Family Christmas 2009

Here are some photos from Christmas week in Texas.

I don't know if Ginger is looking for Santa or watching the turkey flock in the back yard. She did like her gifts, especially the quacking pull toy Chris, Tim and Maya gave her.



Here's a glamor shot of the cutest puppy in the world.



Our cousin, Jo Ann, was almost a Christmas baby, so we started the festivities on her birthday two days before Christmas. (Although we really started with a Cajun dinner my sister prepared the day before--we just didn't have anything specific to celebrate yet.)



My sister, Becky, was able to get here for the holidays (that's her on the left with my mom and Tim).



Uncle Ron read to Maya while we waited for dinner.



Our best Christmas present might have been the news that Chris got tenure at the University of Texas. She's worked very hard and certainly deserves this honor.



In addition to engineering software, she also acts as a sous chef for Tim. Usually he does all the work himself, but this Christmas there were so many dishes he enlisted Chris, his brother Arthur, and his mom, Audrey.



Here's Audrey.



We not only had a lot of people at Chris and Tim's but also a lot of dogs. Here's a subset of the six that came to dinner.



Becky brought Maya a tea set, so Maya had a tea party with Becky and her aunt Jocelyn.



We got Maya a scooter (with the appropriate safety gear) and she took to it like a champ. Note the cute boots she got for Christmas.



And of course, there was turkey.

October in Florida

We decided to use one of our timeshares to take a late season trip to Florida. We expected to get a one-bedroom condo, but to our surprise, we ended up with a two bedroom, two bath unit. We decided that having some company would be fun, so we invited my cousins to go with us. That proved to be a great decision and we had a great time. Ron and I got in four rounds of golf (Susan and JoAnn got in two, plus a lot of shopping). At first the weather looked dicey, when a late season hurricane blew up in the Gulf and headed our way. We ended up with a couple of days of rain, but by and large the weather cooperated and the storm landed west of us and went north to the Carolinas, which got hit much worse than Florida.

Here's a picture of the surf as the storm was rising.



I think two flags means stay out of the water. You can see it was beginning to blow.



We used one of the days of rain to visit the Naval Air Museum at Pensacola. It is one of the best museums I have ever visited (and it's free). We got a guided tour and saw an IMAX movie (not free). Here are couple of shots from inside the museum. All the planes are real, so you can get some idea of the scope of the place. This goes under the category of "Highly Recommended."



We were staying at a Marriott resort and it was very nice. It wasn't on the beach, but there was a marina and a boardwalk out into the channel that gave some really nice views of the water.



The resort has two golf courses, one of them a Nicklaus design. This is one of the holes. We could see part of it from our condo.



We walked out on the boardwalk to see the sunset. Here's a pelican that happened by.



This is a succession of shots as the sun went down.




By the way, did you know that a mixture of candy corn and peanuts tastes just like a Payday candy bar?

Road Trip

Chris and Tim had a chance for a work/pleasure trip to the Canary Islands and Madrid over Thanksgiving. We offered to babysit Maya and go visit Rob and Sarah and their family in Chicago. Most people thought we were crazy--two old folks taking on an eight day babysitting trip with a two and a half year old. We're back and we survivied. Here are some highlights of the trip.

Maya discovered luggage carts and always wanted to help and sometime ride when the cart was empty.



Once we got to Chicago, it didn't take long for the little girl mafia to organize. Here's a picture of their first meeting under the bunk bed.



It was really great to get to see the grandkids and how they've grown. Andrew is getting quite mature. I thought he was very grown up in behavior and looks.



Nate lives and dies with his guitar and Eli Manning.



Maya and Megan zoomed around the house.



I tried to provide Sarah with a family picture for their Christmas letter. This is the best of an indifferent lot. The subjects aren't done justice by my photography skills.



Maya was happy to get back to Texas. We stopped at the Texas welcome center to get some exercise and take a break from the car.