My New Website

To my friends & family,

I recently purchased my own domain online (http://www.tarahog1980.com). Instead of blogging on Blogger or Xanga as I have in the past, I am going to be blogging solely on http://www.tarahog1980.com. Please save this link and visit me over there. I'd love to know what you think about my new site as well as what your thoughts are on the entries I post so please leave comments.

I just posted a blog entry about my visit to Dallas/Ft Worth last weekend for the NASCAR race, so check it out!

Tara

It's Opening Day!

The Northwest Arkansas Naturals, Kansas City Royals AA affiliate and formerly known as the Wichita Wranglers, will officially open Arvest Ballpark this afternoon at 4 pm followed by the first home game in northwest Arkansas at 6 pm.

Some items to look forward to...
-Joe Nichols (Rogers, AR native) will sing the national anthem.
-There will be an F16 flyover following Joe's performance.
-All players will be introduced. I'm especially looking forward to the introduction and play of catcher Cody Clark (Fayetteville, AR native).
-George Brett (former Kansas City Royal player) will be appearing.
-Professional baseball in Northwest Arkansas! (While I am not the biggest baseball fan, this does excite me very much.)

I'm headed to the ballpark about 4:30. I'll post photos as soon as I can.

It's that time again

I'll be at Texas Motor Speedway all day tomorrow. Dale Earnhardt Jr will be starting from the pole position. (He is pictured above with his crew chief Tony Eury Jr after qualifying. Pole winners get a nice Beretta to take home which he looks like he was already enjoying.) Good Luck Dale Earnhardt Jr and the 88 Amp/National Guard crew!

I'm happy to see Michael McDowell was ok after this crash during his qualifying lap. Thank goodness for all of the safety devices in place today.

Change of Plans

I was supposed to go to Scotland this summer to visit my cousin and his wife. The plans just haven't come together to do that this year so I'm holding off on that trip until 2009.

Since I now have some available vacation days, I started thinking about alternative ways to use them. I decided to go to North Carolina again. Shelby is going to go with me, and we are trying to talk Mom & possibly Lindsey into going as well. Right now, we're thinking of going June 7-15 (2 travel days plus 7 full NC days).

This time there won't be a NASCAR race involved but we are going to go to a handful of the shops. I thought Shelby would want to see the 48 shop at Hendrick Motorsports. Plus, I want to visit not only HMS again (now that Junior's cars are actually there) but also JR Motorsports and the Richard Childress Racing Museum again. I'm sure I'll come up with a couple of others along the way that would be interesting for me to see again and for Shelby to see for the first time. (Anyone have a suggestion for a must-see shop/museum?)

I visited NC a few years back when Jeff (same cousin who is now in Scotland) lived & worked out there in Boone on the Blue Ridge Parkway. At that time, we went to Asheville to Biltmore Estate. I thought Shelby would enjoy seeing the Biltmore. It's an amazing house, if you can even call it that. Plus, if Mom goes, she would LOVE their gardens. Additionally, the Parkway is gorgeous at this particular time of the year. We're also going to take a day to go to the coast. Shelby has been to the beach once and I've only been a couple of times so we thought we'd visit the Atlantic coast while we were out that way.

Anyone have any other suggestions of something to do/visit in June in North Carolina?

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! I hope everyone has had a good day so far. I just got back from a family dinner. I'm now watching Arkansas play North Carolina in the NCAA basketball tournament, which isn't looking good for the hogs yet.

For dinner today, I took hot spinach dip. I thought I would share the recipe for the spinach dip with you. If you give it a try, I hope you enjoy it!

Hot Spinach Dip

Ingredients:
2 boxes frozen chopped spinach, thawed & drained
1 small onion, chopped
1 8 oz pkg pepper jack cheese, shredded
6 oz parmesan cheese, grated
2 8 oz pkgs cream cheese, softened
2 cans Rotel (diced tomatoes with green chilis), drained

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients together. Put mixture in a 9 x 13 pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes (or until cheeses are completely melted).