L'il Bevie is in Houston

Nana and I went to Del Monte yesterday evening. Bevie is there this week too.
We had a great dinner and I took a few vids. The best is the last. Al was reading to the twins just before bedtime and got caught skipping pages. The twins picked up on it and Steph recovered and got them back on track. However, Al tried it again and the twins nailed him......thus all the laughter on the last video!


This first one is of Graham playing with the air propelled rocket......



Next is Nana and Evie




And more of same..



Now the reading starts, Al was doing such a good job reading about Blueberry Hill......Little Evelyn is asleep on Bevie.



Until Steph had to get them synchronized ..........



And then he was caught trying to hoodwink the twins by skipping pages. The twins weren't having any of that and brought him to task on it........everyone thought it was so funny. We had a good laugh and I only captured the last bit of it......

Sleeping Beauty......

Not a lot to blog about today. But I do have this little 1 minute vid of Evelyn sleeping.



She was at the DR's today and weighs 7lbs 7ozs

Getting it together....

I remember a Christmas eve around 1960 and the difficulty I had putting together a little gas station/auto garage model (Japanese) for my nephew Kevin. The directions were written by a French/Cameroon bush pilot crossed with a Mexican midget. It was as hard to understand them as it was to comprehend how Steve McQueen could fashion a lens out of a glass bottle that enabled Dustin Hoffman to read in Papillon. A stretch at best! Anyway it took until after midnight to get it done and under the tree just a few scant hours before Kevin got up to destroy it.

IKEA has pretty good directions and, although written in English, they were probably written in Swedish and translated. Thank God they have pictures to tell the story PLUS, they have foolproofed the pieces so they only fit together in the right way......so the new computer desk was a two day deal but relatively simple.


Earlier this month, Emily and Jenn bought me a lovely outdoor grill for Father's Day.






It is just what I have been looking for since we moved to our new cramped quarters and it only took me an hour to put it together. There were 2 little pieces left over so after it rained ( I left the lid off )and filled the bottom of the grill with water I threw them in over my shoulder and made a wish. I learned to close the cover completely.....





Next, we finally got our kitchen window replaced on Saturday morning and Saturday after noon I got to put together an awning and position it above the new window. Took me an hour and a half to put the pieces together and another hour and a half to mount it. The instructions were not that great (written in Chinese) and after I had drilled holes in the wall and mounted the base piece I caulked it only to find out it was on upside down. Now, I coulda mounted the awning onto the base and told Bev it was a new style -pointing up instead of down -but her credulousness seems to be diminishing as the years pass and I'm not sure I could have convinced her unless I plied her with Cosmos first ....
Here's the awning.






And finally, yesterday Steph's pool sweeper quit running around the bottom of the pool. I took it apart to see what was wrong and now it wont go back together. She needs a new one! OR, I could ask the French/Cameroon undersea division of the Japanese 1960 Toy Garage people to send me instructions. Your call Steph.

What a day.

We had a great day today. It started with seeing the twins off to school and then we had old friends ( relatives too ) come visit us. We had snacks at the condo, went out for lunch ( Mexican ) and then spent the afternoon at the John and Dominique de Menil art museum. We enjoyed seeing the Picassos, Magrittes and the Jackson Pollocks, but I wish I had had my camera when we went into the chapel and saw Mark Rothko's paintings. You wunta believed it. There were three canvasses to the left, 3 canvasses to the right, and three canvasses in the center. Huge works about 10 feet by 5. All of them were black or dark purpley-black andWell, Jackson P is a stretch for me. Looking at dark canvasses and imagining seeing stuff is beyond my capacity........

The old friends ( relatives ) were Eric and Susan Muirhead. Bev's cousin Eric, his dad was Bev's uncle. He gained national fame back in 1977 ----- he was the Dr who participated in and oversaw the autopsy of Elvis Presley in Memphis. ( EP died of overdose according to Dr Eric M )

Any way, we go back a long way and we had a nice time talking, taking in the art and enjoying some nice wine..... it was so fun that none of us wanted the day to end.


But it did. But not before we had Cain Five (1998) and Shropshire Blue on whole grain French baguette.........followed by cigars on the patio.....



Lovely it was.

Here's a pic of the three of them.

More of The Martin's Visit

Here's Paige and her new sister...
Here's Colin snacking...

And the last two are the cousins (All 'cept for Colin who was still eating!)




Now here's a vid of a gorgeous kid. Just look at that mush......



And here's one of the cousins just getting into the pool at Nana's house.





And here's one at the other end of the pool. Anna and Graham jump to Jennifer who is in 8 feet of water!

Anna and Colin came to visit..........

Big times around the Houston family complex in River Oaks. The P'ville contingent came to swim, eat and babysit. It was great to have Colin and Anna for the day at our house. We went swimming and played and ate. They are such terrific kids.

Here's Anna singing to her new baby cousin. So sweet.






And here's one of Anna and Evelyn





Colin Oliver and OJ





Jennifer in the recliner with CollyOlly





And finally one of Anna trying to make a mechanical pencil work.

Happy Father's Day

Raining cats and dogs here in Houston. Jennifer and Anna and Colin O. are coming to see the new baby later today. They will be travelling in rain the whole way according to the weather stations projections....... Bev and I are going to visit with Eric and Susan Muirhead ( Bev's cousin Eric) and we were supposed to have going to swim but it looks doubtful with all the thunderstorms in the area. P.S.Someday I will post about the salmon that Eric and I dished up. Also today as on my birthday last month I got to hang some more window blinds.

I took a couple of nice videos last evening and Bev took a shot of me yesterday doing my Saturday crossie....










Here's Graham eating a cookie and telling us about someone with freckles.


Here's one with Graham acting like the patient to Nana and Paige who are doctoring him





Here's one posted hours after the others, I got busy with grandkids.







Here's another......