Fun! Food! Football! Family!

Those four words sum up the past 24 hours for me!

It's all in "WHO you know!" And I know Sabrina who happened to have four tickets to the Preseason Opener of the Dallas Cowboys vs the Denver Broncos at Cowboy Stadium last night!

AND...she invited ME and Jesse (my oldest son who is a HUGE Cowboy fan) to join her and Summer!

Now these are not just your average get in the gate and common seating!

(Which is STILL great and beyond what I could afford!)

These tickets were for Section C which is very nice indeed!!

A parking pass (worth $75!) was also included!

Do you understand why I was smiling all day and night?

Anticipation all day and participation in all the hoopla that night!!

Even got a chance to hug on my youngest grandchild before we headed out!

And had an added bonus!! A phone chat with my YOUNGEST son, Ben! Yesterday he was 23 years old.

Since he was born at 5:00 PM - he had just been 23 for 25 minutes when Summer, Jesse and I all sang Happy Birthday to him on Summer's speaker phone!

(That's THREE of my four kids' voices I heard!)

We started with a pregame dinner at Red Robin.......mushroom burgers that were SO good!!

(I am NOT telling Louis Dean......he was not interested in being in a large football crowd but the BURGER may just move him to envy.......so let's NOT tell!!!)

You can see Summer and Jesse are both Cowboy fans.......they wore their jerseys.

When they were growing up we would watch every single game on TV.

Back then if the game was not a sell out it would not air on our local DFW TV stations.

We would drove as far as need be to be in range of a broadcast and rent a motel for the afternoon/evening.

Usually we didn't have to go past Waco - thank goodness!

Passed Jerry Jone's helicopter on our way in to the stadium.

We had great seats!

Opening ceremonies were SO exciting!

It was a great game!

We had a great time!!!

And on the way home I had a phone chat with my YOUNGEST daughter, Amber!

So.....I heard from my youngest two and was with my oldest two!!

Win!! Win!!!

Both my older kids live in Tarrant County and since I go to Fort Worth every Friday morning anyway--

I spent the night in Summer's spare room. Got to my mother's in record time this morning!

But NOT before I had a little 'Abby Time!'

She is SO cute!!! Melts my heart!

After Mother's hair was DONE......

and we had lunched at the Cotton Patch Cafe where we caught up with everyone on Facebook...

we stopped by the Super Target! Mother got her own cart......and was so PROUD!

I left her in the Cosmetics section......her favorite!

She is still a 'Girly' sort of girl!!

She even scoped out the candy isle!

Here in this pic she is digging out her money!

A funny story:  Mother had suffered a stroke and was recovering better than any of us expected.

However, she could no longer speak clearly or drive or work. Life was much different for her.

One day she kept putting her hand in her pocket and pulling it out and mumbling something. She was trying to communicate but we were NOT getting it!!

Finally she pulled her pocket inside out and said, "MONEY!!!"

She missed no longer having money or an ID.

My sister, Deanie, did not skip a beat and very shortly Mother had an official Texas ID card that looks exactly like a driver's license.....but no license! My sisters have also seen to it that Mother always has some money in her pocket!

She was very proud of herself for pulling it out and I helped her count it for the cashier.

On the way home Mother kept saying, "It's been a GOOD day!!"

I asked her if she missed shopping and she turned and looked at me and said -

clear as a bell!- "Yes, I DO!!"

So at least once a month Mother and I will be hitting up Target!

I told her all about the new HEB Grocery store opening in Granbury next month and that we would eat lunch at a Mexican restaurant we like there and then SHOP!

She asked, "Me, TOO??"

"You Betcha!!!",  I said!