That's In My Book

bringin' baby home

Our 1967 Pontiac GTO is now in our garage awaiting her complete transformation. She may have a face only a mother can love at this point, but she has some pretty incredible potential. Now we just need to come up with a name for her and agree on what color we are going to paint her. Obviously she needs more work than a simple coat of paint. But the boys are up for the challenge. I will keep you posted on our progress.

big day

Today is the big day. The day my parents enter the MTC (the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah) where they will learn the ins and outs of what the next 18 months will entail. When I spoke to my mom last night, she seemed a bit nervous. I can only imagine how she must feel looking forward to a complete lifestyle change. I just hope they have a good experience in the MTC.

I am so proud of them for making the decision to serve a mission. They are setting such a good example for my children. An example of what it means to serve the Lord and how important that is to them. It is so important to them they were willing to sell their house, put all their belongings into storage and move to a strange new place (and let's face it, compared to Allen, Texas...New York City is like another country).

The last time we saw my parents, I took some shots of them and the kids. A little frozen snapshot in time to show what the kids looked like when they left. 

Good luck, Mom and Dad. We will be praying for you.

stir crazy

We have just 4.5 weeks of summer left. I am sure August 22 will be here before we know it. And maybe it can't come soon enough 'cause this little girl is officially bored.

 

I realize this shot is a bit out of focus, but I still like it. It definitely shows her crazy side. And she is definitely going crazy with boredom. Luckily, Parker is back from his trip to Utah and can start entertaining her (because clearly I am not doing a sufficient job).

progress report

Despite the extremely hot temperatures and near total lack of rainfall we are experiencing here in Houston, Texas, our square-foot garden is plugging along. It has taken some tweaking and even some fertilizer, GASP, horrible, I know. I will admit, it isn't the plush deep green abundantly producing garden we enjoyed in Holland. But it is producing...mostly cucumbers, okra, peppers, basil (more basil than one family could ever use), rosemary, thyme, sage, and Italian parsley.

Our tomatoes have never really taken off. We did have two beautiful heirloom tomatoes the size of a baseball growing on the vine. Sadly, they were there in the morning but gone in the afternoon. It doesn't appear that an animal got to them, unless this animal ate it all the way to the stem and then made it look as if it had been picked. Or if this animal used it's small opposable thumbs to pick the tomatoes and then ran off to eat them at home. I am thinking it was the gas meter reader. Alas, we will never know.

I did have a big enough harvest of cucumbers to make pickles. Sam and I worked up a batch yesterday morning. They are currently in the frig pickling. I promise pictures once they are done. But no pictures right now, 'cause they aren't pickles yet, just cucumbers sitting in a jar of salty, vinegar-y water.

Here are a few shots of our garden as it stands now.

 

 

 

 

collect

I am sure it is no surprise that I love cameras. I have owned quite a few in my lifetime and I have loved and cared for each one. I can remember having a Kodak 110 film camera as a kid. I loved taking pictures with it, winding it forward to the next frame, dropping the film off at Eckerds to be developed (wishing I had more allowance so I could have it processed in one hour) and then anxiously looking through my photos to see how they turned out. It was an amazing process to me, start to finish.

So when I was browsing through a junk shop in Lampasas and came across this old camera for under five dollars, I couldn't pass it up. I wasn't sure what I would do with it, but I bought it anyway.

This Voigtlander Vitoret is a German camera made in the early 1960s. It came with a cool tan leather case that snaps onto the side, very 60's. But after I bought it, it sat in the drawer for over a year.

On our trip to San Antonio to drop off the kids, we hit the Helotes market days. I found this cool Kodak Brownie Hawkeye (made in the 1950s) at Jojo's Antiques. I thought the flash bulb attachment had such a great look about it. So I bought it and officially started my vintage camera collection.

I picked up this Kodak Six Twenty Brownie Junior (made in the 1930s selling then for just $2.25!) and Kodak Brownie Bullet (made in the 1960s) the very next week. I am trying to pace myself with this new collection, but I am never very good at that.

 

footloose

When Helmut and I drove back to San Antonio to pick up the kids last week, it felt so strange to be making a road trip without any children in tow. Strange, but not necessarily a bad thing. We quickly decided to take advantage of the opportunity...and stop whenever we wanted. I realize that we are the adults in our family and could obviously stop on a road trip anytime we want. But there is something about not having to worry about the kids' reaction or dragging them hither and yon that made it so much easier. So we stopped and stopped and stopped.

We weren't in the car more than five minutes before I realized that I had left my lotion at home and all my "purse lotion" was gone. So we stopped and bought more lotion at CVS. As simple as that, we stopped and ran in and bought more before we even made it to I-10.

Then we spotted a potential muscle car project on the side of the highway near San Felipe, so we u-turned off the highway and turned around to check it out. It turned out to be a dud, but that was when I spotted the Stephen F. Austin cabin. It looked so charming sitting there on the side of the feeder road that I just had to stop. So we did. And I took pictures for as long as I wanted...without anyone complaining. I know, how crazy is that??

 

 

 

We stopped for lunch at the Kountry Bakery and chatted with an old Schulenburg school friend of Helmut's. Then we dropped by another old friend of Helmut's and chatted with he and his wife.

Believe it or not, we stopped two more times before making it to San Antonio (I can't handle a road trip without a Bit O' Honey). Now that I write it all out, we may have stopped a few times to many. It is a wonder we ever made it there. But it was fun to take a trip with just Helmut and I, an exciting glimpse of what we have to come.

the end of an era

My parents closed on the sale of their house today (you know, the same house I lived in my whole childhood). I have been having sad feelings about it all day. I can't really pin down exactly why. It just seems strange to visit them somewhere other than there. Plus I just don't really see myself going back to Allen, Texas if they aren't around, and that makes me sad. I loved growing up there. It was still a small town then. I knew pretty much everyone or at least knew of them. Allen had just one high school which the entire community supported religiously. Every Friday night you could visually see the migration of people wearing blue, silver and white heading to the stadium. As a teenager, we would drag main street near the 7-11 looking for other people to hang out with. Obviously, Allen isn't that kind of place anymore. And even if it was it wouldn't be that kind of place for me. I am well beyond the dragging main street phase of my life. But I always looked forward to going back there and revisiting my glory days.

BTW...My parents started their mission blog today. They shared some of their thoughts about the house there. Here is a link:

A Miner Modification

The final time I visited the house, I took a few shots to memorialize that place in my life's history.

In the words (and voice) of the mom in Toy Story, "Goodbye, house!"

 

 

My dad planted an orchard of fruit trees when we first moved into the house. It seemed to take forever for the trees to mature enough to bear good fruit. Once they did, there was nothing more glorious than picking an entire bucket of peaches to eat. The blackberries were pretty amazing as well. This pear tree was the only tree putting on fruit when I was there.

My parents always had some sort of rain gauge at the house. I used to love running out after a big rainstorm to see if the gauge had overflowed.

 

Okay, I can't write anymore cause I am getting all teary eyed. 800 Honeysuckle Lane, Thanks for a great place to grow up. I will never forget you.

 

 

fredricksburg

I first came across this peach stand at the end of a 20-mile bike ride. I was out ahead of Maria, but had lost sight of Matt and Helmut (who are super speedy and can only stand waiting around for us at each turn for so long). Evidently, I made a wrong turn and Maria was kind enough to keep following me. We were headed back to the spot where we parked the car when we saw the huge hand-painted sign, "Fredricksburg Peaches", propped up on an old pool lounge chair. We HAD to stop. The sweet man working the stand was kind enough to find a perfectly ripe peach for each of us to try. Believe me when I tell you, this was the best peach I had ever tasted. And I have tasted a lot of peaches. Peaches may just be my very favorite fruit. My dad grew them in his orchard for most of my childhood. But these peaches were beyond divine (no offense, Dad). He confessed it was the sandy soil of Fredricksburg, Texas that give the peaches that incredibly sweet, tangy and smooth flavor.

So we went back to that peach stand several times over the weekend. And just before we left San Antonio, we went and bought a huge box of peaches. We are slowly going through them, knowing the whole time they are a limited resource. Maybe I should hide the rest all for myself.

castroville

After we left Floore's Country Store, the fun had just begun.

Let's rewind a bit here. Helmut and the boys have been looking for a muscle car to restore/fix up for a couple of months now. We started thinking we wanted a 1966 GTO then a 1969 Impala then a 1964 Impala convertible. We even drove all the way to Belton, Texas to check out one at the Swap Meet classic car dealership. As you can imagine, none of the cars are really what they were advertised to be. If the interior is in good shape, the exterior is rusted through. If the exterior is in good condition, the interior looks like a raccoon family has lived in it for the last 30+ years. We scoured Craigslist in San Antonio looking for a car possibility since we would be there anyway. We found a 1966 Impala convertible that seemed worth looking at. The owner agreed to meet us in Castroville as the Friday Night Fever. Castroville is a little taste of Alsace, France don't you know. What is Friday Night Fever you ask? Why, it is the most unique gathering of people who are all there to look at or show off their classic cars, motorcycles, monster trucks, etc. It was complete small town carnival fun with kettle corn and funnel cake.

Sadly, the guy was not able to bring the Impala to the Fever because the tail lights weren't working properly, but we still got quite the experience out of it (It didn't matter because the car was in horrible shape anyway, thanks for wasting our time Castroville guy).

Sarah, Sterling, Matt and Maria were nice enough to come along with us. I owe them one.

 

This next one is for when you get the uncontrollable urge to pull over on the side of the road and get your worship on.

And for those not into the religious scene, the airbrushed ninja was pretty cool too.

We talked and chuckled about this next car all night and into the next day. It wasn't until the car ride home to Houston that Sam confessed she thought we were saying powered by Cheez-Its. Funny girl.

 

 

This last one is more my style. I think I am back to wanting the GTO.

helotes

The boys finished up at EFY in San Antonio on Saturday, so we spent the weekend with Matt and Maria. Sarah and Sterling even joined in the fun and spent the night in Helotes with us on Friday night. We had ourselves a down-home, Texas hill country good time.

We started out the night at Floore's Country Store. That's the same Floore's Country Store where THE Willie Nelson got his start. He likes to return to his roots every once in a while and stops by Floore's to play a set or two. We are making big plans to be back there the next time he stops by. We enjoyed some delicious barbeque, finger-lickin' ribs, juicy fried pickles and tangy pulled pork nachos. We even got to hear the band play a few songs for their sound check (we are old and couldn't wait around until 9 PM when the band actually went on). I enjoyed listening to Jon Wolfe, but the kids thought it was too loud, what a bunch of city kids. I can't wait to go back!