three favorite people. There is no where else in the world I would rather be!!!!
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