19 days into our “new lifestyle” and I’ve got a truck stop preference = Flying J, always clean toilets. Because I thought it was going to be hot I only have 3 pants in rotation. (One of those is pj pants!) I overheard Andy tell someone that his mom has had on the same sweatshirt for 3 days!(again, I only packed 3!) It’s cold everywhere we’ve been but not nearly as cold as SD/ND/MN so I’m not complaining (much). Boys are consistently surprisingly nice to each other-mom win! Jesse has driven literally everywhere we’ve been so he was rewarded with a brand new F250. Long story but it’s pulling the trailer awesome so we are all happy!

This season of the year makes everything look blah. But as we drove through the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas, I could tell why they call it the Grand Canyon of the Midwest. New Years Eve was spent in Little Rock with takeout pizza, a board game and we even convinced the boys we were on Eastern time, so our midnight came early!

Woody got his first chance to do a vlog (video blog) at the Titanic exhibit in Branson.🚢🎥I’m not exactly sure how to post it in our blog but we’re looking into it-it’s so great! Andy has done a ton of algebra over the holidays, and Woody has gotten a good start on science. I’m picking up zero of the algebra, but enjoying reliving 6th grade science! Digging for diamonds last week was a great rock lesson!💍

If you or anyone you know collects Precious Moments figurines, I suggest you send them to the PM chapel outside Joplin, MO. It was one of the highlights of my year so far😉! I made my first meal ever in a instapot tonight. Only had to call my sister twice to see if I was doing it right. We’re warm and snug inside our “house” here in Frisco, TX. Can’t wait to watch our NDSU Bison win another championship Saturday! If you’re down here, we’ll be tailgating with the rig, stop by and say hi!💚💛🏈

Dallas is a huge city, and we’ve been fortunate enough to visit a handful of times in the past couple of years. What’s brought us down here in the past was our powerhouse NDSU Bison football team, playing for the FCS National Championship. They’ve won it 6 of the last 7 years, and will play next week in hopes of a 7th title. So we’ve seen many of the main points of interest in years past.

Today we visited the George W. Bush Presidential Library on the campus of SMU. It was a stately museum filled with a historical account of W’s life in Texas, pre-White House politics (remember hanging chads?) and successes and milestones throughout his 8 years in office. Obviously a large and important part was September 11th, 2001. Other memorable highlights talked about Hurricane Katrina, PEPFAR(The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), No Child Left Behind and the Stock Market Crash. There was also a special exhibit for the holidays showing off the White House decorated for Christmas that was neat, and they talked quite a bit about their 2 dogs Barney and Mrs. Beazley and cat India.

A pretty cool highlight was a replica of the Oval office, where Woody had planned all day to actually read a book if he got to sit there. He thought it would be suitable since he was at a “library”. But when he got his chance, he actually sat down, picked up the telephone and dialed his mom! {insert proud mom tears here} 2 1/2 hours later we had our fill, we’d all give it 2 thumbs up. It’s our first presidential library but hopefully not our last.

On recommendation from my cousin, we had an amazing lunch at Kuby’s Sausage House nearby. Sausage, cabbage and sauerkraut makes the Tischers (German for Table Maker!) happy. This joint has also been on the Food Channel’s Man vs. Food show, and had a great delicatessen for us to bring home some sausages and German candy too!

Not really “on the way home” but in the general direction, we decided to stop off at the Fort Worth Stockyards to see the daily cattle drive. Surprisingly, we got a front row parking job 10 minutes before “showtime”, so we got to enjoy it from the heated car. Longhorns are amazing animals.

The history of the stockyards was a good mix to the formality of the library. Part of me thinks I should keep more of the kid’s stuff to fill the Tischer Presidential Libraries one day, but the other part of me knows I should keep them as far away from politics as possible! (MT)

We started off the day by driving to Dallas Love Field, headquarters to Southwest Airlines. My mom’s cousin’s husband Mike is a instructor for SWA. He was going to show us around his workplace and let us fly in the simulator. The first thing we saw when we walked into the headquarters was U-2 flight suit. It is a pressurized suit used by pilots in the U-2 because they fly very high. The hallways are filled with cool pictures and memorabilia from SWA employees. We got to see a couple of different types of simulators from basic to ones worth millions of dollars. We got to see where pilots train for emergencies, like how they go down an evacuation slide, how they might fight intruders into the cockpit, and how they put their oxygen masks on.

Mike had us use a brand new simulator in a brand new building. When we walked into the great hall with all of the flight simulators, it was extremely quiet even though many were being used. We walked into simulator #12 which looked like it was suspended on stilts. The cockpit of the plane had to be exactly the same as the actual 737. I was the first to fly. It was easy because Mike controlled pretty much everything except the yoke and the rudders. It really felt like i was flying the airplane. On my first landing, I did pretty good, but on my second landing, I dragged the tail. Woody, Cole (Mike’s son) and my dad all flew the plane as well. Everyone did a pretty good job. This was an awesome experience and I’ll never forget it.

After a tasty Tex-Mex lunch at Pappasitos, we went to Frontiers of Flight, an air museum back at Love field. The museum was great because it had a complete history of aviation with lots of info about the airport and Southwest Airlines as well. My favorite things there were all of the flight simulators, showing how different they’ve looked throughout the years.

I’m super happy Mike was able to let us use the simulators. Today was filled with airplanes which I enjoy and a great way to spend the end of the year. (Andy Tischer)

Our family arrived in Texas a couple days ago, at my mom’s cousin’s house. We’re in a suburb of Dallas named Keller. This morning, I lost a tooth! I haven’t lost a tooth in a couple of years, and I’ve waiting until today to crank it out. We also opened up Christmas presents after we had a good breakfast of an egg bake and sticky buns. We’ve played a couple of games with the relatives, and we plan on playing more. I love the Christmas tree here, we didn’t decorate at our house due to moving around and the craziness of everything.

The neighborhood has dozens of fantastic Christmas lights. My favorite is a huge set up, and you can connect to a radio station that’s being broadcasted, and the lights move to the music.

Just this afternoon, three of us (me, Andy and Jackson) were daring enough to jump into the 54 degree pool, when the air temp was only 40 degrees. It was really cold, but it made for a good experience! 

I’m happy to be in Texas, with relatives and family. Wishing you a Merry Christmas! (Woody Tischer)