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.

"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!