Dec 26th 2012 Day after Christmas day snow shots.

It has indeed a very long time since I have updated this blog. I will try to organize all of the pictures and getting the entire 2012 year layed out. So one must start someplace. Here is some initial shots of the snow the day after Christmas that we got on Christmas day.

This is just too cold for Texas.

 

You will see a seperate post regarding the train track. I hope to go to the train show tomorrow Jan 5th.

You will notice no water spraying into pond here. The line is froozen, I thought I just killed one pump but since the water at the actual pump line did not freeze, once the line thawed out, the water was once again flowing.

The next two shots are from my back yard looking into the Whilshire Park.

More shots in the back yard.

The fountain is froozen.  Not good in Texas!

But the waterfall is still running.  Good!

My Bud and Little Girls

My buddy Jimmie and my two girls. You will not see many pictures of him on FB or here as he does not like his picture being taken. So out of respect for that I asked his permission to publish this one and he granted it. If you ever want to buy a used car and he has one for sale he is the person to buy it from. He is way beyond normal for keeping good car of his cars. He will tell you what is wrong if there is anything wrong. At any rate Val and I thought this shot was just too cool.

After Jimmie left and Ricki was in bed Lucy settled down with me in the man cave.

A sweet Blessing Sent 2012 Christmas Season

Every year for nearly the last 20 years we have been going to what we call Christmas House Hopping until this year. A few people cook up a bunch of their favor goodies, heavily decorate their homes and on an hourly basis we go from house to house to enjoy each other’s companionship. At the last house we party until late into the evening.

I must have pulled a muscle or bruised a rib as I had a very sharp pain in my side that I could not tell what the problem was. It was located in an area that it could have been any number of key organs. The pain was severe enough that I did not set the alarm thinking I might end up needing to call the paramedics at some point in the middle of the night. It hurt to breath, sit, and stand, just about anything. So we had to opt out of the annual house hopping party.

So while we were at home the dogs started barking and Val noticed a bunch of flash lights around the front of the house. I did not grab my gun, but I did have quick access to it if needed as this was highly unusual. When I peeked out through one of the small windows I noticed the people did not have police uniforms on but had Christmas like garb. Once opening the door, I think I might have surprised them a bit as they had not yet knocked or ring the doorbell that we remember. What we found was some very harmonious Christmas Carolers which while in pain was very uplifting. They were from a local church and did not try to convert us or anything like that. Here are a couple of shots.

2012 Christmas the house is getting ready

The house is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. We went over a picked up our tree on Saturday and decorated it on Sunday.

Our entertainment center ready for Christmas. Val does such a good job at decorating. As you can see I was messing with flash settings and shutter speeds.

The fire place.

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Chili Season October 2012

I love Chili season. Nothing like a cool day, open fire, and a dutch oven full of home made Chili. While writing this I am even thinking to do this next weekend. It is not January, but next weekend the weather looks like it might get into the 60's. I love Texas. Now first to round up the meet for the Chili.

Now get the fire started and a good hot bed of ambers.

Now start browning the meat, keep dog around incase you run short on meat.

Dog lucky, got enough meet.

Keeping dogs around incase more meat is needed. They never seem to be to far from kitchen when I cook outside.

Good stuff.. It was great eating.