#43 - Christmas & The Zoo at Brownsville, TX 12-26-2008

We didn't do a lot for Christmas. Because we weren't in the mood for Ham dinner with 300 other people, we decided to have Prime Rib and share it with Alice and Don. Sooooooo-now this is the story and I'm sticking by it!

Frank and I went to Sam's Club to pick up his new glasses, while he was fitting the glasses I went to the meat department to see if I could get a nice prime rib for Christmas Dinner. All they had was 8 rib roasts. That is way too much for four people. While I was asking the man behind the counter if he could cut it in half for me and sell it at the same price, another gentleman was also asking the same thing. Boy, did we have a hard time with getting our meaning across to the employee. He just wanted to say "no" and get back to what he was doing. So I asked to see his manager! She came out and the gentleman "Dwight," and I both told her that we each wanted half of the prime rib. She said she could cut it in half, but had to sell it as one item. So we agreed that we would just go through the check stand at the same time and meet outside and split our prime rib. And that is just what we did. I gave Dwight money for our half, he paid for the entire piece and we split it outside in front of the bell ringer for the Salvation Army. That bell ringer got a big kick out of our little exchange.

Needless to say, it makes for a good story, and the meat was wonderful, the dinner turned out great and we all had a blessed Christmas right inside out RV! Of course, the next day we had to have prime rib sandwiches dipped in Au Jous. And they aren't good unless the bread is really fresh. So we had to go out again and buy fresh french rolls. Mmmmm good eating. We miss you kids, but you were all with us in spirt for dinner and left overs!

The day after Christmas we tok a ride to Brownsville, TX, which is about 40 miles from Alamo. Don, Alice, Frank and I all went to the Zoo. It was a windy day, but not cold. In fact there was quite a bit of humidity in the air. The animals at the zoo loved it. The monkeys were extremely playfull. The land for the zoo and a big park were donated by the Porter Family. So they named the zoo after Gladys.

This monkey was playing inside. I had a hard time taking a picture of him/her because he/she jumped all around the play area.

This is the tortoise and tortoise race. It was funny to watch them go around the track. There was another tortoise on the rocks watching.

The flowers were blooming even though it is the middle of winter. I just had to take a picture of this orchid. The entire bush was filled.

Here we are with the giraffe's in the back ground. There is a baby giraffe huddled among the herd. It was fun to watch them protecting the baby.

After the zoo we went out to lunch at the Holiday Inn. Don and Alice had some coupons that had to be used before the end of the year. We lucked out and the lunch buffet was fresh crab, shrimp and other fish. Yummy! It was a really cool restaurant with half of the swimming pool inside the restaurant and half outside in the sun. Of course, it was a little too cool for swimming, so the pool was empty.