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| Playdate PDX was about a mile from the house. Took Otis there several times when he was a pre-schooler. |
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| Never mind that there's an entire couch to sit on. The cousins were inseparable. |
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| While Amon shopped for a jacket and long pants for Fox to wear to Mt. Hood, the kids showed me their bike riding skills. |
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| Pretending to be big cats |
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| Micah joined us after work and LaWanda spent evenings with us around studying for finals to be taken on Wednesday and Thursday. |
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| Mt. Hood = getting close |
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| Our Homeaway rental at 1914 Northwest 24th Place |
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| Tom is so happy when he gets to use his Minion light (think the adorable creatures from "Despicable Me"). This project involved replacing the sink faucet. The only time a project is better is when he gets to use his hammer of Thor. Do you see it among the tools on the floor? |
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| Hard to read the clock, but it's just after midnight and Tom is officially 66 years old. He's celebrating with blueberry pie from the Upper Crust Bakery. |
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| I've been an on-and-off member of the Austin Blues Society through the years. Will get serious about the membership now. Thought I'd start by checking out the competition at the annual Blues Challenge. The winner goes on to the national competition in Nashville. Well, that was a humbling experience. One competitor has opened for name bands, including ZZTop. A couple of others play professionally and have cut record albums (or DVDs? or online music? not sure what you call it these days). How do you get to Nashville? Practice, practice, practice! |
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| A Tuesday night on Sixth Street. No work on Wednesday. I'm enjoying retirement already. |
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| Can you find the six sets of toes in the picture? Left to right: Sarah, Jake, Tom, me, Jim, Kirk, Lucy, Roy. The photo was taken with the timer on Kirk's iPhone. |
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| Jake likes yogurt. |
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| Time to turn in the badge. Au revoir, my co-workers who epitomize integrity, intelligence, and industriousness. Good-bye, Capitol view. Was a good 17-year run at the Source of All Happiness. |
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| You're forever in our hearts, sweet baby girl. |
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| Fox loves to play with the hippie salt and pepper shakers that we got for Papa Tom's 60th birthday party in 2011. She filled the tiny teapot with milk to serve Matilda and Ted (who she named). |
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| She voiced Matilda, and I voiced Ted. She wanted to know why I ended every sentence with "man." |
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| Papa took a nap and Fox took the opportunity to start a manicure on him before he woke up. |
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| Emma is a natural elocution teacher and flapper in this fun show at the Waco Civic Theater. Who knew she could roll her "r"s so per-r-r-fectly? We had a birthday plus one day celebration afterwards at the Olive Garden, finishing up with a dozen bundtinis. Thanks so much, Al, Joyce, and Emma! |
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| Mmm! Tiny bundt cakes. So moist and delicious! |
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| Micah posed next to a photo of one of his ancestors, probably his great-great-grandmother from Sweden. Scott Swenson, the family genealogist, will know for sure. To me, she looks more like Micah's Grandpa Lewis. Maybe she's from the Lewis rather than Swenson side of the family? |
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| Papa Tom and Fox set up the squirrel cage on July 27, 2017. |
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| The bait: peanut butter. |
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| Scruffy went for the bait. He was re-homed to the Bull Creek watershed, where there's a creek and tall trees, later that evening. |
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| Feeding time! |
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| Not sure what kind of birds these are. Very colorful and friendly! |
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| Feeding time at the koi pond at the Austin Aquarium |
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| Koi would be fun to keep in a backyard pond, but I don't know how we'd keep the raccoons from fishing. |
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| Papa Tom's favorite: turtles! He'd like for us to rehab turtles for Wildlife Rescue. In high school, his nicknames were "Tommy Turtle" and "Tommy Tortuga." |
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| Fox the Mermaid and Papa Tom the Merman |
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| Yes, it's the Austin Aquarium. But reptiles, including Iggy the Iguana, and birds are also part of the aquarium family. |
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| Inside the hurricane simulator. Winds at 69.8 mph for this photo. |
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| Papa Tom conversing with a parrot |
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| Yikes! Luckily, the megalodon shark is extinct. Growing to an estimated length of over 50 feet (16 meters), megalodon-literally "megatooth"-resembled something out of a prehistoric nightmare and has no modern equivalents in terms of size. |
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| Petting and feeding stingrays. Their tails are trimmed like fingernails every three weeks or so--no danger of being stung! |
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| Stingray face |
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| Tom I moving root bound Tom II to a larger pot. |
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| Re-potted and re-homed. Now what??? |
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| We spent some time at the pool at Amon and Fox's apartment on Friday. Fox can swim across the pool by herself. |
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| This giant caterpillar ate nearly all the leaves off of one of Papa's pepper plants in just one night! |
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| The pepper plant was nearly stripped. Mr. Caterpillar has been placed in the butterfly habitat to turn into ... we're not sure what. But the resulting moth or butterfly will be released far from Papa's garden! |
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| Fox requested a cut at "ear lobe level" for easier hair washing and drying. |
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| Fox and Papa Tom and Katrina the stylist are all smiles. |
