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Our Friend Jack does the MS150

Our friend Jack from Houston has been one of our dearest friends for a very long time. JR and I miss his smiling face often. When I heard a few months ago that he was going to take the plunge and ride the MS150, I was at first surprised, then nervous and then so happy I could bust. The MS150 is a bike endurance ride. There are several throughout the country, but this one is in Texas. if you go to http://www,ms150.org/ms150 it should take you to the Houston-Austin ride. His times are below in reverse order.

Finish 4/13/2008 5:32:12 PM
Bastrop 4/13/2008 1:06:07 PM
LaGrange
4/12/2008 8:04:29 PM
Bellville 4/12/2008 10:56:39 AM

JR and I are so proud of Jack for doing this as this is no small feat and we wanted to brag about him publicly - in a private kind of way.

Congrats Jack

2008 GNI - Vegas Opening Day

March 27 - The day dawned bright and beautiful - eventually - as it was still dark at 4am when JR and I picked up Anne and Aileen to go to the airport. JR had a flight to Chicago at 6am which was only 20 mins before our flight, so we decided to all go together. JR would meet up with Anne and Aileen on Sunday and take them home while I stayed an extra day to hang out with Angela. Anne, Aileen and I must have picked the "starter" TSA line as it seemed to take an iterminable amount of time to go through the puffer. We emerged on the other side unscathed and found our gate. The plane was full of vibrant lively people considering the hour and our flight was pleasant. I had plenty of free drink tickets, but it took us a while to decide we wanted a drink. Anne was sitting nearest the window, Aileen in the middle and I took the "elbow" seat - you know, the one the cart always bumps (see The Wedding Singer for more explanation). Since I was on the aisle, I was able to overhear different conversations and it seemed the group of more tenured ladies sitting around us were having a good time. We started talking to them and found out they are part of a senior ladies tennis tournament and we shared info about our different reasons for visiting vegas and favorite locations. The ladies remarked that they couldn't believe all 3 of us had ordered water at the first go round when I had so many drink tickets. I gave them some of mine and thy vowed to use them on the way back. After landing and going to the place one goes immediately upon landing - that would be the restroom - we overhead the women remarking about me giving them the tickets and how nice that was. Since we were on our way to wreak havoc on the city, it was nice to know it started out with an appreciated gesture.

We waited in one of the restaurants for the arrival of Susan's plane and then Angela's plane and then bustled ourselves into a limo (what you thought we wouldn't go first class?) and dropped our luggage off at the hotel - Residence Inn 2 bedroom suite - and had the driver drop us off at the Hilton where the girls got a little tutoring on slot machines. Some of us lost and some of us won, but we thoroughly enjoyed the process.

The Hilton is the home of the Star Trek Experience and we wasted no time once the store and restaurant were open to explore new life and civilizations, er sorry, to shop and gawk at the plethora of merchandise. Also, there were ferengi and borg walking around to play with, so of course, we did. I believe his words were "female human tall" in a very snarky voice - very ferengi. I tried to stop Aileen from assimilating with the Borg, but as they say "resistence is futile". There is an enormous amount of memorabelia and a timeline to help tie in all the startrek series and movies.

We experienced the 2 interactive rides - one a Borg invasion and the other a Klingon encounter - and had a blast - pun intended. The woman tending the line of the ride was an ex-showgirl and we revelled in hearing her stories of Vegas and travel abroad. It's nice to know that when I'm around 60, yes she was around 60 and looked amazing - I can go work in Vegas. We had lunch at Quarks Bar where the fare is basic, but has cool star trek names. My co-worker from San Diego, Colleen, met us for lunch and we all had a wonderful time.

We then wandered across the street to the Riviera Hotel and picked up our tickets to La Cage - a wonderful drag show. Frank Marino, who plays Joan Rivers and introduces all the girls was on Miss Congeniality 2. Before we went up to the show, we stopped at the Italian Restaurant and had appetizers and dessert with some wine and coffee. While we were there, actors from the Soprano's Last Supper came over and interacted with us - it was a hoot. Thanks to Aileen's newfound Soprano's knowledge, we were able to play with them.

After the show, we cabbed it to the Belaggio where the girls got their first taste of 'classy' Vegas. Then we walked down the strip to the MGM and waited for the shuttle to take us our rooms so that we can have a good night's sleep and prepare for the next days activities.

Nighty Night!

2008 GNI Vegas - Preface

Anne, Aileen, Susan and Angela decided to participate in GNI Vegas. Since I have been there numerous times and none of them had ever been, I was the tour guide - OK and I'm also good at it. Before we left, I made cards that said "My Name is ___ and I belong to Stacey Ronczy. In case of emergency please call" The girls started referring to it as the "Stacey" card as it appeared that I could wrangle us a good deal. Unbeknownst to the most of the girls, I also bought purses from Target (Anne helped me pick them out) and preloaded them with designer kleenex, Hello Kitty bandaids, breath freshner, blistex, and earplugs. Anne bought really cute buttons from the craft store and after everyone picked out their favorites, dutifully sowed them on - thanks Anne! Mine had a martini theme for obvious reasons. These pictures don't really do them justice - they were ubber cute.

I had given the girls a matrix of the many possibilities of things and shows we could do and had them each fill out their favorites and coordinated them and made a day-to-day schedue of how the days would go based on the selections. Yes its' in a spreadsheet and no I'm not showing it here :) Everything fell together nicely and everyone decided to hang together throughout most of the 4 days. Angela and I decided to stay for one more day so we got to hang out together. We love the boys in our life but it was nice for it to be just the two of us. Anne and Aileen being sisters, know each other. Susan and Angela knew each other, but the 5 of us had never been in the same location together for any length of time. The succes of this trips lies somewhat with the personality types of these young ladies and their willingness to be flexible.

My blogging on this will probably be somewhat more lengthy than Anne's as I tend to go into more detail about things I've done and probaby include too many pictures, but there you go. I'm not going to spoil the suprise for those who have not heard about this trip, but suffice it to say a great time was had by all. If you have read Anne's blog, there might be some duplicity here. I have to give Anne credit for some of the pictures that will be included.

Let the show begin....

Long awaited Houston Pictures

Surprise - It's your Birthday

Sorry for the long delay in posting; we've been travelling for business and pleasure and also been sicker than dogs, but we are back on track.

For my birthday - March 5 in case you were wondering - My Husband and my girlfriends threw a surprise party for me. The party was actually on the Friday after my birthday, hence the suprise.

As you can see, I was surprised. I think JR was glad to have all the hush-hush stuff done. Everyone worked very hard to make this a memorable birthday. My sister-in-law Mary flew in from Chicago to spend the weekend with me without me knowing in advance and that was a great gift. My girlfriend Jill came in from Frisco just to see me and announced she was moving to Montana in less than a week! Talk about surprises! Sandy and her son Joey also came and my GNIs - Aileen, Anne, Paden, Laura and Dawn were also in attendance. Aileen's husband Brian, who may have been a little frightened by the amount of progesterone in the room, made Creme Brulee which was a HUGE hit. Aileen made my favorite cake - Red Velvet. A good time was had by all - so much so in fact we really forgot to take pictures.

The next day, our daughter Katheryne suprised me - my last gift - and we got to spend the rest of the weekend together. It was wonderful having Mary and Kat together in our home. That evening, Kat, Mary, Dawn, Brian, Aileen, Anne, JR and I watched a double feature - Hairspray - both the John Waters version and the musical. There was much laughing, food and fun and I enjoyed my birthday weekend very much.

Thanks to all who busted their collective butts to pull off something of this magnitude. As I said that evening, it really means a lot to me that you all went through the trouble.