Flower Girl

Kira is making preparations for her Flower Girl responsibility at a recent wedding. Her mother's friend, Monica, may not have realized what she was starting when she asked for a 2 1/2 year old to act as flower girl in her recent wedding ceremony.

How do you keep a 2 1/2 year old flower girl busy during the wedding ceremony?

Hello Dolly

Oops! Wrong Dolly.

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Tropical Storm Dolly has been upgraded to Hurricane Dolly. At this point the storm seems to be coming ashore well south of our location. We will continue to monitor the situation and remain vigilant to any changing conditions. Pam and I have weathered a number of these storms and we always try to prepare in advance with supplies of food, water, batteries, and other emergency items. Our most notable hurricane experiences were with Alicia in 1983 and Rita in 2005. We rode out Hurricane Alicia in our home and the eye of the storm passed directly over our house in the early morning hours of August 18. With visions of that event in our mind we decided to evacuate on Wednesday, September 21 for Hurricane Rita. The hurricane itself was pretty much a "non-event" but, the evacuation became the most grueling and tiring experience I can remember. What would have been a 3 or 4 hour drive in normal circumstances turned into a 28 hour driving ordeal with a caravan of 4 cars full of our valuables and each member of the family, including 2 friends of the family and their dog as well as our own 3 dogs, 6 cats, 2 chinchillas, and 2 cockatiels. Our only stops were for gas until we reached our destination. We are still thankful to my brother and his family and to Pam's brother and his family for putting us up in their homes for the few days we stayed away before returning home.

Summer Time Blues

No, I'm not referring to the "Summertime Blues" (1958), a 12-bar blues standard song by Eddie Cochran and Jerry Capehart about the trials and tribulations of teenage life in America. (Song and artist information is from Wikipedia.)


I'm referring to the beautiful blue water in the swimming pool.

Janna has been inviting all of us over to her apartment to swim in the pool.

Kira has been going for 'Water Babbies' lessons at a local swimming pool. Do we have a potential olympic swimmer?

Independence Day!

Waiting for our neighborhood 4th of July Parade.

Start of the Parade.

Houston Mayor, Bill White.

The end of the parade.

Have a Great 4th of July!

Oops! You can't do that.

One of my own items on the Summer "To Do List" for this summer is to organize and clean up some of the photos and videos on my computer. I was looking through some of the earliest videos taken and I found some interesting mistakes which have been made. Here I'll share one of those earlier problems which I didn't give much thought to at the time. A couple of years ago I gave one of those small digital video cameras to Pam for Christmas. You know how Christmas goes. You open the package and want to start using it immediately. No one has time to read instructions or look at the sugggestions for use. We really never did that as I remember and we have been using that camera occasionally to get short, quick videos at various special family events. What follows is one of those early videos we took at the Birthday Party for Quianna at her second birthday. She is the daughter of my niece, Meridith, and her husband, Victor. Take a look at this video:

Did you notice the problem with this video? I'm sure you noticed it needs to be rotated for the image to be upright. I knew that rotation of photo images was possible in several of the photo programs I currently use. Oops! It never occured to me that I would not be able to rotate video images, or at least if it is possible, I have not yet found the program which will do this. I would appreciate any comment which might help me with this problem.

Brazos Bend State Park

Day Trip