Wings Anyone? A Return to the Past...

As I've previously mentioned, we've been developing a list of restaurants/dining options in and around the Knoxville Tennessee metropolitan area.  The list consists of restaurants that are new to us or ones that we haven't revisited in a number of years.  Both of us are continuing to add to our 'dining destinations to do' goals.

In this instance, I chose a chain restaurant that we hadn't eaten at in about 12 years.  During our last visit, in that instance at the Knoxville location, the restaurant was tired and lacked much of interest on the menu.  This chain of restaurants is celebrating its 41st anniversary this year and I had visited its first location in Clearwater Florida back in the mid-1980s. 

This is the Hooters restaurant and sports bar in Alcoa Tennessee.  It is closer to our home in drive time than is the Knoxville location.  I always loved Hooters' chicken wings and the burgers were OK...but the menu lacked much variety.  Back in the day, the key attraction was the Hooters 'girls' in their skimpy outfits plus the wings and the beer.  

I did note that the menu was more diversified than we remembered and that was a plus.  So Laurie and I decided to give Hooters another try... 

The decor is still pretty bright and shiny with lots of orange evident...a good color for a sports bar/restaurant in the University of Tennessee Volunteers' territory!  

The photos above provide proof that Hooters is a sports bar...lots of televisions everywhere.  It was early afternoon on a Saturday so the restaurant was only moderately busy.  There was a good mix of customers on hand...a few younger guys, some older guys, couples, 2 or 3 families, etc.  Back in the early days Hooters was populated mostly by guys, groups of guys and guys who dragged their girlfriends to the venue to 'enjoy the chicken wings'.  

This was our server... Her name is Alexis.  She was friendly, helpful and efficient and she had a great smile.  By today's standards her outfit is modest...a big change from the costumes or outfits worn by Hooters servers back in the 1980s and early 1990s.  

Now onto the food and the expanded menu...

With Laurie's appetite being significantly impacted by her current prescription medications, she orders modestly and often can't even finish small meals or appetizers ordered as meals.  She went 'wild' and ordered a large Pineapple Margarita ($12.00) and then backed it up with a Fried Chicken Caesar Salad. ($12.99) She really enjoyed the adult beverage and was quite happy with her salad too.  Note: This salad can be ordered with either fried or grilled chicken.

After perusing the menu, I decided that I wanted some variety.  Also I wanted Laurie to try something other than her salad... Consequently I ordered the Buffalo Platter. ($19.99) This sampler platter would serve as an appetizer for a party of four.  It included 6 original buffalo style wings, 6 boneless 'wings' and 6 of the original style Hooters wings.  The 'boneless wings' and the original style wings were tossed with my choice of sauce.  With 15 varieties of sauce to chose from, I went for the Buffalo Hot Honey and the General Tso's.  I wasn't adventurous enough to try the "Ghost Pepper Sauce".  I loved all of it...but Laurie wasn't crazy about the Buffalo shrimp she tried.

Back to the menu.  In addition to a plethora of appetizers/sharables, wings come in the original breaded style, smoked, roasted, naked and something called "Daytona" style.  Burgers are still on the menu as well as a number of sandwich options including a Philly Cheesesteak.  There are fried pickles, cheese curds and chili.  A number of different tacos are offered including shrimp, fried cod and of course, chicken.  The menu even included snow crab legs.

This Hooters location is at 1099 Hunter Crossing Drive in Alcoa Tennessee.  To learn more about the menu, just go to https://order.hooters.com/menu/alcoa.  We will return!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them...

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave 

Rehoboth Beach – Arrival and Dining

…continuing with our September 2023 road trip.  We arrived at our destination in Rehoboth Beach.  It would be our home base for the next 2 nights.

We’d booked 2 nights at the Beach View Hotel…but unfortunately this photo isn’t what we experienced upon our arrival.  Sunshine was completely absent!  I’d picked this hotel for a couple of reasons.  It is close to the beach and the boardwalk, it’s near the center of ‘downtown’ Rehoboth Beach, it had good reviews and it wasn’t over the top expensive.  Of course, we were ‘off season’.

We could see the ocean from our balcony…we just had to look down the street to our right.  Of course, the weather didn’t help with the ambiance…it was blustery and fairly chilly for the end of September.

We thought that Beach View Hotel was perfect for our stay.  FYI, they provide snacks and wine to guests in the lobby area in the early evening.  Website: Home - Beach View Hotel (rehobothbeachview.com).

So after checking in and unpacking, we wandered down to the beach…where we were pretty much blown away by the wind.  The surf was up, that's for sure.  No one was on the beach and we didn’t stay long either.  One positive for Rehoboth Beach is the fact there aren’t many high-rise hotels or condos along the beach that overwhelm the views.

Looking back from the beach to the businesses lined up along the boardwalk, we could see that this version of an Atlantic Ocean boardwalk wasn’t a mind blowing amalgamation of off the wall tourist ‘entertainment’ venues.  On the other hand as you can see, the weather was so bad that the boardwalk was pretty much closed down when we arrived…

…so what to do?  The answer was for our group to seek solace in the form of food and drink.

The first couple of photos of our restaurant of choice were borrowed from their website...but we wish that it had been sunny as shown.

We selected Dogfish Head’s Chesapeake and Maine or was it Dogfish Head’s Brewings and Eats…which adjoin each other at 316 and 320 Rehoboth Avenue in the center of town.  In effect it is a very large restaurant…and probably because of the season, tables were widely spaced apart.  The bar was the most active part of the restaurant.

Brewings and Eats originated in 1995 as the smallest commercial brewery in the United States and it marked the beginning of the Dogfish Head story.  Back at the start, they only brewed 2 – 3 10 gallon batches a day on their homebrew system.  Today, Dogfish Head operates a large brewery that produces over 262,000 barrels of beer annually.  In addition, 2 Dogfish Head locations operate under license from the company, with 1 each in Maryland and in Virginia.

For those among you who are true beer lovers, you can learn about the various brews that Dogfish Head produces by going to Dogfish Head Brewery - Wikipedia.

Bonnie took this photo of Laurie and me that I’m not all that crazy about…but it does show the rather weird booths that line a couple of the walls in the restaurant.  I guess that privacy was the objective…

So onto the food!

As usual we started with a couple of appetizers.  Diners have a choice of wood-grilled dry rub, house brined charred BBA or Buffalo style wings.  All are served with bleu cheese and carrots.  We ordered the Buffalo Style Wings. ($15.00) The wings were a bit above average and they were large too.

Our second choice for an appetizer was Dog Head’s Fried Calamari. ($15.00) While I would have preferred more calamari on the platter, it was a mix of fried red peppers, banana peppers and jalapenos.  It was sided with honey sambal sauce.  Despite my preferences, the calamari was done right and I did like the fried jalapenos.

FYI, for those beer lovers out there, we imbibed in 2 different Dog Head brews, the Blue Hen Pilsner ($6.00) and the Tasty Traveler. ($6.00) We enjoyed both of them...

One of our entrees was a wood-grilled ‘burger’…which once again begs the question…when is a burger not a burger?  As per the Dog Head menu, the choices include dry aged Black Angus beef, turkey, dry rubbed chicken breast of a ‘Vegan Beyond Burger’.   Optional sides are French fries, coleslaw, mac ‘n cheese or seasonal vegetables.

This was the “I wanna be sedated” Black Angus beef burger.  This messy but tasty creation includes Swiss cheese, wood ‘fired’ mushrooms, garlic aioli, lettuce and tomato…with bacon as an add-on. ($17.00) The seasonal vegetable was chosen as the side dish, in this case grilled Brussel sprouts.  

Unfortunately I made the hopeful mistake of ordering Dogfish Head’s version of Beef on Weck. ($17.00) It is described as shaved ribeye on a salt and caraway seed Kaiser Roll with a side of jus and horseradish.  I chose the coleslaw as my side.

The reason I took a chance with this menu item was that one of the best sandwiches we’ve ever had was Beef on Weck in Buffalo New York.  My clue that it wouldn’t be the same or even close began with the bun.  The ‘real’ beef on weck sandwich is served on a kimmelweck roll…a completely different taste and texture.  Also, the beef in Buffalo was either of a higher quality or it was shaved much thinner…bringing out more flavor.

Still, to be fair it was a decent but not great sandwich.

Bill decided to order the ‘Steak Frites’, a Roseda Farmes dry aged wood-grilled 8 oz. flat iron steak with house-cut French fries and herb butter. ($26.00) He was pleased with his choice.

Another entrée was the Cheddar Brie Grilled Cheese sandwich. ($17.00) This creation included the cheddar and brie cheeses with Granny Smith apple slices, bacon, honey and arugula on grilled sourdough bread.  It was well received.

Well we should have stopped eating at this point but desserts were available.  We did limit ourselves to a single order of Banana Maple Bread Pudding with banana dulce de leche gelato, barrel honey rum caramelized bananas and wet nuts. ($10.00) It was sweet and it was a large serving, easy to share.  

Maybe its just me but my problem with the bread pudding is that it was ‘cake-like’ and cold.  My idea of bread pudding is that it should be moist and it should be at least warm so the ice cream or gelato melts a bit.  Still, it wasn’t bad and we didn’t leave any behind...

To learn more about Dogfish Head Brewing and Eats and to peruse their menu, just go to Dogfish Head Brewing & Eats | Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales | Off Centered Stuff For Off Centered People.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Road Trip – Missouri (Part 9)

After driving through the Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge, we drove back to Brookfield Missouri, where we were overnighting at a Best Western Hotel.  Restaurant choices in the area seemed a bit ‘sketchy’, so we had asked the desk clerk where we should eat...

…and we had considered the Main Street Restaurant as being a bit questionable when we first glimpsed it.  Pigskin Pub and Pizza is a hole in the wall on a side street in Brookfield Missouri.  It didn’t look promising at all!  What the heck, with limited options and a recommendation, we headed in to check it out.

With its brick walls, modern ceiling fans, signing and the bar, the interior of Pigskin Pizza was a step up from the exterior.  I have to say that it’s the first restaurant we’ve been in that had a tire on the ceiling.  It got busier while we were there and it’s apparently a very popular restaurant and pub for the locals.

This busy and colorful large chalkboard menu on the wall will give you an idea of the range of the offerings available at Pigskin Pub and Pizza.  There were written menus as well…

We ordered a 12 inch pizza…pepperoni and Italian sausage. ($14.00) What can I say, it was not only excellent but it was one of the best we’ve had in the last couple of years.  To begin with, the crust was nice and thin, the way we like it.  There was plenty of sausage and pepperoni…no skimping! 

I failed to mention that we also ordered a dozen chicken wings with Thai Sweet Chili Sauce.  The menu states that 8 – 10 wings…and we received 10, cost $12.00.  At between $1.20 and $1.50 per wing, seeing as we’ve seen them as high a $2.00 per wing, the price was right.  In addition these wings were not from small chickens!  They were big and meaty…and excellent!

Pigskin Pub and Pizza is located at 119 East Brooks Street in Brookfield Missouri.  Phone: 660-258-2600.  They are open every day of the week…and until 1:30 AM on Friday and Saturday nights.  They are on Facebook at Pigskin Pub & Pizza | Brookfield MO | Facebook.

History: Brookfield in located in Linn County Missouri.  The town was first surveyed in 1859 by John Wood Brooks from Boston Massachusetts.  The town and 4 streets in the town are named after him.  The town has had a post office since 1860.  In the early days, the area that is now Brookfield was referred to as “The Scatters” or “Duffy’s Pond”.  The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad was completed in 1959 and Brookfield boomed when the railroad’s division headquarters was moved to the city.  Brookfield has a population of 4,111 and Linn County has 11,874 residents.

FYI – Every Labor Day weekend, Brookfield hosts a hot air balloon festival known as the Great Pershing Balloon Derby.  Balloonists from around the USA participate and it is the longest running sanctioned ballooning even in the USA.  The festival is named in honor of General John J. Pershing, leader of American forces during World War I.

The next morning we headed over to nearby Marceline Missouri.  This is a photo of Marceline’s “Main Street USA”.  The town is located in both Linn and Chariton Counties.  Marceline is a bit newer than nearby Brookfield.  It was laid out in 1887, and it was named after the wife of a railroad man.  A post office was opened here in the same year.

Like Carroll County in a previous post, Chariton County was primarily settled by immigrants from the Upper South, especially from Kentucky and Tennessee.  They quickly began cultivating crops familiar to those raised at their previous farms, primarily hemp and tobacco.  This was the part of Missouri that was nicknamed “Little Dixie”.  The area was heavily pro-Confederate during America’s Civil War.

The Carnegie Library in Marceline is unusual in that it is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Back in 1914, a reading room was set up in the rear of the Marceline First National Bank Building.  Then 300 books were donated by the Women’s Civic League.  In 1917, the Civic League wrote a letter to the Carnegie Institution to try to secure a Carnegie Library.  In return, they received a $12,500 grant for building this library.  Monies were raised by the community to match up with the Carnegie grant and the town raised taxes to support its operation.  The property was purchased in 1918 and the new Carnegie Library opened on November 1, 1920.

Factoid: Several famous or well-known persons lived in either Linn or Chariton Counties Missouri.  They include: Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer; former long-time Senator, J. William Fulbright; General Maxwell Taylor; 4 Star General John J. Pershing, and; Walt Disney.  Then there was Sterling Price, United States Congressman, Governor of Missouri and Confederate General in the Civil War.

More about a couple of these famous personages in the next couple of posts from our Missouri Road Trip…but first I'm taking a break to cover more recent activities and items related to home in East Tennessee.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for continuing to follow us on our Missouri adventures!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Food plus the End of an Amazing Career

So…a little more food at home, dining at a new restaurant and a beloved ophthalmologist/surgeon decides to retire after many, many years serving his patients and the United States…

I do like…really like cornbread!  We were buying pre-baked cornbread from our local Food Lion store, but it was too sweet for Laurie and a full pan of it was too much for me to eat by myself.  Laurie found a compromise that she liked that wasn’t too sweet for her but still sweet enough for my taste…apparently acquired since moving to the South.  She buys Zatarain’s Honey Butter Cornbread Mix and now we’re both happy.

I enjoy my slab of cornbread with Amish rolled butter and local honey drizzled on it or alternatively, some nice strawberry jam.

Thinking back to what canned or prepared foods I ate when I was much younger, a few weeks back I’d purchased a can of Hormel Beef Tamales in Chili Sauce.  They were filling…and, if you’ve had great tamales in a restaurant or from a food truck…filling is about the best you can say for the prepacked/canned version.  But I did have a couple of them left over plus some no bean chili and I hate to waste food.  Tamales, smothered in chili and topped with an over easy egg.  A very satisfying breakfast!

Ya Rona Craft Pizza and Cocktails opened relatively recently in Vonore Tennessee.  It replaced Genovese’s, another Italian restaurant and pizzeria.  Although the number of customer reviews were limited because the restaurant is new, almost all of them were very positive. 

So I was curious… What does Ya Rona mean or stand for?  I assumed that it was something in Italian.  No such luck unless it’s slang.  In Hebrew “Rona” means “My joy” and Yarona means “She will rejoice”.  Ronas in Spanish means dirt or grime.  Ya Rona in old English means “cry”.  In Tswana, spoken in South Africa and Botswana, it means “to be unsuitable”.  Rona is also used in a couple other African languages and in Maori.

Then I discovered that Rona is a girl’s name of Norse origin and that it is a popular name in Scotland.  So I decided that someone from New Jersey or Brooklyn had just called out “Ya! Rona” and it stuck.  I can hear it now…

Since we’re always looking for great pizza, (failing almost all the time), we recently had dinner at Ya Rona.  It isn’t a big restaurant and it would be tough getting a seat during prime dinner hours.  As you can see, it is a cozy place…love those ceiling lights…and Ya Rona was very busy despite our early dinner hour.  

Laurie started out her dinner with an adult beverage, a Spicy Mango Mule. ($11.00) Then we ordered 6 Chicken Wings as an appetizer and to compare with the many other restaurants that offer them.  Ya Rona offers 12 different wing ‘sauces’ or flavors.  We went for the Honey Hot.  The wings were excellent, some of the best we’ve had in the last year or so!  We will return for dinner completely focused on a larger order of chicken wings... 

There are lots of options when it comes to pizza at Ya Rona.  We thought that the most interesting craft pizza is the Greek version…with lamb, feta cheese, garlic olive oil, sundried tomatoes, purple onion and Kalamata olives. They do offer 8 “Craft Pizzas” but with my likes and dislikes, we opted to build our own.  It was a large thin crust pizza with ‘cupped’ pepperoni and hot sausage. ($16.00)

We loved the thin crust, one of the best we’ve come across in the last couple of years.  The cupped pepperoni is a good idea as the pepperoni is more flavorful when ‘cupped’ as it releases more of the oil and spices.  An additional win was that Laurie likes her pizza cut into squares, St. Louis style.  Sadly, the positives for Ya Rona's pizza were outweighed by the negatives.  If the sausage was really spicy, we couldn’t taste it…or it was just overwhelmed by the overly sweet tomato sauce.  Even the pepperoni was masked by the sauce.  In our opinion, and when it comes to pizza, opinions are like….well you know what I mean...our Ya Rona's pizza just didn't measure up.

If we try another pizza at Ya Rona, it will have to start with garlic olive oil and feta or goat cheese and go from there…without that sweet tomato sauce.  This is the south though and sweet is ‘in’! 

Ya Rona Craft Pizza and Cocktails is located at 1255 US Hwy. 411 in Vonore Tennessee.  They are closed on Sunday and Monday.  Phone: 423-884-2383.  Website: https://www.yaronacraftpizza.com/.

From my last post, a few people noted that they’d never heard of a Hoya plant or seen a Hoya flower before.  In that post I had just shown an individual blossom or blossom cluster.  This photos shows a complete Hoya plant with several clusters of blossoms.

I’ll end this post with a bit of a tribute to Paul Wittke, MD.  He has been my ophthalmologist for about 12 or 13 years, beginning within a year or so after we moved to East Tennessee from the Chicago Illinois area.  He is 87 years old and he’s finally retiring…sort of.  I was just 16 years old when he graduated from the University of Michigan in 1958.  Then he earned his M.D. degree from Wayne State University’s School of Medicine in 1962.  That was followed by his internship…

Following his internship, Dr. Wittke joined the United States Air Force, serving as a general medical officer before doing a 3 year ophthalmology residency at the Kresge Eye Institute/Harper Hospital in Detroit Michigan. He received an honorable discharge from the Air Force in 1973 and he started his practice in the Knoxville Tennessee area.  Then in 1981 he joined the Tennessee Air National Guard…serving for 10 years as a flight surgeon.

Dr. Wittke retired from the United States Air Force in 1992 and has continued to work at 3 Tennessee Eye Care locations, Knoxville, Kingston and Lenoir City.  But in June of this year, Dr. Wittke is officially retiring.  I just had my last appointment/exam with him.

While chatting about his upcoming retirement, we learned a few things about him.  First of all, he’s never had to have surgery for anything, he’s never been hospitalized and the only pill he takes is a daily vitamin! (I’ve lost track of the number of pills I take…) Talk about great genes!

Then we asked Dr. Wittke what he’s going to do once he retires.  “Semi-retirement” was the answer we gleaned from our conversation.  After all, his medical license is still valid!  He is an active member of the Knoxville Lions Club, helping with their vision related efforts.  In addition, Dr. Wittke is a member of the Board of Directors of Remote Area Medical, where he participates in their various free clinics for those in need.  If you are unfamiliar with RAM/Remote Area Medical and their good works, check the organization out at https://www.ramusa.org/. 

Congratulations to Dr. Wittke and his well-deserved ‘retirement’.  But, like the Eveready Battery bunny, he just keeps on going!  Thanks doctor for taking such good care of me and my vision…

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Yet Another ‘New’ Dining Opportunity…at Least New for Us

Recently we got together with our friends Norm and Linda for dinner.  We decided to try a relatively new restaurant in Alcoa Tennessee that neither couple had dined at previously.

Alcoa is a city of about 11,000 people just a bit south of Knoxville.  It was the site of a large aluminum smelting plant owned and operated by the Alcoa Corporation.  The plant was established in 1911 and the company employed as many as 11,000 workers during World War II.  The successor company now operating in Alcoa is the Arconic Corporation and it employs about 1,000 workers.  Alcoa was initially known as North Maryville but the town was incorporated under its present name in 1919.

Early Alcoa was a classic ‘company town’, with the company maintaining a paternalistic relationship with the city.  As time went on, diversification of the area’s economy and negative feelings toward the Company, caused a reduction in Alcoa’s influence.  The first City Manager that wasn’t employed by the company was hired in 1956 and toward the end of that decade, the company relinquished ownership of the town’s utilities.

…enough history for now.

This is Blue Moose Burgers and Wings in Alcoa.  The original Blue Moose location is in Pigeon Forge Tennessee.  From what I can determine, Blue Moose is owned and operated by Diverse Concepts, a professional restaurant management company.  In addition to Blue Moose, some other restaurants falling under this management umbrella are Bullfish Grill, Carino’s Italian, Harrison’s, Lakeside Tavern, Liberty Park, Mellow Mushroom and Parkside Grill.

As you can see, Blue Moose has televisions mounted everywhere.  With a menu focused on burgers and chicken wings plus those TV’s, it is truly a large sports bar/venue…with casual dining and a semi-industrial décor.  It’s also quite popular even though it has only been open a fairly short time… Booth seating dominates the dining room, something I really don’t care for at my stage and age.

Norm and Linda ordered the Big Breaded Double-Dipped Onion Rings as their starter. ($9.49) They are fried ‘crispy’ and served with a house-made sauce.  I didn’t partake but from what I gathered, Norm thought that the onion rings were OK…but not great.

As our starter, Laurie and I ordered a dozen traditional wings.  For our sauce, we chose the Hot Teriyaki.  The wings weren’t amazing but they were just fine…and the sauces we chose had just a bit of a bite to it.  As usual I started eating before remembering the camera!

What I don’t totally understand is the pricing of chicken wings.  Our 12 ‘traditional’ wings (bone-in) were priced at $17.99 but if we’d ordered ‘boneless’ wings, we would have only been charged $15.99.

The answer is that ‘boneless wings’ are not wings at all.  They are usually formed from breast meat and they’re a spin-off of the breaded chicken nugget.  They are faster to cook but not a succulent as real wings.  About 60% of the chicken ‘wings’ ordered in the USA are bone-in but the boneless ‘wings’ are less expensive for restaurants to purchase.  Basically, if the demand for real chicken wings is high, they are more expensive for restaurants to purchase…

Both Linda and Norm ordered 8 wings as their entrée after the onion rings.  They ordered mild sauces as they aren’t into any spicy heat.  Linda ordered the Boneless ‘wings’ ($11.49) and Norm ordered the bone-in wings. ($12.99) They were content with their meals if not impressed…

Laurie decided against a hamburger, and went for the Wild Ranch Chicken Wrap…”a flour tortilla loaded with grilled chicken, crisp iceberg lettuce, juicy bacon strips, shredded cheddar and jack cheese, plus diced tomatoes and wild ranch dressing. ($11.99) For her side, Laurie picked the French fries over the homemade potato chips.  Two other options were available for a 99 cent upcharge…sweet potato fries and onion rings.

The French fries weren’t great and the chicken wrap lacked any flavor plus the chicken was dry…

Since Blue Moose is all about beer, wings and burgers, I decided to order Moose’s All American burger as my entrée.  It comes with 2 slices of melted American cheese and some lettuce on a grilled bun. ($12.99)

I’d ordered the burger medium rare but it was way overcooked.  The burger itself lacked any flavor despite being on a grilled bun.  I seconded Laurie’s opinion of the French fries.

Service was another issue…and we understand how hard it is to staff any business these days.  We had 3 different waitresses wandering back and forth and 2 of them were just clueless.  As for the food…we won’t be in a rush to return.

Blue Moose Burgers and Wings in Alcoa is open 7 days a week.  This restaurant is located at 334 Fountain View Circle in Alcoa Tennessee.  Phone: 865-233-4667.  Website: https://bluemooseburgersandwings.com/.

Now onto something more positive!  Laurie’s sister Bonnie forwarded this Easter family gathering Facebook photo of Bonnie and Bill’s grandchildren…hence Laurie’s grand-nieces and grand-nephews.  From the left front there is Elliot Jane, Keaton and Charley Kate.  In the left rear there is Avery Eileen, Collen and Delany Claire.  They are growing so fast…3 teenagers already.  Great looking group though!

…and this is our newest neighbor.  His name is Shrek…mostly Black Labrador.  He is now training his humans, Mike and Sherry, to serve his every need.  He has already learned to ring the bell when he needs…or is it wants…to go outside.  He is constantly ringing the bell!  I’m sure his older ‘sister’, Fiona, a mixed breed, finds him quite entertaining.  FYI, Shrek and Fiona were characters in a major movie, entitled “Shrek”.  It will be interesting to see just how big Shrek will be when he's fully grown...

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave