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| View from our balcony at Island House, on North Padre Island just outside Corpus Christi, where we stayed June 21-22. |
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| Grand-nephew Jim's first time ever at the beach, with his Mom, our niece Sarah. Oh yes: he's the cutest dude on the beach! |
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| Sarah, Jim, and Kirk |
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| Papa Tom, Grandma Evelyn, and me. That isn't something green in my hair; it's a swimmer with a raft in the background, I think. |
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| Papa Tom got tired of Scrappy and his friends scavenging the peach trees and tomato vines, so set a trap with bird seed. Scrappy was re-homed to a pecan tree in Northwest Park later that day. If Papa Tom has his way, Scrappy's friends Squatter and Scout will soon be joining him. |
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| Scrappy's going-away dinner was pecans and one last green peach from Papa Tom's tree. |
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| Uh-oh! Our next catch was Delia Dove. She was quite happy to flap away when I opened the trap. |
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| Jade and Anjanette visited everyone in Portland from June 15-23. While there, LaWanda took the kids to a local amusement park. |
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| Jade Fox on the carousel |
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| Sharpshooter Otis |
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| Animatronic musicians...with a penguin and skulls. Hmmm. |
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| Practicing for the Republic of Texas ralley |
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| Co-pilot cousins |
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| L'il slugger Otis |
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| Wonder what's on your mind, Otis? |
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| Daddy and Otis at the awards ceremony |
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| Daddy and Otis |
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| We met Mom, Dad, DonnaLynn, Martin, Martha, and Craig at Ruby Tuesday's in Shreveport on Saturday, June 15th, to celebrate Father's Day. Afterwards, we hung out at the house. Dad now has a new summer wardrobe of shirts and shorts and Season 1 of "Duck Dynasty" to enjoy. Happy Father's Day, Dad! |
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| DonnaLynn did it! She brought us fabulous ice cream that, so far, we haven't seen outside NOLA. We think it's also new to NOLA, because we'd never seen it there before either. She says they carry 11 flavors. I wonder if King Cake is one of them? If not, it should be! |
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| Happy Father's Day to the men in our lives who fix things, move things, explain things, ride to the rescue even at midnight, and are always there for us. |
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| OK, we made them kiss for the camera. Thanks, Mom and Dad! |
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| Papa Tom eyes the Big A** burger at the Roaring Fork on Congress Avenue, where we began our 18th anniversary celebration. The time has flown by. Must mean we're having fun! ;-) |
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| We split a huckleberry margarita for dessert. |
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| We've been wanting to catch the Monday night blues jam session at Victory Grill in East Austin for some time now. Too bad the photo is blurry. If it were clear, you'd be able to see that the player on the left is an 11-year-old kid. He was amazing! |
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| Lara, who's staying with us this summer, helped her friend Oscar with his chemistry homework the other night. She's doing DNA research with a UT professor and taking an online government class. She'll be a sophomore at UT in the fall, studying biochemical engineering. |
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| The sunflowers are towering in the front yard. So nice to have cut flowers inside! Still waiting for the parrots to discover them. |
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Papa Tom found this baby dove in a parking lot on Saturday evening. We named the dove "Delta," because we didn't know if it is male or female. If male, he is "Delta Force." If female, she is "Delta Dawn."
Jade and I took Delta to Wildlife Rescue on Sunday afternoon. The volunteer said Delta is about a week-to-10 days away from learning to fly. Doves stay on the ground while they learn to fly.
The volunteer wondered if we could keep Delta outside our house until she learns to fly, but I told her we have four outdoor cats (and Baba was very curious yesterday, peering inside the front door into the living room where we were keeping Delta in a box.) It would be very sad to find a pile of Delta feathers on our front door mat!
She then wondered if we could keep the cats indoors for a week-to-10 days while Delta learns to fly. I think that would be more animal adventure than we could handle! Anyway, Delta stayed at the animal shelter and should be just fine.
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| Jade took my photo while we were waiting for lunch at Chuy's on Barton Springs Road |
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| Jade and I love our TopoChico, sparkling mineral water from Mexico |
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| Jade's photo of Millie |
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| Jade and Millie |
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| Sista DonnaLynn emailed tonight that she's bringing the above ice creams to our Father's Day celebration in Shreveport this coming weekend. So with 3-D printing we'll be able to feed ingredients into a "printer" and turn photos into reality? I've heard the first food printing is pizza, because pizza is layered and a good first food to practice "printing." Why would I be thinking about turning photos into reality? Hmmm. |
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| Our across-the-street neighbor needed better water pressure, so the city removed the 3/4" water line from the water main to his house and replaced it with a 1.5" water line. Papa had to move our trash outside the barricaded area since it was trash day and we really wanted the trash to be picked up. |
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| The water main is on our side of the street, right under the moonflower that Papa's been babying all Spring. Sorry moonflower! |
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| Pretty cool how they dug under the curb so the concrete won't have to be replaced. |
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| The new water line |
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| Making things as good as new. Well, except for the moonflower. |
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| Almost done. |
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| Asphalt is in place. The city has promised someone will be out with St. Augustine to replace our grass. No mention of a moonflower though! |
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| Grand-niece Sadie and niece Beka visited from NYC on June 3. We had dinner at Kirk, Sarah, and Jim's house. |
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| Sarah and Beka's cousin Jordan, grand-nephew Jim, Grandma Evelyn, Hannah, and Sarah after dinner. Kirk grilled some of the best steaks I've ever had. And they made a wonderful salad dressing with olive oil, salt, and blue cheese that I have to try at home. |
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| Above each black box is a terrarium, with either a hissing cockroach (!), tarantula (!), or king snake inside. A tube from each terrarium connects to a black box below. Are you afraid to stick your hands into the black box? I wouldn't do it, even though Emma could see that the tubes from each terrarium were blocked and I knew that the exhibitors would never let people stick their hands in a box with a hissing cockroach, tarantula, or king snake inside. But there was a rubber snake inside the king snake box! Safe or not, I was too creeped out to put my hands inside the boxes. Weird, huh? |
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| We went to the Mabry's Goosebumps exhibit with Emma on Saturday, June 1. Papa was the only one of us who wanted to have the "fear of falling" experience. The machine tilts backward slowly, then suddenly drops until you're flat on your back. |
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| The "fear of falling" experience is videotaped. Here's Papa before the fall. |
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| Here's Papa during the fall |
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| Here's Papa after the fall. Emma and I couldn't believe that he showed no fear. The look of fear is raised eyebrows, wide eyes, and a flat, horizontal mouth. Papa said his years of doing Ropes courses, in which you learn to overcome fear and trust others, prepared him to endure the fall without fear. I, on the other hand, felt my heartbeat quicken just watching him fall! In my opinion, fear is a healthy thing that helps us live longer. Right? |
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| On our way home from Cheryl's, we stopped at Bucee's, which Emma describes as what you would get if a mall and convenience store cross-bred. (Emma and Joyce discovered Bucee's earlier this year.) Papa has loved Bucee's for years, but had never been to the largest Bucee's we've ever seen. The women's room is the largest I've ever seen; luckily there are directions for how to get out! |
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| Bucee pajamas (to my right) and Bucee slippers. |
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| The Bucee candy wall |
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| Orange sours |
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| Gummi Apple O's |
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| Wax bottles |
