It's official! An Oklahoma Reunion!

It's official. This will be the site for the 2009 Scifres Family Reunion for the 4th of July weekend The AmericInn of McAlester. I have reserved rooms for July 3-5 -- that's Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. It's the hotel where James worked before he moved to Stillwater. Go their website at www.americinn.com for more info.

We were able to get a rate of $89.90 per night. With taxes, the room for the three nights will be about $300. They have a great breakfast each morning that is free and a super indoor pool and jacuzzi. We think you'll be really pleased with the accomodations.

Of course, we'll have more details later. But, we hope you'll begin now to get excited about being together for three great days in Big Mac.

Our January has been fairly uneventful. We did enjoy a weekend in Stillwater in order to celebrate James' birthday. James and Shawnee cooked dinner for us. Kara made the birthday cake and I brought the ice cream. After dinner, we played Whoonuu. It's a great game and we enjoyed it so much that we went out and bought our own.

The last weekend of the month brought an icestorm to McAlester and much of the eastern half of the state. We were lucky that we missed the bullett -- Muskogee and Tahlequah and the area to the northeast of that part of the state took the brunt of the storm. We did get enough ice that our schools were out on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Kathy and I stayed home Tuesday and Wednesday and finally ventured out on Thursday afternoon. School was back in session by Friday and it's pretty much only a memory today as almost everything has now melted.

Well, that's all for right now. Hope everyone is doing great and looking forward to a great February. It's one of my faviorite months, because it includes my favorite holiday -- Valentine's Day. We love you all!

The Senior Okies -- Kathy and Karl

California Dreaming

This past weekend my friends and I piled into my car for a long road trip in search of warmer weather. (Provo's a bit icy this time of year and we were ready for a change). Aunt Kay was kind enough to take in five BYU students for three nights. We drove to Riverside on Friday night. Saturday we enjoyed a delicious breakfast of waffles with Aunt Kay, Uncle Ben, Katie and Wesley. We then took off for a day at the beach at Santa Monica Pier. It was lovely weather - warm enough to for the boys to swim in the ocean. Sunday we enjoyed going to church with Aunt Kay and better than that she feed us a lovely meal of chicken and rice, waldorf salad, rolls, green beans with almond slivers. YUM!!! We finished out the night with a game of Disney Scene It and watching Stardust. Monday we woke up early so we could get a little more beach time before heading back to the frozen tundra. It was a delightful trip and I'm so grateful for Aunt Kay opening her home to us. Thanks again! It was so much fun to be together.

Greetings to my "Udder Family"

It is my honor as Mona's 'udder sister', to have been invited to join the Scifres Scoop! I was stumped at first to come up with a name you would all recognize. Throughout our 40+ years of friendship, I have had several endearing names; Spaz, Aunt Jan, Udder Daughter, and others I care not to recall. But the one that will probably stick with me until Mona & Karl have no more memory would be "Janba". I'm sure the story would be a long, funny one, as to how we came up with this particular moniker. The short version is that a Bill Cosby character named Mushmouth was very hard to understand. But once you learned to put 'ba' at the end of each word, or even mixed in the middle of long words, it was pretty fun to speak in 'Mush-ba Mouth-ba'.

I have spent most of the past week in McAlester, tending to my mom. She fell 3 times on Thursday, had to have stitches in her hand and her face, and spent a few days in the hospital. However, she is home with me in Tulsa until she gets mended. I will keep an eye on her to see if it was really too much blood pressure medicine, or if she is just a "Spaz" like her daughter!!! It is time for her to go to assisted living, but it is going to be a very hard process, as is expected. If nothing more noteworthy happens before my next post, I'll tell you about the day she kept falling, and was helped by a man walking his dog.

To those of you "Senior Okies" - I ran into Dr. Thurman Schuller when I was 'home'. He was at Walgreen, walking down the aisle toward me. I wasn't sure it was him, so I said, "Dr. Schuller?" He turned with a smile and we had a very sweet exchange. He is 94 years old!!! Bet there are very few 54 year olds who can say they visited with their own pediatrician!

Hope you all have a wonderful 2009.

Love ya'll,
Jan Rodden Conway

Texas Trippin'

Howdy Y'all,
We had a wonderful time visiting Michael and family. Rachelle is such a beauty, and so soft as her brother Aaron was always saying. She looked so cute in her dress I made for the blessing. We had a nice time that day, with Becca's folks and also her cousin Adam, his wife and daughter who now live in Houston. It's nice that they have some family that close.

We had a nice time on Wednesday, for Michael's birthday, we went to Gattitown in College Station. It is a pizza buffet place with a large arcade area for the entertainment of little and big kids(including Michael). Then we went back to the house for homemade German Chocolate Cake and Bluebell ice cream!!! We bought Michael Disney's Scene It game, and the boys love playing it. Aaron is pretty sharp on it. Michael also received a new Barbeque Grill from Becca's folks, so on Saturday he insisted on grilling. The only problem was it was very windy and only in the low 50's(Friday had been about 80 degrees) so it was a real sight to see him out there barbequing in his coat with his hood up. It was very good though.

It was a really good visit and I enjoyed the drive to Austin yesterday since it was dark when we arrived in Austin and I couldn't see any of the scenery going to Bryan.
Kay and Ben

Our new addition