Elayna turns 8!

On Aug. 23rd, her birthday, our sweet Elayna (our oldest grandchild) was baptized. All her little Texas cousins and most of her Texas uncles and aunties were there, and even an uncle and auntie from Utah. She sets such a good example as the oldest of many cousins on both her mommy and her daddy's side. Love you Elayna!

Olympic fatigue

Grammy and Grandpa are feeling major exhaustion heading into the final stretch of the 2008 Olympics. But we are so addicted to the Olympics and have enjoyed every minute. It's been fun watching 3 of the athletes whom we've seen complete in person. We saw BYU grad Josh McAdams (steeplechase) running in a meet at BYU (Jeremy got to run with him his freshman year.) We saw Leonel Monzono (sp?)(men's 1500--he didn't make it into the finals, which are on tonight) run at almost all of Jeremy's state meets. Jeremy competed against him at state in the mile and beat him in the mile (but Monzono was having a bad race, having just come off the 800, which he won). Monzono, who was a year ahead of Jeremy in school, was terrific in high school, winning every state cross country meet. Another athlete, who ran for LaPorte's high school and was in our district was Kerron Clement, who medaled in last night's 400M hurdles. I remember how amazed I was at the effortless grace and speed with which this high school athlete cleared the hurdles, and knew he'd go far.
This is our official Olympic souvenir all the way from China! A delegation of chemists from China visited the lab at the refinery (Exxon Mobil wouldn't let them visit!) and Grandpa showed them around. They told him how China is about to build a huge refinery, bigger than any of ours. They were amazed at all the fancy equipment the lab has. In China, where there is such a big labor pool, they use people to do a lot of testing that is done by high tech equipment here. One of them gave Grandpa this "Beijing Official Licensed Product", complete with the added security feature of an "anti-counterfeiting label". (Who knows what other features it has, like an embedded spying micro-chip.)

Hi Ho Silver, Away!

Those were the days! Growing up in the 50's was fun. Kids were free to be kids. We were outside from dawn to dusk --spring, summer, autumn, winter. Only hurricanes, blizzards, or a bad case of poison ivy could keep us indoors. We were all over the place, riding bikes, roller skating, running around. You drive through any neighborhood now, and ask yourself, "Where are all the kids?"
We had our heroes, the main ones being our fathers, who had come home triumphant and proud from World War II. Some of our other heroes, were the Lone Ranger, Sky King, Davy Crockett, and Robin Hood. This picture of me and my side-kick, the Lone Ranger, is especially for my niece, Sylvia. Thought you'd enjoy seeing your dad, the "distinguished" Dr. Charlie N., as a little boy.