I was a California girl. My children were unofficially forbidden to move more than 1 ¿ hours from their mother . How did I end up in Arkansas? I blame Eric Estrada! After purchasing our new home in Arkansas it was a full year before we could actually move. We endured the comment "Your moving where!" and the looks that went with it, by our California friends for that entire year. So this started out as e-mails to friends and family to let them know all the strange and amusing differences in our new world. Many of them wanted to know if I was saving them to make into a book. One year at Christmas my son Donald said he only wanted one thing for the following Christmas, a copy of the book. So here is this book of laughter, and a few tears, that I hope you will enjoy.