A Movie Trailer Worth Watching

My first attempt at iMovie.....

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS 2010

What a great week with family! Christmas Eve service at St. Philips followed by dinner and presents with The Blackfords and Aidai/ Yousef at our house. Presents everywhere.......

Up early for Santa followed by more presents (Stacey scored a MacBook Pro) and the kids have enuf toys to open a FAO Schwartz.

We are blessed.

And for your entertainment pleasure, here is a surprise from our good friends Jim and Louise Malone. A true surprise-----Kate's first deer. A deer skin rug!!!!

My Good Luck Charm

Deer Season opens Saturday! Last year Kate was my good luck charm. This year we have 2 tags to fill and she's locked and loaded and will be looking for Bambi.....hopefully we both have good luck!

19 years and counting.......

For 19 years now, I've looked forward to early November. It's true, Fall is without a doubt my favorite season for many many reasons. Football, hunting, holidays, cool weather, family time and more recently baseball. It's a busy time for us Balckfords but ultimately it all culminates with the evening before duck seasons opens.....which is TODAY.

Duck hunters are, essentially, all creatures of habit. We spend 9 months preparing, scheming, cleaning, building, buying and otherwise pining away for opening day. So when it's 104 outside in July and I'm standing in the garage tying decoy lines, cleaning shotguns, checking waders for leaks, and monitoring weather patterns on the Canadian praries.....yes, my family and friends think I'm more than a bit odd.

So here's to 19 opening day sunrises, a heavy game strap of birds, the smell of burned powder and hopefully many many many more opening days.

Summer 2010......going, going, gone!

Haven't posted in forever so I thought I'd give a quick rundown of our summer that blew by so quick.

June

Captiva Trip

Had a great trip to Captiva FL with our friends the Cummings and Daniels. 6 kids under age 10-----gee, that was fun. Had a great trip and perfect weather.

July

Colorado & Lonoke for Kate

Kate was thoroughly spoiled by both grandparents in Estes Park Colorado and Lonoke AR. See http://thomasblackford.blogspot.com/2010/07/back-from-colorado-and-back-to-work.html
for Estes photos.

I spent most of July playing with my new toy.

August

More Fishing----90 miles out in the Gulf from Freeport TX, the water is cobalt blue and the rigs are sadly idle or leaving to go to other parts of the world while rig workers families hemorhage. But the fish are biting and there's not a drop of oil. 450 lbs of amberjack, mahi mahi, kingfish and cobia were stuffed in the fishbox of the 42' Yellowfin Center Console "Cool Sea". Capt. Casey Cundieff always puts us onthe fish. We also traded a shrimp boat a case of Bud Light for 40 lbs (yes----40 lbs) of gulf shrimp.

MUDBUGS

Some people say "it's great to have friends!"

Well.....I say, "it's even better to have friends that raise crawfish!"

Once again, thru the miracle of my Arkansas network, a client offered to bring along 50 lbs of fresh crawfish as he was flying to Dallas Friday morning.

Sooooooooo, Friday night we hosted roughly 20 hungry people and drank coolers of cold Shiner and cajun boiled crawfish, corn, potatoes and peel-n-eat shrimp until we almost popped!!!!

For one night we listened to Zydeco and were temporary cajuns!!

THE BEAST!!!

I have a great wife. As we prepare to celebrate 15 yrs together on June 10th, I have to admit, I married way out of my league.





Evidence below:



(Hopefully my new toy in 3 weeks---2008 24' Champion Bay Boat----A BEAST!!!)

The evidence is clear: Stacey is so easy-going that when I wanted to sell my boat and get this beast, she was more than cool.

This boat is intimidating:

24' long center console Champion Bay Champ
250 hp 4 stroke Yamaha Outboard
29' 9" on trailer
Gross weight 7500 lbs
61 mph top speed
90 gal gas
2 Lowrance GPS/ Sonar combos
VHF Radio
Satellite weather
AM/FM , iPod stereo
3 livewells
Crazy amounts of storage

I hope to use it on Lake Ray Roberts, Lake Texoma, and on the TX coast.

Let's go fishing......but most of all.

I love you Stacey! Happy Anniversary!