Super Saturday in San Antonio TX 2-21-09

On February 21, 2009, Darry and I drove to San Antonio to attend Super Saturday for World Ventures with Lisha & Kari Schneider's group at the Airport Embassy Suites. Mike Conway was the featured speaker. Wes Melcher, Michael Walloch, and Steven Little were presenters also. Kari was the Mistress of Cermonies and kept everyone on schedule. At the breakout with Mike Conway for those who had reached FQR+ status, he gave insight on the upcoming biggest and best convention and where the company is going. Texas black western hats to be available for $14. Break out sessions for FQR+ and Directors and above will be available. All WV products, merchandise and tools will be available for sale all day in special rooms. Business to Business is being adapted and vacation products are being offered to companies. He suggested that we recruit fitness centers as they have large memberships and that fitness goes hand in hand with travel. Everyone wants to go on vacation in good shape! Fitness Centers are motivational and have facilities/rooms where people meet daily. He suggested that we offer owners and managers the WV business with Dream Trips or memberships as prizes. International News: One exciting point is that all of World Ventures business is being translated into every major language and would be offered first only to people in the USA to those who speak Spanish, not in Mexico or Latin America. He mentioned there are more people in Southern California than there are in Canada. That is why USA will be first in line. He stated that he felt that too much time was spent recruiting new people and that we need to pay attention to our down line people to keep the drop out rate low. User friendly tools are coming soon to help with retention. We will be able to see who is doing what, attending what, and what they think about WV. He encouraged all to get BTA certified as LTC is the sleeping giant of WV. ROVIA takes in $1 million weekly and by the end of the year is expected to do double that figure. 85% of our members are part time! Go on a Dream Trip.

March 4, 2009

Kay and Ron, Brooke, Dennis Weaver's oldest daughter from Phoenix, and her boyfriend Vince were here for lunch and some sightseeing. Brooke is 19 and Vince is too, both graduated last year from High School. They are nice kids and Brooke giggles at all of Darry's jokes. She's so cute. They drove up from San Antonio and got here a little after noon. I had ham and turkey for sandwiches, 4 bean salad and chips. Dessert was a banana pudding recipe I found on Kraftfoods.com. They loved it all. We (all 6 of us) got into Ron's Buick (Brooke was in the front center on the little console seat since she had the littlest behind) and went into Bandara and toured the Country Time Museum. Then after that we hit the boutiques in downtown Bandara (very expensive and exclusive). Shopping, but no purchasing. Then we drove up to Camp Verde to the site where Jeff Davis sponsored 32 Egyptian camels to be brought into Texas for ferrying supplies to outpost forts since horses and oxen didn't work well enough. They also imported 25 families to take care of the animals too for a grand total of $30K. The camels worked out very good, but then came the Civil War and the project went down the drain. The camels were let loose and some were purchased by Mexico. All is left is a site that lays claim to being the outpost for Camp Verde camels. After that excursion, we drove on to Center Point down the road 8 miles to Dave's Tavern. Dave is 75+ and runs this restaurant and tavern along with his 50 year old wife and step daughter. The hamburgers are to die for, 1/3 lb of marinated Angus beef with all the fixings. He's also built an aviary (banana plants, trees) along with many birds. Parrots, doves, and many other species. He caters to the biker crowd and that is how we found out about the place through our biker friend Chuck who took us there last year.

So it's been an exciting day of family, food, and sightseeing. We were squashed into Ron's Buick, but we all agreed it was fun. We were back at the Motor Home by 7 and after Vince had another dessert, they were on their way back to SA.

Cell service was sporadic in places today, but I did get your text msg Bob about the computer. We should be at the hotel in Dallas on Thursday shortly after noon. Dallas is the site of the World Ventures Convention that Bob & I are attending. Darry & Honey will stay here in Bandara and Kay & Ron are picking me up and taking me with them to Dallas. They have a Texas Bell Chapter Meeting Friday & Sat at a hotel at the airport. They will let me out at the hotel and pick me up on Sunday to come back with them.

Weather has been beautiful the last few weeks. No rain and it is need desperately. Saw that Albuquerque was to be up to 72 today and KS was to be nice and sunny too. Luckily no snow like the east coast is experiencing.

March 7, 2009

This is the first posting on our new blog. We will be staying here in Texas for another month at the Cowboy Capital RV Park near Pipe Creek TX. We are just 6 miles from Bandara and about 40 miles from San Antonio. We are frequent visitors to Kay and Ron's (Darry's sister & husband) home on Bell Brook in SW San Antonio. Our motor home is very comfortable and is our home away from home for the winter months. Our daschund, Honey Bun, is now 16-1/2 years old and is our traveling companion. She takes a lot of sun baths and sleeps most of the time at this stage in her life. She gets Darry up to go outside each early morning (4:30 am is not his best time, but he takes good care of her) and then she snuggles up beside us in bed for a few more hours of sleep! She loves her big brown fur pillow that was made especially for her by our friend Marilyn. Two events have made February outstanding for us. First of all we moved from Lackland AFB FamCamp on Feb 4th to spend a few weeks at the Cowboy Capital RV Park near Pipe Creek TX. We were fortunate to have friends Chuck & Angel Messer invite us to their neighborhood. The first weekend we were here, the campground owners, Gerhart and Charlotte and family, invited us to a "cookout" South African style. Cookout meaning a campfire and dutch oven cooking. Kay & Ron were visiting us that day and were included in the evening meal. Chicken & vegetables, lamb stew, beef stew and assorted salads, breads and desserts. What a feast! Personally I had two helpings of the lovely lamb stew and was it ever good.