Port Neches Trip

Last Wednesday we went to visit Tommy's sister, Eileen. Her birthday was on Friday so we wanted to help her celebrate. After Wednesday Bible Study, everyone stayed and we had cake and ice cream. On Thursday afternoon we went to visit Tommy and Eileen's cousin, Beverly and we took her with us to meet 2 other cousins and Marva (Eileen's good friend) for dinner. This is the last 5 cousins on Tommy and Eileen's Mom's side. Was nice to all get together again. I took the following picture at the table. On the right side is (front to back) Beverly, Donna Gayle, and Linda, the 3 cousins and JR, Linda's husband is at the end in back. On the left side is Tommy, Marva and Eileen.



After we got back from the cousin dinner, Zabrina and Rachel came over and it was a fun time with all of them. This is Rachel's twin boys, Keaton and Kyler and Zabrina's little Olivia.


Here is Zabrina and Rachel with their dental scrubs still on.


This the Birthday Girl and Tommy on Friday morning before we left.

Eileen has been taking painting lesson, for several years and we think the following picture is the best yet. The picture doesn't do justice to it. It is beautiful. Think the flash put a glare on the picture that took some of the beauty away.

Happy Birthday and More

Happy Birthday Tammy and Greg. Tammy's is Monday and Greg's is Thursday. Tammy went to St Simons Island, GA this weekend to see Lloyd. He is there for 3 weeks being Professor Lloyd again. St Simons is on the ocean and a very nice quaint little place. They lived there for a year or so when the kids were very small and we got to go visit them so know first hand it is such a nice place to visit and vacation. She and Lloyd ate seafood, seafood, and seafood. She ran a couple of times along the beach and they rode bicycles all over town. She returned tonight about 6 and we met her at Maggiano's Italian Restaurant to celebrate her Birthday. Greg actually has a flight into Dallas on Wednesday and will stay overnight. But the sad news is that we will be gone but he and Tammy plan on being together and celebrating their Birthdays. We already had plans to go to Tommy's sister, Eileen's, on Wed til Fri and then going to Houston for Chip and Tarra's wedding. Will be back on Saturday. We really hate to miss seeing Greg but we have learned that when you are a corporate pilot, plans change, even at the last minute and he didn't want us to change our plans. Am sure he and Tammy will have a great time even without us. The following picture was taken tonight at Maggiano's with Tommy's iPhone and very poor lighting. We do look a tad bit better than this picture show's. At least that is my thought.


This past Saturday Tommy finished up my "Scrapbook Nest." It is so nice and I love it. Am nearly finished with a Reunion Scrapbook. The little machine on the left side of the desk is a Cricut Electronic Cutter Machine. I don't know how to explain it but most paper crafters are familiar with it. It cuts out the cute little decorations for scrapbooks, cards, etc. I just love it but am still in the learning process. I have got all the basics down and now just building on that to make my designs more interesting and detailed.

Happy Birthday Cameron

Today is Cameron's 17th Birthday. Sunday evening all of us went to BJ's and had their delicious pizza. Today it is back to school for him but he had a good long weekend. Happy Birthday and may you ace all your tests today

Here he is with his biggggggg Chocolate Cookie Sunday that BJ's gave him. I had taken him his favorite grandma's desert, Four Layer Chocolate Pie, so he took that home with him.

Yesterday, Labor Day, Tommy and I played 2 rounds of mini golf. It was such a pretty course and mostly in the shade, thank goodness, as it was warm and humid. We really enjoyed it. I did terrible the first round but good the second round. Guess I just needed to learn the course. Of course, the family golfer did great. Have had our eye on this place for quite awhile and finally decided to try it. We will definately return and play again.

Flowerbed Project

Tommy has decided that he wants to redo all the flowerbeds. He says this is the last big project that he has in him. But we will see about that. The big boost that got him going was Cameron wanting to help. They have started in the back. Took out all the rotting cross ties on the slope to the creek that have been there for 30 plus years. Dug out all the Day Lilies and shrubs and put them in a holding bed until the project is complete and ready for replanting. They are using cinder blocks to replace the cross ties. There is a cap that goes on top of blocks to dress them off.


Here is the stack of blocks they are working with.


Hard at work with Cameron doing the hard work for Grandpa.


Cameron digging the trenches to set the blocks in. Grandpa was the engineer on the project, measuring and using the leveler to get them just right. The rest of the family will understand perfectly what I am talking about.


Grandpa just got caught watching work in progress.


Water and Brownie break. Grandma keeps them encouraged with goodies. Tommy told Cameron that he was sure glad he had a Grandma.


This was taken after the second Saturday.

They are taking Labor Day weekend off. Now that is strange as I thought you were supposed to be laboring on Labor Day but these guys seem to think they should have a holiday. Will show you the finished product in a month or so.

Birthday and Anniversary

Sunday was my Birthday and I had a good day. We went to Maximo's Sunday Brunch after meeting. They are a Mexican place with a Southwest twist and very delicious. Is a place just opened this year and we love going there. Kind of an upscale place so both a very nice atmosphere plus very good food. Came home and took a long nap and read the paper and then late afternoon took a Sunday drive over in North Dallas to see what was going on in rich man's land. Drove by George and Laura Bush's street. It is blocked off from traffic and they are in the process of puting up a gate on their street but we got to gee the neighborhood and what their street would look like. Very nice but modest for their circle. Then we went to a park on Turtle Creek, still in rich man's land, and took a walk along the creek. Here is my Birthday picture with a concrete Teddy Bear. There are several Teddy Bears of various sizes that are so cute. This one was the largest one. Then we went to California Pizza and had salad and spring rolls along with Peach Italian Cream Soda's and that was almost the highlight of the food for the day. They put peach juice in glass first, then soda water and then some cream and altho it sounds strange, it is the best, however, I am sure it is not without calories but at least no caffeine of which we delete in the evenings. Got home at 9:30 and we remarked about 9:15 that we were really out tasting Dallas night life as we are usually home to stay by 8 every evening unless we are at meeting or visiting. (Double click on pictures to enlarge.)


This is Turtle Creek and on the left of the creek is multi-multi million dollar homes. One of Texas ex Govenor's lives in one of the homes there. Was getting to late so pictures are to dark to see the back yards. I forgot my camera so was taken with Tommy's iphone.




On Thursday afternoon we went to Grapevine and spent a couple of days for my Birthday and our Anniversary which is this Tuesday the 11th. Sandra and Dickie's Anniversary is on the same day so Congratulations to them also. Was over 100 degrees each afternoon so had to choose times to be out. This is an interesting town and has alot of history so we really enjoyed it. Had my camera but forgot to take some pictures I intended to like the Old Train Station that is still being used mostly for a tourist attraction and train rides between Grapevine and Ft Worth. The picture below is of Main Street with all of its shops and restaurants.



For lunch after touring the train station and Main Street, we ate at Tolbert's. Some of you would recognize the name as being a Dallas icon for homemade Chili. The first one is in downtown Dallas. Was really to hot for chili but they had the A/C on pretty low so I had Frito Chili Pie and it was top notch. It was good enough to eat no matter the temps. It was in a very old and interesting building so took a few pictures.







There is sculpturer from Colorado that has a contract to make 3 bronze statue's a year for Grapevine. His work is really good. There is more in the town than I took pictures of but these were my favorite ones. This first one is of children roller skating with their dog. So lifelike with perfect details.


This one is the Watchman on top of city offices. Was glad that I could get the windmill in also which was across the street.

This one was awsome. It is a memorial to the 9/11 flight crews. Double clicking on the picture will give you more details.

This was a sign painted on the sidewalk leading away from the statue to a flower garden.

Our hotel was next door to Stacy's Furniture store. If you are ever in this area, Stacy's is a tourist atraction in itself. It is the biggest furniture store I have ever seen and we have some big ones in Dallas. If you can't find it here, they probably don't make it. They even have a big restaurant inside. We nearly ate there after seeing a Pizza that one family had ordered but we had already planned on Joes' Crab Shack so just kept our plan and we were not disapointed. That was also the biggest Joes' we had ever seen. Things seem to be BIG in Grapevine. There was alot we missed because of the heat but we now plan to go back when the weather cools down. So we have had a very good long weekend and have properly celebrated Birthday and Anniversary.

Our Family Reunion

Our family reunion last weekend was great. We all enjoyed it so much and we owe many thanks to Sheila and Dave for taking on that project. Sheila has posted some of the family pictures and Cayden's Birthday pictures on her Blog so I won't repeat the same ones and you can go to her site and see those. http://www.ahousefullofboys-sheila.blogspot.com/

On Friday evening after Pizza, there was a Birthday cake for myself, Mandy, Brandon and Tara. However, Tara didn't get there till late that night so she missed her celebration, but we saved her the part of the cake with her name on it.


On Saturday after our Hamburgers and Hot Dogs we had cake for Chip and Tara. They are getting married on September 18th. This was the first time to met Tara and we all fell in love with her too. Congratulations


Here are the 4 unseparatables. They tend to stick together like glue.
Teresa, Sheila, Tammy and Renita


This is most of the Great-Grandkids. The two youngest, Cayden (Sheila's) and Keagan (Mandy's) weren't in the participating mood. The two little boys, Garrett and Nolen were distracted by the dog. It is just about impossible to get a bunch of little ones to corporate so we finally just gave up and snapped some pictures.


These two 4 year olds were best friends. (Their words) While we were trying to take pictures of each family they didn't want to be separated and kept saying "but we are best friends." Today Garrett is back in Georgia and he ask his Mom if Nolen could come over. Mom had to say, "probably not." Houston isn't exactly around the corner and convient to run over and play for the day.


Saturday afternoon we 3 girls went thru alot of Mom and Dad's old pictures and divided them up. The lady with her back to the camera is Brenda, our cousin who lives in the area. We were glad she came over and visited with us for a couple of hours. Cathy was taking a nap at this point and Teresa had joined us. Others wandered in and out all afternoon to look at pictures.

This is one of many chow lines. No one should have been hungary at any time Friday thru Sunday as there was plenty of delicious food served 3 times a day and a table of deserts available all day.

Dave was the Hamburger cook. Not sure what Greg and Tammy's title was here. Perhaps professional tasters???

A Extra HOT July

With temp's 100 to 105 who feels like doing anything but staying inside, so nothing much to blog about. Last Sunday morn Tommy went out back and there was a very large turtle in our yard. He must have slowly made his way up from the creek during the night. We watched him a bit, took some pictures and then Tommy was about to put him back in the creek but being the Grandpa he is, he made a box around him so after meeting Sophie could look at him. And yes, she did find him very interesting and she watched Tommy put Mr. Turtle back in the creek and he scurred back down the creek to where ever he came from. Yes, I did say scurry. I think he was very glad to be released from captivity.

Greg had a flight to Sun Valley, Idaho for most of last week and it sounds like and looks like a place all of us Texans, weary of HOT weather, should go.

A fisherman's paradise so of course the perfect place for Greg to spend a few fun days. One of the benefits of being a Corporate Pilot.