"Date" with Grandaughter

The first thing we did was to see the very entertaining children's theatre production of "The Pied Piper" at Alvin Community College. After that, Elayna got to choose where to go for lunch -- MacDonald's, of course.

Elayna got to spend the night, and the next day, she tried out her culinary skills making mini pizzas for lunch. She made buttermilk biscuits from scratch to use for the dough

Elayna's awesome pizza won her title of "Junior Food Network Cooking Star", and she's on the cover of this month's "bon appetit" magazine! (They really need to fire their lousy photographer.)

We even got to "visit teach" Jolene. Elayna knows why this picture is a puzzle. We strained our brains (more so for me, than Elayna) trying to put together a 1,000 piece puzzle. Whatever was I thinking when I bought it -- next time it'll be 500 pieces. It's so much fun being a grammy and spending time with a precious grandchild!

Ordinary Miracles

Whenever I look at these flowers in my garden, I am reminded of life's ordinary, everyday miracles. A quote one of my high school English teachers constantly drilled into us (from a famous author) also comes to mind, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever". It lifts my spirit and I feel God's love when I look for these miracles every day. As the song you are now hearing (if you have audio on your computer) says, "life is like a gift wrapped up for you, everyday".

Beach Babes !

My Texas sister-in-laws (soon to be my ex-sister-in-laws, after they see this blog) and I had a relaxing time at the beach. I wish I had taken a photo of the little old guy who rented us the beach chairs and umbrella. He looked like the eternal beach bum, with a triple layer tan, grey dreadlocks. His beach rentals were his pride and joy. He was constantly sweeping away sand from the vacant chairs with a little whisk broom. We recieved stern warnings never to sit on the very end of the lounge chair.
(Donna -- the only one with a tan--, me and Sharon)

Sister-in-law Leah enjoying her all too short summer vacation from teaching school.

After a few hours at the beach, and eating some Tex-Mex food, we chilled out at Sharon's. (Leah with daughter Tessa, and Donna.)

Sharon and her big blue Ellis eyes.
(I am expecting a lot of comments on how bodacious we are!)

Proud to be an American!

We had a fantastic 4th of July -- fireworks, swimming, beach, and birthdays (Courtney's and Philip's -- the 7th & 8th )

The daughter of a World War II Vet and a "war bride" from Austria, I am proud to be an American. My mother, who was born on the 4th of July, knew as a little girl, growing up in Vienna, that she would someday come to America. My father's mother immigrated from England when she was a little girl, while my father's father's American roots go back to the 1600's, when they immigrated from England to become one of the founding families of Cape Cod. God bless the USA!

A mile in my shoes

A proud, sweaty smile (minus make-up, ouch!), because ....

...I've finally made it to a mile! That is, running for a mile (and 1/10) without stopping. My speed is nothing to brag about --- 11 min. 50 seconds without dog, and 13 minutes dragging along an 11 year old dog (poop scooping not included ). It's not impressive to my super athletic blogging buddies, but to me it is major, because it all started 2 years ago with tiny baby steps. It started with walking to the count of 5 and running to the count of 5, and building up my run walks by counts of 5s. Then at a certain point, I focused on increasing the running times, building up very gradually. My goal for the next 6 months is to build up to 2 miles, and then, by this time next year, I hope to be up to 3 miles. It would be fun to enter the "old ladies" division of a 5 K race and maybe win. (I love New Balance Running Shoes (made in USA!) and get them for a real good price at finalscore.com)

Gone again!

After a short 3 week stay, Jeremy is back with the gang at BYU. I know he'll be embarrassed at this old photo taken freshman year, but it represents BYU. We sure enjoyed his time at home, but I know he's glad to be out of this heat and humidity. (Jeremy is first boy on the far left on the bottom row.)

Oh, those big blue eyes!

I was looking through some of my photo files, and came across this one. Avery has inherited those big blue Ellis eyes (both Carl's mother and father had big blue eyes).