Happy birthday to our Longhorn niece, looking forward to her first national championship! We miss you!
The fighting Katy Tiger…the star baseball player…the new driver…Happy Birthday to you, Ryan. We love you and miss you and wish you a great one!!
Happy Birthday Mom! You are missed down under. We wish we could be with you for your big day, but hope that everyone in Texas does a proper job of spoiling you. If they don’t, we’ll put a whuppin’ on them when we come home!
Tonight David and I began our recording of last night’s Monday Night Football with the Houston Texans against the Tennessee Titans. I knew that it was airing from Houston, however I certainly did not anticipate the way we both would react upon seeing it. Monday night football conjures up a whole bunch of feel goods anyway with Hank Williams Jr. and all of the music and fireworks and the familiar voices of their announcers. They had a clever picture of NASA with the helmets of the two teams shooting off into space and then the sky cam did a panoramic of the downtown Houston skyline and of Reliant Stadium right next to the Astrodome. You would have thought we were seeing our long-lost favorite relative…I guess we were. We were both standing just inches from our tv and the first thing David pointed out was the Chevron building downtown. Then he spotted Kirby Drive all lit up with drivers sitting bumper to bumper waiting to get into the game…that good ol’ Houston traffic. Reliant Stadium and the Dome were the next in the picture and then the camera went inside. The venue was packed solid with Houston’s faithful in the midst of the flames on the screens surrounding the stadium. The roof was open on that beautiful fall night with fireworks underway. The crazy fans who dress in the dumbest of things, suddenly even charmed me. Vince Young looks like he has grown up some…I still have such fondness for him. We saw so many familiar things and it was sooooooooooo exciting. Well…all of this got my homesick juices flowing. I said to David, “Don’t you miss home right now”? to which he replied, “Seeing all of that makes me wish I were there at the game”. I didn’t get that, so I asked again, “Doesn’t it make you want to be there right now, in Houston, driving around, looking at all of the Christmas lights, being on our roads, the familiar things”? He again, in his David sort of way said, “No, it does make me want to be at the game though”. Wanting him really to just lie and tell me that he felt the same way that I felt, I huffed at him and then asked, “Well, what exactly is it that you miss from home”? He thought carefully and methodically replied, “I miss mexican food, Costco and David Ray……………and Randy”. I don’t know if that is most to least, least to most, or if it is any order, but Dave and Randy are in good company. We had a good laugh and a good time seeing our home on the big screen. Then after a tight and exciting four quarters, the Texans lost at the end of the game….ahhhhhhhh there is no place like home.
This past Saturday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with other North Americans over a feast set at the Nedlands Yacht Club on the Swan river. This picture was of the kids after they had decorated their gingerbread houses and of David shamelessly waiting for his taste. At the festivities, there was turkey and stuffing (that must have come from a northerner as we southerners call it dressing), cranberry sauce, cornbread muffins, green beans and brussel sprouts of all sorts, many sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes, salads of several kinds, potato rolls from yours truly and other unmentionables. Someone was so impressed with my rolls that she took a picture of them and asked for my recipe. I love that kind of attention! The fine dining American style concluded with various cakes, cookies and other desserts, but most importantly pumpkin pie. It was a really nice Thanksgiving planned by the Chevron Expats ladies group and we were delighted to attend and grateful for all of the preparations. The only problem was…there was no deep fried Cajun turkey…no Longhorn/Aggie football…no leftover turkey for sandwiches that evening…it wasn’t cold outside…no laughing at my brother for all the funny things that he does…we didn’t stuff ourselves only to be miserable all afternoon…no pink salad…no late night game of scrabble…no hidden questions under the place settings at my Thanksgiving table…no Dallas Cowboys football…no black Friday plans…none of my mom’s fabulous cornbread dressing…no family outside of my immediate family…and to top it all…it was on Saturday, not Thursday when the whole country shuts down for the celebratory gathering and feast. Wow. Thanksgiving on Saturday in Perth. It was different. AND it was great. It’s amazing that different can be great too. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! Happy Thanksgiving.
1 Thessalonians 5:18: Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
You might recall the bathtub full of boys and bubbles recently…they are not the only ones who know fun!!!
It is Friday the 13th of November in Perth…nothing spooky about this day though…IT IS DYLAN’S BIRTHDAY!!!! Happy Birthday Dylan. We love you and we miss you and we wish we could see your sweet face. Tell your family to hook up the Skype!!!
We love you Dylan…Happy Birthday.
I had a Great Aunt named Pearl. I have always loved her name…Pearl. She was my Mom’s aunt and she died many years ago. Before she died, my mom and her cousin Rokki were in charge of her and at some point as she became old and incapable of caring for herself, she had to be admitted into a nursing home. From time to time we would make the drive to Cameron…a lovely Texas town with, as I remember, large and glorious oak trees everywhere and beautiful old country homes. I wanted my Aunt Pearl’s house soooooooo bad as it was just wonderful. It had a porch almost all around the house, the floors creaked as you walked through it, and the ceilings were very high with a lot of glass all around. I recall this one room, my favorite, and I called it the glass room, because two of the walls were glass of some sort. In her kitchen, she had these great cabinets that had some glass doors so that you could see all of her dishes and some pretty ceramics. I LOVED looking at her dishes (especially her three antique red bowls…ahem…). It remains one of my favorite things to do today to look at dishes and other prettys in my cabinets as well. I didn’t get the house …I was only 16 at the time, but I did manage to end up with her old Dodge Dart. I was so embarrassed to drive it to school. I used to park it at the end of the lot and sneak away from the parking area so that no one would see me in it. Fortunately that car didn’t last too long as it was real old. I also ended up with many of her antique Fiesta cups and saucers…perhaps that is what began the spark that is now my obsession. In fact, now almost every day I have my cuppa, all the way over here in Western Australia, I have it in one of Aunt Pearl’s antique cups and saucers and I take great pleasure in it and her name pops into my head. But recently there was something else about Aunt Pearl that came to mind. While Aunt Pearl was living in the nursing home, my mom and dad made the drive to see her one weekend. I can still even remember the room she was in and where it was in the hallway. Mom and Dad had all been sitting with her in her room, visiting, and then another resident walked by and if I recall correctly, she popped her head in the doorway and spoke to everyone in the room. Of course, my parents were gracious to her and so was Aunt Pearl…she acknowledged her and greeted her with a smile. The friendly neighbor then exited the room and made the very short walk down the hallway to the doors which lead outside. Right as she was headed outside, Aunt Pearl quickly changed her tone and indignantly spoke, “I hope you freeze” to the lady. How quickly she turned on a dime and cursed the lady who just moments before she had so sweetly greeted. We have laughed about this since it has happened and it remains part of her legacy…it was just so funny. One might wonder why I thought about this story, here and now and it was NOT while drinking my cuppa from her cuppas. Recently I was visiting my Australian friend Judy, who is in the aged care center. Right as I arrived, I could tell some big time fun was underway as there were party hats and the tables were crowded with residents. Judy quickly explained that they had been celebrating a lady’s 92nd birthday with cake and everyone was all smiles. Well I surely LOVE fun but my problem was that there was no chair to sit in…there is always a chair right beside Judy for me to join her however this time there was not. I saw an empty one all the way across the large lounge room and decided to make my way over there to retrieve it. I passed the little 80 pound hungry hunter who you might remember calls attention to her gaseous episodes, and we exchanged very pleasant smiles as we always do. I got the chair and walked back to join Judy and after I passed my pint-sized zealot, who again smiled from ear to ear at me, I heard her say, “I hope she slides right out of that chair”.
I’ve added a new page on the blog to share books we’ve enjoyed. Check it out here. The first book is Hearing God, by Dallas Willard.
The long-awaited day has finally arrived!! Mary had been asking David to be able to accompany him to work and two days off from school this week provided that opportunity. She got dressed and ready in her business attire, toe nails polished for the occasion and a pink briefcase packed with color by numbers and story books. The day was exciting as she met various Chevron employees, got to talk with the headset, drew on the white board and had a power lunch of Italy’s finest with the best man in her life. It ended with a lolly and her love bucket filled to the rim. And is there any cuter picture than this…
