Sunday 6-28-26 We're Home, New Pinball Challenge & Crafting

Waco Convention Center from Web

We woke up to a humid morning in Waco with a temperature of 79 degree and overcast skies. By the end of the day we were back home in Belton with the high temperature of 97 degree. It was windy.

Last night after we got back to the hotel I packed up our clothes and whatever I could. This morning I woke up before Larry. about 6:20 am. I took a shower and finished packing. When Larry woke up and was taking a shower I emptied the refrigerator into the cooler and filled the cooler with ice and put the ice packs in it. Then I started to load up the car with our stuff. Larry helped me load up the suit cases and big cooler in the back of the car. 

After loading the car we went to the breakfast area and had breakfast. When we finished I made our final check of the room to make sure we got everything. Larry handed in our room keys. Then we were on the road. When we got to Belton Larry stopped by Jack 'n' Jill Donuts to buy some donuts. We were back home at 8:45 am.

Home Sweet Home

We had a super four days of square dancing. We danced to a lot of good callers, some better than others. We danced with people we knew, met new ones and met Dawn and Charles from Zoom. We danced Wednesday night for three hours and Thursday, Friday, and Saturday six hours a day (three in the morning and three in the evening). The 75th National Square Dancing Convention had 3,000 dancers from around the world, including from at least ten countries. 

Trails In A Dance on Wednesday

Once we got home we unloaded the car. I put everything away and unpacked the suit cases. I did a few loads of laundry. I played games.

Doing Laundry

I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: World Tour Mini of 10 games. It took me 1 hour, 28 minutes and 5 seconds, which put me in 28th place in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.

Larry started a new crafting project, which is a witch for Halloween. He found the file and modified the file to enlarge the witch for Kay. He chose the paper he wanted to use and cut out the pieces. Tomorrow he'll assemble the witch.

Original witch

Today is a beginning of a new week so I have a new weekly challenge in pinball, which is Game of Thrones. We had this game before but it was an older version. Larry found the right version and downloaded it. Then he installed it on the big cabinet. He remembered the first time he had loaded the game he had made notes on how to get it to work. While installing the game he went through his notes and they helped him very much. Once it was installed he played the game. It has a great VR room below are some pictures of it.

The pinball cabinet in a castle

Wall of the castle

The throne in the castle

The door to the castle

A dragon

I played five games of pinball on the big cabinet, which were 24, Game of Thrones, Indianapolis 500, Pinball Magic and The Beach Boys. Before last week's challenge of 24 I played it for about a half hour and got a new high score. The score was 30,357,760, which put me in 83rd out of 107 participants. Then I played this week's challenge of Game of Thrones. My first high score was 73,989,550, which put me in 15th out of 17 participants so far this week. I played three other games, which were Indianapolis 500, Magic Pinball and The Beach Boys. I had fun playing pinball.

24

Game of Thrones

Indianapolis 500

Magic Pinball

The Beach Boys

I played five games of pinball on the mini cabinet, which were Cactus Canyon, Cirqus Voltaire, Michael, Playboy and Theatre of Magic. While playing Playboy I became a Manor Champion because I got all 12 playmates. I had a great time.

Cactus Canyon

Cirqus Voltaire

Michael

Playboy

Theatre of Magic

We watched the YouTube videos we follow.

In the evening we watched Dune from our movies collection. It was slow moving but good. When Larry went to bed I watched Arrival and Bling from our movies collection. I ended up doing 3,000 steps.

   

    

  

Saturday 6-27-26 Last Day of the 75th National Square Dancing Convention

 

Dancing with friends and other square dancers

We had another fabulous day of dancing. Waco weather was hot and humid. The morning temperature was 78 degrees and the high was 94 degrees felt like 104 degrees.

We danced from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm in the A1/A2 hall. The callers in the hall were Bill Ackerman, Dan Clairmont, Myron Hollatz, Darryl Libscomb, Dale Smith, Tim Ploch, Dee Dougherty, Eric Henerlau, Mike Hogan and Jet Roberts. We had up to 20 squares of dancers but most of the time there were 12 squares of dancers. I took a few pictures. When I finished we danced in a square, that was dancing with a phantom couple and they were happy that we did. We had a great morning of dancing with friends.

Daryl Libscomb calling A2

Pam and Bruce from Sun City dancing in the A hall

Dan Clairmont dancing with Vicki (Long gray hair in the back) from Lubbock

 

Henry and Susan in the middle and Glen and Char from Sun City in the tie dye tee shirts dancing in the A hall

In the evening we returned to the convention center to dance from 7:00 to 10:00. The closing ceremony was at 5:00 to 6:30 but we didn't attend. We danced in the A1/A2 hall and visited with friends. We danced the two hours of A2 to nine callers. They were Juergen Weissenborn, Lynn Webster, Glenn Martin, Tony Oxendine, Jason Raleigh, Don Sprosty, Doug Sprosty, Barry Johnson and David Heffron. Don and Doug Sprosty called together. Tony Oxendine did an outstanding job of calling. He did a lot of DBD and kept us moving. In fact all the callers were calling fast. The evening was a lot of fun. 

The hour between the A2 session we walked around and visited. We stopped in the Round Dance Hall #1 to say hi to Kay and Bob Kurczewski (Ski). While there Kay was cueing so we didn't get a chance to say to her face to face but we did visit with Bob. We also said hi to a couple out of Bastrop (Trisha and Dennis), who were dancing and Trisha cues Round Dancing and Dennis is a caller. When we left the hall we stopped and said hi to Mike and Brenda. Then we stopped by the ice cream counter and got a couple of cups of vanilla ice cream. I didn't have to make a decision because that was all they had left. We sat at a table and visited with Marie and Barry. 

Larry visiting with Bob

Kay cueing the Round Dancers

Tricia and Dennis dancing to Kay's cueing

We had a super day of dancing A1/A2.      

In between dancing Larry read his groups he follows and e-mail. I played games. I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Spider Adventure of 20 games. It took me 3 hours, 18 minutes and 48 seconds to complete, which put me in 11th place in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2. 

I got our stuff ready to leave in the morning. I ended up doing 10,000 steps.

Friday 6-26-26 Another Day of Dancing In Waco

 

Second day of National Square Dancing Convention

We had a fabulous day of square dancing with friends. The morning temperature in Waco, TX was 77 degrees. At 2:30 it was 94 degrees and felt like 104 degrees according to Weather Underground. At 5:00 the high for the day was 95 degrees and felt like 105 degrees.

Hot humid day

 

I woke up at 7:00 to get an early start on breakfast. Today there was plenty of bacon and not a lot of people. The Residence Inn gives customers a free breakfast. The breakfast offers scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, small omelets, bacon, sliced sausage, pastries, muffins, French toasts. bagels, condiments (cheese, salsa, sour cream, butter spread, jelly variety of chopped nuts, cereals, milk, coffee and apple and orange juices. There is a a nice variety of breakfast items to get for your breakfast. The lady, who takes care of the breakfast area does an excellent job keeping it stocked.

After having breakfast we went back to our room to relax and do our morning routine. I played games and Larry read his e-mails. 

I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Easy Street Mini of 15 games. It took me 44 minutes and 48 seconds, which put me in 34th place in my group. After the night dancing I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.

The dancing schedule was the same as yesterday. The C1 hall didn't start until 11:00 but we decided to dance in the A1/A2 hall. We arrived about 10:50 and stayed until 1:50. Every hour they switch from A1 to A2 and callers only called the moves in that program. Here locally we dance both A1 and A2 together. We danced to Charlie Robertson, Chuck Woods, Mike Hogan, Rod Shuping, Victoria Bundy, Brad Caldwell and Dan Clairmont during A1 session. We danced to Jay Henderson, David Heffron, Ron Giuliana and Bruce Busch during the A2 session. We danced with Dawn and Charles, Kathy, Grace and other dancers we didn't know. We danced with Dianna and John from Sun City, we hadn't seen them in years. It was a pleasant surprise. We had a great time dancing with friends. We left at 1:50 to go back to the hotel to rest because we had been dancing three hours.

Joyce and Charles dancing A1/A2

Barbara dancing with Joyce and Charles

Dawn and Charles (light blue shirt) dancing A1/A2

Dawn and Charles having fun dancing

Dancing A1/A2 

In the evening we went back to the convention center to dance. We arrived there at 6:00 and left at 9:00. The C1/C2 hall didn't start up until 7:00. They have Mainstream dancing in the hall before C1/C2. Yesterday, I danced one tip with Robert from Dallas area because they needed a couple to fill their second square. It had been a long time since Robert and I had danced Mainstream but we did excellent. 

Tonight we danced in the A1/A2 hall for two hours. We danced to Mike Bramlett, Ken Burke, Curt Braffet, John Kephart, Brad Caldwell and Dan Clairmont. They 12 squares in the A1/A2 hall. We had a super time. I had to go to the restroom so Larry danced with another lady while Brad called. In our square we danced with Brenda and Mike, Pam and Bruce, Susan and Henry while John Kephart, Brad Caldwell and Dan Clairmont called. We had a super time in the A hall. We danced C1 in the C1/C2 hall for two tips. The callers were Jeremy Butler and Bill Ackerman. We had three squares for C2 and five squares for C1. We spent a lot of time broken down because we couldn't hear the callers and they called moves we weren't use to doing. We didn't have as much fun in the C hall as we did in the A hall.

Jeremy Butler and his wife

Daryl Lipscomb calling C2

John Kephart

Dan Clairmont and his wife Gail

Our friends from Dallas area dancing C2

Larry dancing to Brad with friends

Yasuko Anderson dancing with her husband Jan and friends

 

Brad Caldwell calling a A2 tip

We were back at the Residence Inn by 9:15. We relaxed until it was time for bed. Larry read his e-mails and I played Angry Birds 2. By the end of the day I had done 10,000 steps.

We had a super day of dancing with friends and great callers. 

     

   

          

Thursday 6-25-26 First Day of Dancing at the Square Dance Convention

 

Me, Dawn, Charles and Larry

We had an outstanding day of square dancing at the National Square Dancing Convention.

The first full day of dancing at the convention was long but fun.

The morning session of C1 dancing didn't start until 11:00 am and stopped at 2:00 pm. We got to the hall at the schedule time and the room was full. It was a small room and only held six squares. A group of square dancers were trying to get a square in the hall and they needed a man to complete the square so Larry danced with them. It was too hard to hear the caller so they just finished that tip. Larry and I went inside the room to check it out. We danced one tip but the room was so crowded you had troubles figuring things out. We moved over to the A2 hall. We danced with our friends Kathy from Hewitt, Barbara from San Antonio, Sunshine from Austin, Brenda and Mike from Austin. Larry danced with me most of the time, we were in the hall for an hour and a half. He sat out a couple of tips and took pictures while I danced with Barbara. We also danced with friends from Lubbock (Vicki, Jess, Ida and Garland).  We went back to the C1 hall and danced one tip. It was still too busy and we weren't having fun. We were tired so we walked back to the hotel to rest.

Dancing with Barbara and having fun

Barbara and me

Brenda waving and Mike saying hi

Kathy in red top and Sunshine in the blue skirt dancing with Brenda and Mike

We were back dancing at 6:30 in the A1 hall. We danced there until C1 started up again at 7:00. In the A1 hall we had four squares and we danced to John Kephart (our Tuesday A1 caller). We had a lot of fun. We left the A1 hall after John called and went to the C1/C2 hall. We were in a bigger hall then this morning. We had eight squares for C1 and C2 had three squares. This hall alternated C1 and C2. We danced in this hall for about an hour and a half . We danced to Tim Ploch, Daryl Lipscomb and Ted Lizotte. We were able to dance with our friends Susan and Henry. We watched friends dancing C2. Some of the friends were Kenneth, Susan, Cindy and Robert from the Dallas Area. Matthew from Oklahoma, Mathew use to live in Texas. We had fun watching friends dance C2. It was a lot of fun dancing C1 with friends and meeting other dancers. 

Ray Brendzy calling C2 to friends 

Lynn (in front of Dean) and Don (blue shirt), Kenneth (the colorful shirt) dancing with friends

Bonnie ( black shirt and shorts) and Paul dancing with friends

Michael Kellogg (long beard) dancing with friends

Cindy back to us and Robert (square dance tee-shirt) dancing with friends

The three squares for C2 getting ready to dance

About 8:30 we decided to walk around and check out the Plus and Mainstream halls. The Plus hall was huge and must have had over forty squares. A lot of the dancers were dressed up in square dancing outfits and they looked great. We saw a few people we knew and watched them a bit, then we went to the Mainstream Hall. This hall had a live band but wasn't as busy. It also had all the vendors. While walking through the area we bumped into John Carlson and his wife Sharon, they were at a booth. We visited with them. As we continued to walk around we saw Joyce, Charles and Grace from the Tool area. I talked to Lois from Austin. 

Larry treated me to a Blue Bell Ice Cream Sandwich. After dessert we went to the A2 Hall and danced to Michael Kellogg and Allen Hall. We danced with Dan and Gail Clairmont and Dawn and Charles DeWitt. We had a great time. Once again we were home about 10:00.

We had a super day of dancing.   

When I wasn't dancing I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Experts Only Mini of five games. It took me 42 minutes and 45 seconds to complete, which put me in 15th place in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2. I ended up doing 11,000 steps.