Dad’s 60th Birthday Party

January 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Two weekends ago, we had the pleasure of throwing me dad a super 60th birthday bash for all of his friends at our house.  Lots of preparation getting the house ready (and painted), tables & chair rented, decorations bought & hung, cake designed and ordered, food & alcohol purchased.

Although it was a rainy Saturday night, over 30 of his lifelong friends came out to celebrate & reminisce as they brought old photos & many great stories about my dad. Many of the guys he works with (and that worked on my house!), as well as childhood friends & hunting/fishing buddies made it out to the party.

By request, we had a BBQ diner from his favorite local place(s) & then some delicious cake before opening up some hilarious gifts.

Both Brenda & his best friend gave a touching tribute to him that often elicited many howls of laughter from the crowd.

Lots of funny cards & hysterical gag gifts, but many friends knew that liquor was the best gift of all. We spent time looking at all the old photos & sharing some memories of all the amazing adventures that my dad has survived.

All in all, it was a wonderful evening for my father & we were so happy to be able to do something like this for him to make 6 amazing decades.


GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY:  Last night without hubby- he’s on the red eye home from Hawaii.

Filed Under: family, kidz, Married Life

SS: Safe

January 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment


Sunday Scribblings #252: Possibly an easy one or possibly a loaded one, but not one that will inspire luke-warm posts.

This prompt this week is: safe.

A bit late, but I like to take some time to mull over the prompt & think about it at various times throughout my day.  With 2011 ending, I have been diligently backing up all my computer files & photographs to a *safe* place- some on external hard drives and some that go into a fireproof safe at our house.  It’s amazing how consumed we are as society with safety- we have dozens of government organizations that monitor and regulate things for our safety: car safety, food safety, medical safety, policing & violence.  I’d guess that the average person living in the US is safer now- from weather disasters, random acts of violence, dangerous food and medicine, financial or food supply  crises than we have ever been in the past.  Yet, we still live a life consumed with fear in many ways.  Just look as how large the insurance industry has grown in an attempt to create a buffer and keep your house/car/health (even death) safe or at least minimize the repercussions should disaster strike.  This unheralded levels of safety have just prompted more paranoia and need to control all circumstances- exhibit A being the germaphobe generation that won’t leave the house without a bottle of hand sanitizer & exhibit B is the ridiculousness that is our airport security these days.   I think when people give up the illusion of control & accept that sometimes (well, always) life happens, they will be less anxiety about controlling everything & more people will be prepared to return to normal.  No marriage, no pet, no job, no family, no house or material object will last forever.  All things in this life are temporary & instead of spending extraordinary amounts of energy trying to prepare for every thing & keep everything we possess safe, we might be better off spending some of that energy on contingency plans & being resilient when life does happen.


GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY:  Whoo-hooo…finished my 9th marathon!

Filed Under: Sunday Scribblings

My Zip Code

January 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We continued our flight generally flying over the 290 freeway.  In addition to 2 nearby hospitals, there are dozens of “medical facilities” and doctors offices, including some at the front of my neighborhood. Sadly, it looks like they have cleared even more land & construction has stared on new buildings.  I’m a sucker for convenience & the dozens of stores & restaurants in our area make life super-convenient, except for that whole horrific traffic thing.

You can see the new medical construction, but I still have no idea what the final product is going to be.  The utility right-of-way sandwiched between my regular jogging trail at the park & an apartment complex is the fastest & easiest place to take the dogs out for a run if they need to get out. They keep it mowed fairly regularly during the summer & there’s never anybody else out there so they dogs can run around like crazy and occasionally jump in the bayou against my strict orders NOT to do so.

It’s an interesting mix around here- swanky new homes on a fancy blue lake, lots of older subdivisions with smaller homes & quite a few apartment complexes in this area mean there is a very high population density around here.

This is my office- a whopping 2 miles from my house & I am SOO spoiled by not having to fight the Houston traffic.  I turn into a big baby if I have to anywhere that involves driving less than 50 mph.  Funny back story: the building was a car dealership in the early 1990′s when this area was still waaaay out (outside the brand new beltway) & it was surrounded by nothing but grassy fields and birds for many years.  My dad did the construction job to convert the buildings to office space & I actually helped him on my future office when I was 15 years old.  I have distinct memories (which I have very few of!) hauling garbage, working on the roofs, hanging doors & trying to learn how to drive a stick shift (I failed at that one!) during the summer of 1995.  In fact, my dad is the one who encouraged me to apply for a summer intern (filing & secretary) job there the summer after I graduated high school & I’ve been working there for 13 years now.

I really like our office- it’s a great place to work & I love having a wall for a window outside so I can occasionally be distracted by the traffic or weather or birds.  That field off to the left is another one that the pups get to run around like banshees in if they come to work with me on the weekends.

My office is adjacent to a regional headquarters for DPS (Department of Public Safety – the troopers!) and they are also expanding and constructing a more buildings.  They are pretty quiet most of the time, but they have a few helicopters they fly in and out of that office.   I can’t tell you how long the piece of property near us on the corner has been abandoned once they put in utilities for a residential area, but I never knew there was a small lake in the middle of of that property.  Along the free way in front of my house, there is about 2 miles of every imaginable car dealership in the world.  Several of them, including the Jeep & Saturn dealerships, have closed in the last few years- leaving behind massive parking lots and huge, vacant buildings.  The most prominent parking lot in the photo is the Park & Ride lot where people can get in a bus downtown or hop onto the HOV lane if they have passengers.

There is a small incorporated city, Jersey Village, just in town from us.  My official address for my office even recently changed from Houston to Jersey Village for no apparent reason.  My office is technically in their city limits & they have this main shopping area long the freeway with a few places we frequent- from the reliably good Tex-Mex as Los Cocos to the wholesale liquor store Specs, this is a very popular and busy corner.


GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY:  Went out to see the Forbidden Gardens in Houston before they close next month.

Filed Under: airplane, home, houston

Flying High

January 27, 2011 By 1 Comment

Several weeks back, hubby & I used a very cool Groupon to take a 45 minute flight over Houston. The airfield is about 2 miles from our house & we see these little planes flying over all the time. I thought it would be need to take an aerial tour of Houston on a sunny Saturday afternoon.  I took a few hundred pictures, so I’m going to break them up into several posts throughout the next few weeks & write at length about each of them because so many of them are important places or reminders of the past in my life.

This is the new fancy hospital just one exit up on the freeway from our house.  It’s where I took the photos of my beautiful sister Haley, and it’s also been the source of controversy in the area.  There is another established hospital about 2 miles from my home also & the new hospital, although sleek & fancy on the inside, has received rather mixed reviews from patients (i.e. friends & coworkers who have had to use the hospital) and some animosity about their “private” status when it comes to handling insurance.

If you’ve never visited Houston, let me tell you a few things- it’s flat & it rain flat out rain here during a good summer thunderstorm.  Flooding has always been a problem along our bayous, so many areas now have large retention ponds & spillways to hold excess water during big storms. It’s not a true “greenspace” but it’s at least a little bit of open land walking dogs & jogging if you are so inclined.

Next, we flew right over my (old & new) neighborhood(s).  One of my favorite things about my subdivision, is that although you are close to just about everything, there is a nice tree lined boulevard into the housing area that makes you feel like you are ever so slightly escaping the madness and mayhem of the freeway.  The oldest homes in our neighborhood are about 20 years old & I imagine that the oak trees were planted around that time.  They have grown so much & I just love the calming effect they have driving into the neighborhood.


GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY:  Hubby has officially landed in Hawaii- I’ll miss him dearly, but it’s going to be an awesome opportunity.

Filed Under: airplane, houston

Photo Favorites 2010

January 26, 2011 By 4 Comments

I missed doing this post in 2009, but liked the time of reflection from doing Photo Favorites 2008 & Photo Favorites 2007.  I thought it would be really hard to find enough photo favorites for last year since I hadn’t “kept” this up & had to go back through over 16,000 photos to make my picks.  Luckily, Lightroom is awesome & made finding my favorites, including the one above of an iceberg from the Tasman Glacier in New Zealand, super easy and quick.  There are several New Zealand pictures in my favorites- both for their stunningly beautiful landscapes & for the fond memories I have of exploring the amazing South Island with my husband.  These floating icebergs were so impressive- beautiful, colorful, larger than life, infinite shapes & sizes.  We’d been longing to get a peek at Mt. Cook for 24 hour & finally caught a little glimpse of it towering over us & even making the gigantic icebergs pale in comparison.

This isn’t actually a photo that I took myself, but it makes the list because I can’t think of any better photo from our trip of us, mid-heliflight from Milford Sound back to Queenstown, that exemplifies our adventure & the striking beauty of the landscape & even the moody weather in the clouds below us.

I’ve taken many great photos of my husband- he is so handsome & photogenic, but this is my favorite of the year for the moments capture on film (can I still say that??).  Our whole trip to New Zealand was us spending days on end together driving from one breathtaking town to another, but on this particular day we’d stopped to take a little side hike & we were all alone, H had wanted to “touch the water” all day as we drove alongside the winding rapids.  He finally had the opportunity to get some use out of his hiking boots & North Face gear as he experienced the bone chilling cold of a glacier fed river.

My last favorite photo from New Zealand was from my absolute favorite activity- hiking on Fox Glacier.  There are no words (but lots of pictures) to describe the amazing patterns & sheer sizes of the ice field.  We were there on a perfect day with blue skies, lots of sun & a great guide for our trek.

I’ve obviously got many photos of my dad, but this one I snapped during our family fishing trip in April is far and away my favorite- it so personifies my father in his fishing mode like no other photos show him doing the one thing he loves most in this world- wading with a stringer full of fish.

My three favorite things in the world all come together in my next favorite photo I took one casual afternoon when hubby came up to my office to hang out & the dogs begged for attention.

So many pictures from our summer trip to Pennsylvania, but my newly found love of Pittsburgh made this an easy favorite from the trip.  Anytime I can sneak up some elevation & get a shot looking out or below, it’s such a powerful perspective.  Again- perfect weather &  I love the leading lines of all the bridges headed into downtown & how this shot embodies the town & my many fond memories made here.

My brother & sister are getting so big & grown up!  Taking them out for a weekend in Austin offered me a glimpse into the very special relationship that they have as brother & sister- the way they laugh & wrestle, how the whisper & share jokes, the way Hunter watches out for Haley.  It’s rare to catch them in a genuine smile- not the forced kind I’d been accustomed to for so many years, so I was glad to have this photo, among many from the weekend, to remember them in their last few years of high school.

This is a surprise photo for me- I didn’t remember it being anything special when I took it or posted it, but going back through my photos, it really jumped out to me as the regal Capital Building of South Carolina was framed perfectly with the blossoming trees & cloud-speckled sky.  We were there with just the right light & sky conditions, no other people in sight to obstruct our view & I was once again just out for a lovely stroll, spending time with my hubby in downtown Columbia.

My sister Haley is so crazy photogenic & I’m always catching her at family functions & events, but she indulged me when I rented a sweet lens & let me practice some portrait shots with her.  I was able to get a few I liked in the 15 minutes we had to spare, but this was my favorite- her beautiful smile, her sparkling eyes, her gorgeous hair, her sassy attitude is all 100% Haley.

I took another big chunk of photos in November when I visited Stephanie in Philadelphia to run the marathon, but this was by far my favorite of the weekend.  Stephanie & Ginger have such a special bond with all the miles they have covered together & I was so happy to be able to take a cherished picture for them.

Usually more sunset photos make my list, but this is my favorite sunset photo of 2010.  It’s not full of fiery red skies or brilliant landscape, but it’s the atmosphere of this picture & the context of the night that makes this photo a favorite.  Looking at this photo, I’ll always remember the romantic weekend I spent with my husband in Fredericksburg exploring beautiful wineries, discovering some delicious Texas wines & hanging out with the love of my life at Grape Creek Vineyards.

I’m actually surprised there aren’t more puppy photos, but I wasn’t as good about taking them out for adventures this year & was much worse about taking my camera when we did actually go out.  This photo makes my favorites list because I love that it’s in the woods (one of their happy places) & they are both sitting so pretty together waiting to go chase something.

Another elevated shot that made the favorites list- New York City is so much larger than life & you can’t even fully appreciate it until you rise up into the skyline to take in all the magic of the Big Apple.  I love the clear skies & the warm glow that the early evening sun cast upon all the buildings.

I ended up with a lot more photo favorites that I thought I would when I stared writing this post- it was a great year for photography, travel, friends, family and adventure.  A photo favorites post wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t share some of my favorite photos by somebody else- Kristen at K. Holly Studios for the amazing photos she capture of Mark & Pam’s wedding in Puerto Vallarta  (the Rehearsal, the Ceremony, the Party)

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY:  So glad to finally be up to full-size on the blog at 900 pixels

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Filed Under: blogging, mia, photography, review, Travels ->, Zoe
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