Category: Family

Shades of blue.

Glassybabies.

Rachel is back home.  Julie is studying.  Monte is at the lake.  And I’m getting ready for a Sunday afternoon full of work-work.

We went to brunch at Güero’s this morning, then I dropped Julie back at her apartment, before taking Rachel to the airport.  This is a shot of some of Julie’s many glassybaby pieces.   These blue ones are pretty.  I also like the taupe/beige/cream colored ones.  But I guess I’m feeling blue today.

We had a nice weekend.   But we all have a busy week ahead.

Tomorrow is Rachel’s first day as a surgical resident (u go girl!).  Julie has a test.  And I have a full slate of meetings and presentations.

Here’s to the next girls’ weekend.

And, Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there!  My dad is gone – for several years now.  But he would be very proud of his progeny, especially the two very talented, determined and self-reliant granddaughters that I got to spent the weekend with.

Happy Friday.

TGIF.

I’m glad Friday is here.  It’s been a long one.

Rachel baked Julie a cake for her birthday.  We went to Musashino for dinner, and then had birthday cake for dessert.

Happy Birthday Julie!

Salad and suds.

One of the two.

I was hankering for a salad for dinner.  Monte was too.  After a brief tactical evaluation, we decided on BB Rover’s.

This is a pic of the suds.  The salads disappeared pretty quickly.

Nite nite!

Pizza and Pils.


My niece is moving to Austin to attend grad school at UT.  She and her brother drove down from Seattle, and arrived on Friday.   We’ve enjoyed visiting with them for the last few days.  Tonight we drove down to South Congress to meet them for dinner, and afterwards watched the bats fly out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge.

We enjoyed an ATX double header:  Home Slice Pizza and Austin Beerworks Pearl Snap Pils.  Yum!

Surfdancing.

I love this pic.

When I got my Mac, I realized that it could only open the windows filesystem on my old USB backup drive in read-only mode.  Not great for doing backups.  I’ll need to reformat it to use it.  But I’ve been procrastinating, because i’m going to have to sort through what’s on there to see what to keep and what to get rid of.  So this week I took the first step – I copied most of what was on the backup drive to my mac to prepare to reformat the USB drive.

Consequently, the next time I opened Picasa, it found ALL the photos that I had just copied and loaded them into its library, which took a while.  But, once it finished, it makes for very easy viewing of many years of pictures.  So, I’ve been spending a lot of time this morning browsing through photos I’ve taken that I haven’t looked at for years.

When I got to this one I thought I’d share it with you.   This is a photo that I took when my sister, Colleen, and her son, Jacob, were visiting about 4 years ago.  We drove down to Port Aransas for the weekend, and stayed a place right on the Gulf-side of the beach.   This is a picture of Colleen and Jacob jumping together in the surf.   I used some piece of software, can’t remember what, to create a water-color effect — oh, and I edited out the oil rig on the horizon :(.  I later printed this and framed it for her.

I guess it’s kind of appropriate, too, because this is Mother’s Day weekend, and she’s a great mom.

I have to smile every time I look at this pic.

Cousins’ pizza party.

Toppings.

My cousin, once removed (i had to look this up…my cousin’s daughter) is visiting Austin this week.  Alison and her boyfriend Zac came over for dinner tonight.  Monte slung several doughs and we made a bunch of pizzas.  My cousin, Devitt, also joined us.  We had a really nice visit.  What great kids!

Alison and Zac are both amazing musicians.  They were playing Rachmaninoff – from memory!  Our own house concert.   🙂

Making music together.

Keeto @ 6 months (or thereabouts)

Keeto's such a pretty bird!

I didn’t get a chance to sort through my photos from the trip yet, so, today you get another Keeto shot  🙂

Doray and Tom bird-sat for us while we were out of town.  We got home too late to get him last night.  So, as soon as my last meeting was over today, i buzzed over there to pick him up.  He’s such a sweet bird.  Thank you Uncle Tom & Aunt Doray !

We estimate that this week he is about 6 months old.  His cere is most definitely blue now.  He’s wrapping up his first molt.  His flight feathers have grown in enough for him to get some lift.  And his eyes are changing a bit… no longer solid black, but have a little ring gray around the outside.

(oh yeah, i almost forgot… Happy Mardi Gras!)

Cornhole!

Ringer.

Fran, the kids and my mom leave today.  Before heading to the airport we got in a few more games of cornhole.  What’s cornhole, you ask?  A bean-bag (or corn kernel bag, rather) toss game.  Players take turns throwing the bags at the board.  If a bag lands on top, you get 1 point.  If it goes in the hole, you get 3 points.  It is a staple of most mid-western family gatherings and picnics.  Monte recently made a pair of boards.

Francine is quite good at the game, even though she’s never played it before.  She’s giving Monte a run for his money…

In the shot above, Monte’s toss is dropping into the hole (it’s all in the wrist!).

Family in the hood.


My mom, my sister Francine and her kids Aaron and Rebecca are visiting from Seattle this week.  My flight back to Austin yesterday arrived an hour before theirs, so I just hung out in the Admiral’s Club for a while and then met them at their gate.

We paid a visit to the goats down the street.

Saying goodbye.

Ceremony @ Fort Sam.

Today we drove down to San Antonio for my uncle’s funeral.  The mass was very nice, and the burial was at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, where they held military funeral honors.  One of my cousins from Colorado also flew down to attend.  Having 4 cousins together was quite rare for our far-flung family, so it was a real treat.

Rest in peace, Uncle Devitt.

Deck the Halls: Check!

2011 tree.

Well, I ended up working all day yesterday, and most of today.   An “emergency” set of meetings came up out of the blue.   At least I didn’t have to travel to New York to attend in person.

One of my goals for this vacation is to get back on a normal sleep schedule.   I would really like it if the sleepy leg syndrome would stay away until at least after 9 or 10pm.   As it is, i’ve been falling asleep on the couch early in the evening and getting up at 1 or 2 to offically turn in.   This morning, I woke up on the couch about 1 AM.  Before I went to bed I checked my email and learned that my uncle in San Antonio, who’s been ill, passed away a few hours earlier.   Makes me very sad.   But I’m very glad that we had a visit with him recently.   On the other end of the happy/sad emotional spectrum, a friend’s first grandchild was born yesterday.   Life.  Happens.  We should enjoy every minute of it while we’re here.  And hug those important to us as often as possible.

I peeled myself off the phone at about 3PM and decided to finish decorating the tree.  This might actually conclude the hall-decking at our house.   If i get the tree decorated, a wreath on the door, a little manger put up, and the stockings hung, I feel like I’ve got most of the bases covered.

The Eyes of Texas.

Congratulations class of 2011.

Today was another welcome, wonderfully drizzly day.   We just need another 100 or so days like it.

My cousin graduated from the University of Texas yesterday with his bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering.  Today we drove to his parents’ house in San Antonio to celebrate with him, his family and friends.

On the way home we could see the UT Tower lit up in burnt orange from I-35.  But today, instead of the #1 on the tower, reserved for times when the Longhorns win a national championship, there was a #11, to honor the class of 2011.   Monte drove me around to at least 3 different vantage points on campus to try to get a decent shot.  This was the best one I captured.

Congratulations to all the new Texas-Ex’s!

Keeto at about 10 weeks.

Little blue buddy.

We brought Keeto home a little over one month ago, at which time we estimate he was 6 weeks old.  He’s getting comfortable, growing a bit (I think).  We are trying to broaden his diet, which is working out ok so far.

He is a very sweet bird.  He looks a lot like Petey, but has a very different personality.  He’s quite the explorer – likes to run around the game room.  His wings are still clipped from when we picked him up, so he hasn’t mastered full flight yet.  He is hand trained, which was very easy from the beginning, and likes to have his head scratched.

We’re still not sure if he is a boy or girl.   After his first molt, which will be in the next couple months, his cere should change to blue or pink for good.   I’ll let you know how that turns out.

A flock once more.

Blue bird in the house.

Nearly 11 years ago a little blue parakeet adopted us.  Petey lived with us 9 long years.  We have waited some time before getting another bird but have started looking over the summer.

Over the weekend we found a gentle little boy (we hope) who has some of Petey’s coloring, but is different enough to be his own little bird.

We brought Keeto home tonight.   Here’s to the newest member of our flock!