Our Great City

One local chef, Joanne Bondy of Old Hickory Steakhoues in the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center, cooks a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, beginning with a fresh turkey flavored with applewood-smoked bacon draped over the breast and stuffed with a mixture of corn bread, bread crumbs and biscuits.

For 45 weeks a year I am a sweet, loving, generous wife and mother. But, just before Thanksgiving I turn into a decorating, buying, wrapping, cooking (I use the term loosely) holiday control freak. Everything associated with Thanksgiving or Christmas is performed under my micro-managed direction.

The notice came in the mail, sandwiched between the holiday catalogs arriving way-to-soon for me.

You might remember that Grapevine High School freshman, Regan Staudt and 14 other Dallas-area crew members entered their 10-minute film in the Samsung Mobile Fresh Film Competition, the nation’s leading filmmaking program exclusively for teens. There were nine all-teen film crews, each of which were responsible for every aspect of film production including casting, location scouting, shooting, editing and creating the soundtrack. Regan’s crew was assigned to produce a drama about a teenage girl who runs away from home with a friend, titled Saturday. They entered this film into the competition.

Thanksgiving is almost here. Not only is it time away from school and work, but a time to gather with loved ones for a festive meal, and to watch parades on television and some great football. Best of all, Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks, and it’s a good time to familiarize children with the power of gratitude.

Where do pumpkins originate? Hint for the little ones: Not at the grocery store. This year, try Nash Farm in Grapevine as a source for locally grown pumpkins.

They say that the cream rises to the top and even among special individuals, there are those that just rise above to soar just a little bit higher.

If you travel down Northwest Highway in Grapevine, you may have noticed a small orange sign on the marquee near the shopping center with Beall’s and Tuesday Morning.

Nova Scotia — it’s about as close to feeling like you’re in Europe as you are going to get unless you actually do cross the pond. For short jaunts heading up to the Maritime area of Canada — and especially Nova Scotia — is a great way to get away from it all and feel like you are in another world.

I have a black and white sense of fairness, but a wailing baby sense of compassion.

It was 1979. A young woman waited anxiously in an Arizona motel room. An Air Force fighter pilot’s bride of three weeks, she had just heard on the evening news that a plane had crashed in the desert and the pilot had been killed.

Now this is how you have a fashion show using community models!

For a quick weekend getaway or even an entire week of discovering the neighboring state of Oklahoma, you will want to be sure and spend at least two or three days in that state’s capital Oklahoma City.

The following is a partial list of social clubs and nonprofit organizations in the Colleyville, Grapevine and Southlake area. Check Web sites or call for more information.

The sheen of its striking blue finish makes the machine itself a work of art poised on the walls of Art251’s contemporary gallery in Keller Town Center. But step back from its cold metal frame, a monument to the conceptual art it dispenses, and its former use becomes clear.

In a few hours, trick-or-treating begins, which means you hopefully have your costumes all ready.

Making one’s way to the threshold of this local haunted house can be a scary encounter for any mortal, especially for 4-year-old Carson Reddell and his 6-year-old brother Camron. The pair passed strings of orange and purple lights covering a dark cemetery full of skeletons and a pumpkin stage coach with green eyes before reaching an enormous black spider hanging over the door.

Halloween is creeping upon us, and while adults are purchasing bags of lollipops, sours and chocolate, children are plotting their holiday attire.

Grapevine’s second Candlelight Tour of Homes is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 25 from 6 to 9 p.m.

The Haunted Trails Fest returns to Colleyville to usher in some pre-Halloween fun. The event, Saturday, Oct. 25, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Colleyville Nature Center, features a creepy journey along a pathway filled with scary creatures, spooky sounds, and special effects, according to a news release.