Emily's Visit

Emily had a little business in Houston this past week. so we had big dinner plans at the Walkers.  Steph and Evie didn't get much sleep the night before because Evie coughed all night. Dinner at Piping Rock was cxd so we invited the twins to Bammel Lane and had a nice dinner there while Steph and Ev stayed home. PK and GB were thrilled with the reduction sauce I made for the filets and the butter/mint sauce for the boiled red spuds. They each ate 3 lamb chops to boot!

Here are some shots of the house already decorated with some Hallowe'en stuff and some nice video of Auntie Em and Steph feeding Evelyn. went to the Walker's and enjoyed some nice wine. Evelyn is still not 100% as you will see in the video of Steph feeding her chicken soup..
First here are a few pics of the downstairs of the house on Piping Rock.

 A great workable kitchen (with bat)

 Hallway

 Living room

 Game room

             

Jumping Beans

We visited the Walkers this afternoon. In their new home they have a trampoline, it'll only be there short while until it's moved by the builder who was storing it there. I videod the kids playing on it. There are more pics but it's late and I'll post more tomorrow. Well, tomorrow's here and here are more pics and vids

Evie making sounds like a lion roaring and it made her cough

Paige is a lion too

She did it again!

Graham is a lion in repose

That's a scary lion

                                                    

Finally after a heat related writing block here is the next post

Houston weather is great in Oct Nov and Dec and I am so looking fwd to it. I was spoiled by the July and August climate in New Mexico. September wasn't very nice here in Houston and the humidity and heat encouraged the mosquitoes, the bane of my existence.

Unhappily for Little Evie, they like her about as much as me. You can see the little bite near her mouth on these vids.

She has a little luggage lock and is intrigued by the little trigger that opens it.

Click


Next she plays Hide -go-seek..

Click

I don't know why I am unable to upload the videos from YouTube as I have in the past. I couldn't so I created links instead.
Enjoy them.

We left this one out......

Here is a video of the kids playing with some clever masks they made.

Trestle Trail

Since the kids and I got rained out a few days ago, Nana and I wanted to complete this trail. It is a tough bugger.
We finally got there and shared the roost with a St Bernard who was two years old and Patchie tried to snip at him.

Beautiful scenery.....









Finally we reached the end of the trail.....

Aww The kids left

After a busy two weeks of hilltop activity the kids went home to P'ville. We are missing their presence around the cabin in these first few days on our own again.

We arrived at the airport at 1400, plenty early for the 1545 flight. We were checked in by 1415 and told the flight was delayed till 1630. :-(

We decided to go to a nearby PPP to while away some time.

Nana tried to sneak a lick of Anna's ice-cream



Patches in the bag











Before we left Nana packed some snacks for the a/c ride


Here we are waiting to board


Airplane taxiing out





Take off...

Rained Out........Almost

For the kids last full day here in Cool Country we thought a nice hike down the Train Trestle Track was on.

We started out and walked to the trail head which is minutes from our rental. Grandad thought he knew better than the signs posted on the track so we took what was supposed to be a shortcut that turned out to be a big loop back to the trail head! Oh well, we started again and found the trail to be a beauty. About 1/2 mile down we heard a monster thunder roll and examined the sky and decided to press on. Only for a few more minutes for the sky was very threatening and the thunder rolls attention getting, so we decided to hurry home.






Then after lunch and two hours of lazing around we decided to go play tennis. Col and I biked the 3/4 mile and Anna and Nana walked. We played for about 2o minutes before the heavens opened and we were soaked. loathe to leave the fun we hesitated just a little to long to pack up and leave. By the time I shuttled everyone home on the bike we were sodden.

But, a great dinner of queso and chips and tacos, followed by the hot tub made our last day here together memorable.

We will miss the kids after they leave. This place will seem too quiet. We are thankful we got them for two full weeks.
We have two more weeks up here in Cloudcroft. I am going to rest up.