Family Photos

We caught a very small window of time without rain, walked down to the end of our street and David took some pix for us. He didn’t bring a tripod so he and Rich had to trade out in the largest group photo–Bonnie was laughing that it looked like she was “with” Rich in the pic. We haven’t had a group photo in lots of years and I mostly wanted one of all the grandkids so “mission accomplished.” 🙂

Happy Thanksgiving!

My girls and their families live in three different cities in Texas, they have different work schedules, they have kids who are involved in lots of activities. As you can imagine, it is very hard for us to be in the same place at the same time, so I was thrilled when everyone said they could make it for Thanksgiving. We ended up having part of one day where everyone overlapped. LOL Some came early, some came later, some had to get home Thursday night for work on Friday…but we made it happen!

We had so much fun! The cousins always have a blast together and the adults, too. We did some video bowling (hilarious), played games, watched the World Cup, the kids played outside, we ate a lot, talked a lot, laughed a lot. We celebrated Emery’s 13th birthday and Beck’s 12th birthday, too. It really did my heart good to have everyone together.

Bonnie and David decided to stay at a hotel since we don’t have a lot of room at our house (but leaving the kids with us so they could be with their cousins). The next morning, Bonnie texted to say that someone had stolen the catalytic converter off their car overnight! I had heard about this happening around big cities but I hadn’t thought to warn them that it was a thing and they’d never even heard of it. Bonnie jokingly said, “Mom, you send me articles about everything! How come you didn’t send me an article about this?!” Unfortunately it’s super expensive to replace but at least it sounds like their insurance will cover most of it. They weren’t sure if they should leave the car here to get fixed but then they’d have to come back and get it, so after talking to their insurance company, they decided to make the long drive back to Amarillo with a super noisy car.

We were laughing about a to-be-unnamed relative who says “ruint” in a strong TX accent instead of “ruined” and how the “bandits who burgled Bonnie’s car” had “ruint” our Thanksgiving.

But no, we would not let anything ruin it, though Bonnie and David might have a different opinion. 🙂

Elle was supposed to have a soccer tournament all weekend but it was called off for rain. The adults were sad but the kids were happy they just got to keep playing at home. 🙂 Sarah and Bonnie’s families left Saturday morning, then Ally went with me to run errands and visit Aunt Lue and Steven. Sunday I drove Ally to meet her dad halfway. Now we have a very quiet house but lots of good memories!

Get ready for photo overload:

Happy Birthday, Emery and Beck!

We have another teenager! Happy birthday to our granddaughter Emery who is smart, funny, kind and caring, full of energy, and always a bunch of fun! She’s great at school, a talented writer and artist, and our next big track runner. We have the best time when we get to hang out with her! We love you, Emery!

And happy birthday to our favorite 12 year old, our grandson Beck! This kid is smart and funny and talented and has the kindest heart and biggest smile! He’s a great student, loves any kind of performing, and had a fun time playing flag football this year. We can always count on him to make us laugh or make us think! We love you, Beck!

Soccer

Drove over to McKinney to watch Elle’s high school team play. They lost 3-1 to a very rough and physical team but I’m proud of Elle for playing tough and making her team’s only goal. She’s definitely holding her own on Varsity!

Then she went to Austin for a tournament with her club team and made all three goals to win one of their games. This girl is something else! And THEN she was named to the Team of the Week sponsored by the FC Dallas Women’s team. Congratulations, Elle!

Tacolandia

We had fun at Tacolandia! It was a little chilly but we enjoyed sampling lots of tasty tacos!

Tyler

I went over to Tyler to see Elle play in her first high school soccer game. She made the Varsity team as a freshman, got the team’s first goal of the season, and had a great assist! So much fun to see her play. Wow, that school field was huge and fancy compared to the soccer fields she usually plays on.

I spent the night because I didn’t want to drive back to Dallas in the dark. Helped Jack with his “turkey” project for school and enjoyed hanging out with everyone. Their new kitty Boone cracks me up. He loves the water faucet and jumps up on the kitchen sink waiting for someone to turn the water on for him.

Said goodbye to the boys before school; Elle had the day off so she and Sarah and I went out for lunch. We were then going to get manicures but Sarah got a work call so she dropped us off at the nail salon. We had adventures at lunch with the wrong order and adventures at the nail place when the woman argued with me about wanting just a plain manicure and basically refused to do it so a different guy stepped in. She told me I needed gel and tips or it would only last two days. Elle texted Sarah that the lady was being so mean to Gigi. Next adventure, we took a Lyft back to the house and the driver was the father of nine kids so he told us all about them and then when we got out at Sarah’s Elle and I were both sure he said “love you.” Then I drove back to Dallas in the rain.

Election

Ahhhh, Texas. Always a heartbreaker. Thanks to all of my amazing friends who fought the good fight in Dallas Co and beyond. So many tireless champions of justice—I’m proud to know you and work alongside. I hate it that Beto, Mike Collier and Rochelle Garza came up short—they all would have been fantastic leaders for our state.

Congrats to my great Congressman Colin Allred on being re-elected and to my new TX House member John Bryant. And to all of the rest of the awesome TX Dems who will represent us well locally, in Austin and in DC.

Nationwide, we actually did much better than predicted so there’s always a silver lining, I suppose. Crazy that Biden would have the best midterm of an incumbent in years! The big red wave was just a mirage and polls don’t tell the real story.

Take a well deserved rest, friends. Then we have more work to do.

A Visit from an Old Friend

When Rich was a young man, college years and after, he lived in various places in California. In Sacramento (I think), he became friends with his upstairs neighbor, Frank, who was a speech/language pathologist after being in the military. At one point Rich was even his aide in a classroom for a school year. This was all way before my time so I might not have all of the details straight…but they were good friends when they were young and then lost touch over the years as they both moved on. Thanks to the wonders of social media, they found each other and some other old friends a few years ago. Rich enjoyed getting back in touch with these guys from his past and had a good time reminiscing with them and catching up with them on the phone periodically, with promises to meet in person “soon.” Sadly three of them passed away before they could see each other again…Rich states in his black humored way that it might not be a good idea for anyone to get back in touch with him. 🙂

Frank has been one who checks in regularly and we finally met up with him for lunch one day last December when we were in California. We had a great visit and invited him to come to TX sometime…so he actually did! I was in and out doing things for the election but I wanted them to have their own time together so it was all good. Rich cooked at the house, we went out to dinner another night at a tapas place, we took a good long walk around the lake and then ate lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant around the corner from our house, taught him to play our favorite game Upwords, and had lots of good conversation. One of the most interesting things about Frank is that he has walked quite a few routes on the Camino de Santiago. He lost his wife to cancer some years ago and I think maybe it started out as a spiritual pilgrimage for him because he was very angry with God. Perhaps it is still a spiritual journey for him as he continues to go back every year, sometimes more than once a year, to do a different route. Rich and I have talked about doing the “camino” ourselves sometime so it was fun to ask him questions about how it all works and what his experiences have been. He definitely encouraged us to do it and said he would come with us sometime…of course we need to get in better shape first! He said “time’s a-wasting” and we are not getting any younger. He is 72 I believe. 🙂 Oh, PS, he has a girlfriend in Spain now, too.

Thanks for coming to see us, Frank!

Rounding out October

Emery and Luke were invited to enter their artwork in the Windows on a Wider World Art Show in Amarillo. I think Emery has been invited for the last several years and won one year! This year she got an honorable mention in the middle school category. She is “into” snails lately and seems to love drawing them in various scenarios. I love her little throwback to the Beatles–look at the title for her piece. 🙂 Luke was working on his drawing when we were in Amarillo last and it turned out really well, too. Love that these kids are artistically talented along with their other skills!

Elle attended her first Homecoming dance in Tyler with her group of friends. Her date was a boy she’s good friends with, no boyfriend/girlfriend situation just yet. 🙂 According to reports, a great time was had by all.

I’m helping with the food pantry at our nearby elementary school this year and we were finally able to do our first food distribution to 25 families who signed up. One of the local high schools has a connection with a donor who gave us the shelving and our first big order of food. We packed up 25 backpacks of mostly canned and boxed food but I am hoping next time we can add some fresh fruits and veggies. The 5th grade is collecting items for a Thanksgiving box and we collected donations to purchase grocery store gift cards to add.

And Halloween….! I wish you could see the video of son in law David in his “alien abduction” costume. As he runs away, it seriously looks like he is actually being carried away by an alien. I have watched it so many times and laughed out loud. So just imagine it if you can. That’s Beck and Jack on the left, Bonnie’s family on the top right, and Elle with her friends at the bottom. They were too cool to go trick or treating. 🙂