The Goodrums

Last weekend, we decided to take a road trip to Albuquerque to see how the good ol' Ags fared against New Mexico. After our loss to Arkansas State, our enthusiasm about the game waned significantly. However, we stuck with our plans to see a (relatively) cheap Aggie football game.

We carpooled to Albuquerque with some Aggie friends we met at the church we've been attending and their mountain dog, Frisco. We stayed the night with one of Michael's high school (well, college too) friends and his wife, who I ended up knowing from A&M (a complete surprise).

While in Albuquerque, we had an incident which made me determine that living in New Mexico is not good for your health. Prior to the football game, we went to eat lunch at Rudy's BBQ (green chile stew - yummm...). A guy immediately ahead of us in line passed out cold at the counter and his head slammed into the concrete floor of the restaurant. He was unconscious for a minute before he came to and had a pretty significant head injury. We immediately called 911. During the time that passed we found out that the guy had a heart condition and called again to report (and urge them to hurry up). They actually told us to stop calling! It took the ambulance over 30 minutes to get to the restaurant - and then the most disturbing part was that the paramedics casually sauntered in when they finally showed up. They were in no hurry at all. The whole thing was highly disturbing.

Here are a couple pictures from the game (which was depressing and had some of the worst officiating I have ever seen - mostly to the dismay of New Mexico).














Ol' Ag pride. Wow...

















Game time in scorching heat

The pictures we took of us at the game didn't really turn out. Oh well. It was an interesting experience and a few memories I'd like to forget.

On our 6 1/2 hour drive home, we stopped in Vegas (New Mexico, that is) for dinner at Johnny's Kitchen. Interesting digs. Here's the barber shop across the street:


















We couldn't decide if the picture on the sign is what you look like before or after the haircut. :)

For Thanksgiving 2007, we made a quick trip to Lubbock, Texas to visit Michael's family. Michael's sister Stephanie and her husband, Matt, live in Lubbock. We left Thursday morning and returned Saturday afternoon. Michael's parents also flew in.

So on Thursday, we left two days of snow in Denver to fly into three days of snow in Lubbock. :) But we did have a great time spending time with family aside a cozy fire. We had a great feast on Friday. I picked up some great recipes and we had fun trying out some new board games with family. We watched some pretty-good-for-a-change Aggie football (which was a good thing given that there were four Aggies in the house). Coach Fran promptly resigned and A&M already replaced him. They waste no time. Matt and Steph did a great job painting their house and gave us further inspiration to get after it and paint ours.

Dad Goodrum has the sole picture (a family portrait) from the Thanksgiving get together and we'll have to wait until he sends it to us to post it!

Picture update 12/3
The picture quality isn't great. We'll try to get a picture with better resolution and replace this one. For now, this will do.















From Left: Michael, Jennifer, Matt, Stephanie, Aunt Lanette, Mom G, Dad G

So, as Jennifer mentioned, we had a mini adventure in Wakeeney, KS on the way home from the A&M - OU game. We stopped for gas and Jennifer went in the store while I filled up the car. After filling up I went in to use the restroom and get a Mountain Dew (mostly because our pastor in Jackson loved them and so it came to mind) to help me stay alert the remainder of the trip. Jen came out and said, "hey there was a guy in a Texas A&M Football shirt inside." I passed the guy as I was going in and he out, but didn't register fast enough to say howdy. When I went up to pay, there was this dude in front of me that looked Hawaiian or Samoan or something and with a long ponytail. He was probably about 5'10", but as he reached for his McDonald's bag after paying I noticed and semi-marveled at the fact that his arm had to be as big around as my thigh. Then I had a brief chat with the clerk about how the Mountain Dew would be $189 and that was a ripoff, but that it was all those girls fault who would give him a hard time if they knew he said that. He reminded me of a guy named Matt that came to work at Entergy Nuclear South Headquarters while I was still there. So, after my chat in the store, I walked out to find Jennifer talking to the guy in the Texas A&M Football shirt; who happened to be driving the car with Utah license plates that the leg for arms guy with McDonald's would be riding in. I heard the words "downhill" and "inconsistency" and unfortunately knew that they were talking about Aggie football. I made this comment and to my surprise Jennifer said, "Yeah, he's Misi Tupe's brother." That of course explained a lot about things. So we chatted with them for a bit, wished them a safe drive home and both prepared to grind out several more hours of driving. I felt for them, cause they had a whole lot further to drive than we did.

So yeah, that was our mini-adventure in Wakeeney. We met Misi Tupe's brother (or brothers?) at one of about three gas stations in town.

And one other thing that I don't think Jennifer mentioned. At the game, the Aggie Band was great as always, and then the OU band took the field for what I anticipated to be a typical band halftime show. I have to give props to the OU band though, for what turned out to be, hands down, the best halftime band performance by a band other than the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band. When the guy announced they would be doing a rendition of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" I think most of the audience was just kind of whatever. Things were normal until about 2/3 of the way through, when the band members all formed lines and then oddly stopped and put down their instruments. Not a typical band thing to do. Well, let's just use the word pandemonium to describe what happened when the head twitching commenced. See for yourself and I dare you to say it's not awesome, OU band or not.

So on Saturday evening, the Brashares Family trekked down to Norman, Oklahoma for the Texas A&M versus OU football game. The game was frustrating for the Aggies, to put it nicely. There's a good possibility that the OU Band may have even won halftime (which is unheard of!) due to their rendition of Thriller (Michael stole my thunder and the namesake of this post - see post above). At least we had good company...



















The Lone Sooner of the Bunch



















Teri and Wes being cute as usual













Brashares gals - minus Kelly :(















Us
Still smiling and yelling until our throats were sore (we sure gave it our all)












The whole clan
For a good laugh, check out Mom's sweatshirt. Half and half. We joke that only one sleeve should go to OU (since 3/4 kids went to A&M, plus several of the men in the family).

In honor of the beginning of college football season... Go Ags!

A disappointing end to the Aggie football season tonight. The Ags made a valiant effort against Cal. They actually made a strong showing at the beginning of the game - but eventually wore down and ran out of time. Nevertheless, the season ended much stronger than I think anyone would have anticipated at the beginning of the year. They made good progress - and we'll look forward to more improvement next season. Hopefully Mike Goodson's injury was minor. He's only a freshman and is supposed to do great things.

At least the basketball team gave us something to celebrate.

So on Friday, we slept in a little and then went to do a little touring of the city of Boston with Michael's parents. We walked all over - to Michael's office, through Chinatown, to Boston Common, around Beacon Hill, and through Back Bay. We went to Game On to watch the final quarter of the A&M v. Texas game. Go Aggies! We were ecstatic!

After the game, we did a little more walking - past Fenway Park, to REI in Brookline, down Newbury Street, through Downtown Crossing, made a brief visit to the original Filene's Basement, and through the North End. We ate dinner at Pizzeria Regina and dessert at Mike's Pastry. We caught an early train home to rest up for another big day on Saturday.

Pictures to come...

So in spite of the few bumps we hit on Tuesday morning, we were able to close on Tuesday afternoon. It is quite a relief to be finished with the sale of the house and move. On Tuesday evening, our friends Kevin and Christy were wonderful and took in my poor homeless self for the evening. We got to enjoy giving candy to the trick or treaters and playing with the 12 cute doggies currently sharing the house (they are fostering a mom and 9 puppies).

On Wednesday morning, I left bright and early and drove 11 hours (700 miles) to Indianapolis, Indiana to visit my grandmother (dad's mom). Thank goodness for books on CD! They helped me maintain sanity on these forever long drives. I arrived in Indianapolis about 7pm and got to hang out with my grandmother.

On Thursday, I had the chance to spend some time with my aunt, uncle and two cousins (Nathan is 3, Janessa is 6 - too much fun!) and grandmother. My little car also had to take a trip to the doctor. Guess that's what happens when you go on a cross country trek in a car with 150,000 miles on it. The power steering had to be rebuilt. So much fun. Thankfully I had already planned for a down day in Indianapolis - so the repair didn't interrupt my trip. ...And boy was I glad to have power steering again on my Friday drive through the "mountains" of the northeast (the roads were really windy in spite of being interstates).

Friday, I drove another 1,000 miles - literally. I left Indiana at 6:30 in the morning and made it through Indiana and Ohio before lunch. It snowed all 300 miles through Pennsylvania. I called my mom freaking out - 'cause I had never driven in snow before (ice but not snow). By the time I reach Connecticut, I thought the drive was never going to end - but I was less than an hour away and it just wasn't worth stopping. I never got sleepy or tired really - just restless and ready to get out of the car after driving 16 hours. I finally arrived at our little hotel home at about 9:30 on Friday night.

We spent Saturday unpacking all the stuff in my car and running errands. Michael had been stuck in the hotel for two weeks with no car so he was itching to go exploring.

We are living in Franklin, MA - which is about 30 miles southwest of Boston. The commuter rail is literally across the street from us - so if we want to go into Boston it's ridiculously easy. We walk across the street and jump on the train. Don't have to worry about driving downtown (very difficult) or finding parking (nearly impossible). The town we live in is so cute. It's a quaint, little, quiet town with cute little houses. We have easy access to everything we need and more. So far people have been really friendly and we are really enjoying it.

You would have laughed at me at the grocery store on Saturday. It wasn't even the Whole Foods (the Whole Foods is only a mile away - Yippee!) - just the regular grocery store - but so much selection, great produce, etc., etc. I'm afraid that I was gawking. I've just been without a good grocery store for so long that I almost forgot what it was like. :)

On Saturday evening, we went into Boston to watch the A&M v. O.U. game with the Boston A&M club. What a disappointment for us! Sigh...

On Sunday, we went to a cute little church about 40 minutes away from us (one way). It was called Crossroads Community Church. It reminded us quite a bit of the church we attended in college. The people were super friendly and very helpful. They actually told us about a fun, young church that's on the next street over from our hotel. We'll probably check it out soon. We'd like to find something a little closer - just so we can actually get involved during our short time here.

P.S. Happy 21st birthday to Christy and Teri on Friday. I can't believe my beautiful little sisters are already 21!















Birthday girls - Teri and Christy

Here's one more picture that our friend Ramy took at the game...







Click on the picture to make it bigger. This is the view from the second deck (student side) of Kyle Field. Wish we could enjoy it more often!

This weekend, Michael came to Houston to attend the Grand Opening of our new building at work. He also got to travel to College Station and attend a real, live Aggie football game. It's been over 3 years since we went to our last football game at Kyle Field. Most of our close friends from college came in town for the game. It was so much fun to get to see everybody and catch up.















The new "mega"-tron
Whoop! The Aggies beat Missouri!















Whoop!
From Left: Ramy, Amy, Jen Nelson, Jessica, David, Goodie (Michael)

Jessica and Nelson were two of my college roommates.















How many people will fit in a Jeep Liberty?















Teri & Wes came over to hang out for a while after the game
From Left: Me, my sis Teri, her super fun boyfriend Wes, Goodie/Michael

Is giving us heart attacks again! We played Army on Saturday night and Army came way, way too close to an upset. Hopefully the team will pull it together - and quickly. We don't have many games left before we get into conference play (Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Baylor - in the Big 12 South).

We got together with the local A&M club and had a great time hanging out (until the second quarter anyway - when I began nervously pacing the room...). Here's one picture from the get together.















Jen & Ivon Hallmark
Thomas Hallmark (Ivon's husband) was one of Michael's classmates in the NUEN program at A&M. Thomas & Michael both work for the same company now - although in different groups. We have enjoyed having them nearby!

So sorry we haven't posted in forever. On August 29th, we had a minor tragedy in the Goodrum household. My poor computer flatlined. Actually Microsoft Outlook flatlined - but the whole computer might as well have. My life is contained in Outlook! I keep everything that would normally be in a planner in Outlook. My calendar, all my contacts, all my to-do's - not to mention my email - is stored there. For it to croak is for me to have a heart attack (and wander around aimlessly not having a clue what to do)...

It took over a week of poking, prodding and coaxing (and trips to the "doctor" - aka Computer Repair Shop) to get Outlook to even partially come back to life. This is definitely not a good thing given that I work at home and that this is my work computer. It was a lesson in backing up your computer FREQUENTLY - for sure! I had an Outlook backup from the middle of July thankfully. But I ended up losing almost 6 weeks of data, a week worth of work time and quite a bit of sleep. No fun!

The computer was finally up and running by Thursday of this week. Thursday and Friday were chaos trying to catch up on 10 days of missed work.

In other Goodrum household news...

"Fall" has arrived (quotes necessary due to lovely southern climate) - and, hence, college football begins! Gig'em Ags!! From September through November, Saturdays are at least partially devoted to Aggie football (via streaming radio over the internet and ESPN gamecasts). Someone accused us of being desperate the other day. But when it comes to Aggie football - we don't think that's such a bad accusation! This weekend, I was feeling some sympathy pains for poor U-LaLa. I think it's only because ULL is my mom's (and a good portion of the rest of our LA family's) alma mater. Tuesday's are also days to look forward to thanks to ESPN's Bottom Ten (my favorite poll)!

Michael left today for D.C. He will be there until Thursday for work. His parents are currently living in D.C. - so he's going to stay with them in their cozy one bedroom apartment. :) I've had the chance to see Michael's parents several times since they moved to D.C. (since I travel there several times a year for work) but Michael hasn't had the chance to go yet. I'm excited that he gets to go (and that his work is paying for it!). Can't ever complain about that.