My Kids Get Christmas After All

Gina will be on medical leave for the next 8 months, so I didn't buy any Christmas gifts this year. Fortunately, Santa Susan (my friend Susan Banks) came through with a couple of neat-o gifts for my kiddos. Enjoy!

Shari's Graduation

Andy arrived about the same time we did with the Bynums. Although the automated announcement warned against saving seats, we did it anyway.



Once the Moores arrived, we stopped the illegal practice :-)



Aubrey was wearing one of the dresses that Lori, Mom & I got her for her 2nd birthday. Pretty, ain't it?


She also sported the cute coat & hat combo we got her.



And she decided to take over the clappy hands to help make noise when Shari's name was called.



It did take a bit of practice to work those slap-happy hands!



We had about an hour to kill before the processional, so she had plenty of time to practice :-)
We were entertained by the Texas State Brass Band and the JumboTron slide show.



Finally the faculty came in, followed by about 560 graduates. Unfortunately, we couldn't pick out Shari until they'd already filed in.



That's her with the blond hair. 5th chair from the last guy in the front row without a mortarboard.



It was much easier to see her in all her regalia at the restaurant after the ceremony.



Here she is with her proud as a peacock hubby.



And here she's showing off her color-significant cowel.



How educated are you now Doodums? "This much!"



We all really enjoyed the restaurant. It was great food, service, ambiance... Those are the arms of Ken & Jessica, and it looks like Aubrey's arm is broken in this shot!



Shari examines the Willow figurine that the Bynums gave her.



Realizing it says "Congrats" she appreciated the sentiment.



She also seemed pleased with the Discover gift card that Mom & I gave her, once she figured out what it was. Not as popular as Visa gift cards, but used in the exact same fashion.

That's Master Doodums to You

Tomorrow I will post the photos of Shari's graduation ceremony, but I have the 2 videos we took at the restaurant at the end of this posting. I also wanted to put in the photos here of the very cool Christmas gift that Denise gave me. Any wonder that I absolutely LOVE IT???



There are special Star Trek rules when you throw doubles. Double ones creates a wormhole so you can move your token anywhere on the board :-)



Double sixes activate the Borg and you can assimilate your opponent's property :-)



Mom and I stayed up until nearly 1AM playing it. And I was ruthless! Owned all properties on 3 sides of the Board and kept making her mortgage her property every time she landed on one of my "fleets" (hotels) - it was very Ferengi of me!



Here Denise tells us why we all came together...



And here I try to get Aubrey to tell her Great Shari "Congratulations" to no avail :-(

Bobby is 20????????

Hard to believe, but our little Bobster has just one more year of childhood left! And here's how we celebrated his 20th birthday at Mom's apartment.

The birthday boy showed up in his wedding attire -- says the wedding will be sometime this summer. Yep, it's going to be a Star Wars theme and he's going as Hans Solo. His bride will be Princess Leia, of course, and Yoda will be officiating. Here he has Chewbacca's long lost son :-)


Sister Alena and niece Caylie were on hand to help celebrate. Caylie apparently had neglected taking her meds...



Looks like maybe Mom took them instead! And Kaden seems totally unimpressed with Gina's attempt to show off her teeth to him. We were all duly impressed with Kaden's set of chompers.



Here's the best shot I got of Mom with her grand young'uns.



Two of Bob's friends came over to celebrate as well.



Kaden was a bit fussy. Seemed he was really tuckered out. I'm amazed how much he changes each time I see him. He can say "Mama" and had no trouble walking along the bed by holding on to the footboard. In fact, he insisted on doing it over and over and over and over!



Lori wanted to see the photos that Mom has of her kiddos on top of the TV. That one in the middle is of Mom and Bobby when he was about Kaden's age. Ahh...they grow up soooooooo fast!



Here's the birthday cake and candle blowing. Was great to see everyone again. Y'all keep coming back now, ya hear?

Winter Wonderland At My House!

Many parts of Houston didn't get the nice snow that stuck to the ground like we did. It was more of a sleeting rain downtown. But here, it was gorgeous! And as you can see, there was plenty of the white stuff settling down on my plants.




Guess those watermelons are now ruined :-(

The chiminea looks pretty in white, don't you think?



A cactus with a bunch of snow flurries seems a bit incongruous, but check out the size of those flakes!




Here's how nice my house looked in the snow storm. And in that 2nd shot you can see the car I got last week. Traded in my little Mini Cooper because it was about to go out of warranty.





Here's my neighbor's car in his driveway. Hope he has antifreeze!



He was about to take up his pumpkins and put up his Christmas decor. Maybe he should leave the pumpkins - they look nice in the snow.

SNOWING IN DECEMBER!!!!

I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen it snow in my hometown. So this is definitely a blogworthy event. Here's some videos of me trying to get the dogs to brave the blizzard.

First was the challenge of getting them to come outside at all...




Once they heard the neighbor's dog yapping, they came on out. But weren't sure what to make of it all.




Then GG wanted to come out and play.

Next Year I'll Get a Real Photographer

Well, it's that time again. Got new Xmas-themed harnesses from Judy and tried to get a good shot of the dogs for the Christmas cards. Took over 100 photos. This will help explain why it took so many tries.




Never did get a very good one, but did get 6 not so bad ones. If you're on my Christmas card list, you'll get one of these poses. If not, don't worry. You're not missing that much :--)

Here's a few of the funnier ones...

Trying to get the boys to quit rough-housing was the first challenge.



Got a lot like this - eyes open please!



Then Porch Boy decided to get a closeup.



Finally got all 3 of them on one sheet, fairly close together but couldn't get Trip to look up!



Porch Boy finally just gave up and took a nap!



So I called Gina out to give me a hand. As you can see, it wasn't easy for her either...

Star Trek DVD Promtional Event

Talk about lame. A local radio station sponsored this 'happenin' in front of a Blockbuster in the Montrose. After being turned down by all my old fuddy-duddy friends "Past my bedtime!" and "Are you nuts? It's a work night!" and "It's going to be cold outside - are you sure you want to go?" my YOUNG next-door-neighbor, Joel came to the rescue. He was such a good sport. Even didn't mind when I showed up at the door in my dress uniform. You remember it, don't you?

I also took my phaser since we would be out after dark. And Joel had his Star Gazer laser which was even more cool than my toy!

The party was supposed to start at 10PM and go until midnight. We arrived about 10:15 and there were 5 people under the KRBE canopy right in front of the Blockbuster. They were all in jeans and t-shirts. I immediately felt a bit intimidated, being decked out in all my geekdom, but I got out of the minivan anyway. It was ok because 3 of the 5 people were the KRBE promoters and they seemed thrilled that I'd donned the duds. Got my photo taken with all of them.

At first the KRBE guys were being rather strict about giving out the promotional items, making everyone spin the wheel and take whatever it landed on. I was lucky it landed on just what I wanted - the Enterprise keychain.

Joel landed on the Trivia Challenge, where he had to answer a question and if he got it right he'd win a Star Trek DVD. His question was which ship Uhura was assigned to before being switched to the Enterprise. He hadn't a clue. I told him it was the Farragut and so he won the DVD -- but they wouldn't give it to him until midnight due to Paramount rules & regs.

We hung out with them until nearly 11PM and only a handful of people had come after us. Mostly folks who just happened to be driving by and saw something that looked like freebies were being given away. One was a jogger and then there were these 2 Goth guys who were totally stoned that stumbled up. One of them spun the wheel and it landed on a KRBE t-shirt and the guy frowned and said, "I don't wear white."

I felt a bit sorry for the KRBE folks. They had clearly planned for at least 200 since they had that many pins (the thing that looks like a communicator) to give out. But it was getting cold so Joel & I went inside the Blockbuster and started watching the Star Trek movie which was playing on the monitors. We had cups of popcorn that they provided (there were over 30 on the table) and at 11:55 we went back outside so that Joel could get his DVD. Only ones there were the 3 KRBE promoters and the original 2 geeks that were with them when we walked up.

At the stroke of midnight, they invited us to take whatever we wanted. So here's my haul. I did pick up a few other things that I am giving to friends for Christmas - yep Kerry & Brad, for you!

I was also thrilled to get to take the life-sized cardboard cut out of Zachary Quinto's Spock, which now resides in my office along with 7 of 9 from the Star Trek Voyager series. They make a cute couple, don't they?

But Spock does look totally uninterested, I must admit.