Pine Bluff

I love reading on Facebook about my friends' fabulous Spring Break vacations.  Some hit the slopes in Colorado, some are having fun in the sun at the beach, and some headed to Disneyworld.  So where did the Bettisons go for Spring Break?  We hit the road to Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  Now, I know it sounds like I'm doggin' on the Bluff but I'm really not.  I like visiting Pine Bluff for several reasons.

The #1 reason is that Nana (Jeff's mom) makes the best chocolate pie you could ever taste in your entire life.  I'm being serious.  If Heaven is as great as they say it is, they will serve her pie there.  I wish I had thought to take a picture of this amazing confection but I was way too busy stuffing it in my mouth.  Once the pie comes out of the fridge you'd better just get yourself a piece because it goes quick.

#2 is that my kids get to play outside all day and get dirty and pet dogs and burn stuff.

#3 is getting to stop by James Hayes Art Glass and watch them make cool art glass bowls.

#4 Pine Bluff makes me want to keep it simple.  Jeff likes to drive past the house he grew up in.

  

Every time I think I could use a bigger house, he likes to remind me that there were FOUR kids in his family and they all lived in this house just fine.  No one had their own room, the closets were tiny, and they only had one bathroom.  And when I gripe about how much doing laundry sucks sometimes he'll chuckle and tell me about how his mom had to hang the laundry on a clothes line because they didn't have a dryer.  And when I'm feeling unappreciated because I cooked three whole times in one week and no one ate it, I remember the story about how Nana served her kids leaves for dinner one night because she got tired of cooking seven nights a week with no one eating it.  Nana is the opposite of crappy.  Thankfully Nana now has 2 bathrooms and a dryer so she's on my team and says she doesn't think I'm crappy (I believe her too).  She even gave me her pie recipe a while back.  So while I am pretty certain I will never have to share a bathroom with my kids and I will never use a clothes line, I can make Nana's Chocolate Pie.  But I was a lot happier before I knew what was in it.