Out and About

Sunday we drove to Kingwood for church. It was Claire Hacker's farewell. Claire is a Gibbs family friend and was a great help to Hilary when she moved to China and invaluable to Debby during her recent move. I made a roast-beef Sunday dinner and that evening Debby hosted an open house for Claire. Many of the attendees were Katy's Texas friends and all sent their love to her.

 Open-house prep by Chris Brown

 Debby and Bishop Chappell; Ross Tolman and Claire in background

Alison, Katherine, Debby, and Kris

Monday we went to Market Street where the ladies "gathered" prior to viewing The Butler. Returning home, I finally took the plunge in Debby's beautiful pool. When Alison finished teaching, we drove cross country to the Tomball freeway for supper with Gordon and Alison at Lupe Tortilla. After dinner we drove to Alison and Gordon's new home project. The house is coming along and the setting is beautiful with towering pines. The trip home to Debby's took less than 15 minutes, so the location will be very convenient. We polished off the day with a viewing of Star Trek Into Darkness on the big screen with killer sound!

 Market Street

 Cinemark in the background

 Dickie takes a dip

 Lupe Tortilla

 The Reese ranch

All they need is the pitchfork

 This is the way to watch movies!

More to come, but that's all for now.

OXO

D.

All Work and No Play, Make Dickie a Dull Boy

We have been working hard getting all the details pulled together, so we rewarded ourselves with an outing. We started in Kingwood at the former house, picking up a few odds and ends, and then proceeded downtown for a movie at the Sundance Cinemas: Austenland. After the movie we went to Rice Village to an English store, and then for an early supper at La Griglia, a really fine Italian restaurant in River Oaks, River Oaks is an original Art-Deco shopping center, now full of upscale stores and restaurants.

Saturday we finished a few projects before going to Costco to pick up some things for an open house that Debby is hosting for Claire Hacker, a friend who is mission-bound. We met Gordon and Alison for lunch at Just Burgers, a greasy spoon with great burgers and wonderful onion rings. We finished the day with a screening of Now You See It in Debby's killer screening room.

The girlies at the Sundance Cinemas in downtown Houston

 La Griglia 

 Funky and fun La Griglia interior

 Houston Costco on a Saturday: strangely

my idea of a good time

A run-by fruiting of the Houston Temple on the
way to Alison and Gordon's

 Lunch at Just Burgers in Klein

Now You See It on the big screen: awesome!

The work is 99.9% complete so more adventures are afoot. But that's all for now.

OXO

D.

Decoration is Us, Texas Edition

Wednesday, 2 September, Annie was kind enough to drop us off at the SLC airport for a flight to Houston to help Debra Sue get some of the final details of her new home sorted out. So we have been arranging furniture, placing accessories, and hanging pictures. We were able to bang most of it out on Thursday. It is working out quite well and this really feels like her home.

 

I LOVE Southwest!

 The Uinta Mountains from 39,000 feet

 The "canyons" of clouds were spectacular

 Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now kept playing in my head:

"I've looked at clouds from both sides now..."

 A delicious post-landing early supper at Houston's

 Debby's bedroom

 Ditto

 

 The painting at the top of the stairs sets the 

tone for the tropical upstairs gathering room

 This is that room

 The downstairs guest room

 Main floor family room

 These were so hidden with other stuff at the previous house

that I had never seen them

 This stuff is incredible

The Balanese painting looks great

There will be more to report, but that's all for now.

OXO

D.

The Rest of August and a Tiny Bit of September

August was filled with the usual kinds of stuff: compound dinner, early morning walks with Uncle and the dogs, good BBC series on Netflix, and date nights with Rod and Vic, and Stephen and Ann. In addition we had such a good time at breakfast with the Hansen cousins, we decided to make it a monthly event at Market Street Grill in SLC. Hansen Ringer returned from Ukaraine and Amy feted him with a nice family luncheon. We began the new month yesterday with a Labor-Day gathering at Hank and Colette's cabin.

 Holden captures Katy; I capture them both

 We manage to check the temple project at least once a week;

the stilts are disappearing 

 It's fun to try and figure out how they will accomplish each step

 Supper w/ Rod and Vic at Brassa Grill

 And dessert at the Creamery Outlet: a well-kept secret

with no waiting lines for ice cream

 August brought forth the first tomato of the season

Foyle's War is the best!

 Group Dinner at the Banana Leaf

 The first red leaves came early in August and thus far have

been rather dull -- someone said not enough water to be brilliant

 First day of school for the local binkers

 Hansen returned this month

 Part of the family that gathered at the Ringers

 Market Street Grill with the Hansen cousins

 Yummy eggs Benedict

 Millie, Kreg, and Kris

 Uncle and Fergus on an early morning inspection tour of the 

Provo-City-Center-Temple project

 Uncle can talk to anyone about anything

 Labor-day gathering 

 Apparently, Hank enlivened their conversation considerably

 Tommy is back from his world tour

Colette say they call this kind of a photo a "David picture" because

it seems I always get pictures of people with their mouths full

Tomorrow morning early we are off to Texas for a week and I will be blogging and posting on Instagram from there. This is all for now.

OXO

D.