Good Food and Good Friends--does it get any better?

Only if the good friends BRING the good food!  

And these did!  Dungeness crabs!!

Gail worked her magic and we dug in!  EXCELLENT!!!!!!
Thanks, Joan and Emma!  Y'all come back now, ya hear?

Winter Wonderland on Water

While I'm  not sure I'd like this for 3 or 4 months out of the year, it sure is fun for a day or two!

 

Cindy's bugging me to post, so ......

Guess there has been a few things going on since my last post.  Here's a small sampling.

Somehow my baby brother is now 50 years old!

Here he is with a Sept 1959 copy of Playboy we

gave him.

In October we had the official dedication of our

new church building (which we moved into on

May 31) and the DeCuire Community Center.

In November the clan from Mom's side gathered at Leanna's for fabulous fellowship and amazing food!

Cindy and I took the ferry to Pt A and spent some quality time on the beach on our way over.

Cindy was quite the trooper, having started her 6 month endurance marathon with chemo.  She let me shave her head and then posed with one of her new head coverings.....which says it all!

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And dear old Dad hit 80 on Dec 16.  We 

assembled a collection of photos, books, mags

from Dec of 1929.

Feeding Frenzy

God Help Me…I’ve got Vista!

My old HP finally gave up the ghost this week and my new Dell is in it’s place.  Fortunately, I had all of my photos and videos and lots of other important stuff backed up on an external hard drive and will be able to put it all on the Dell.  My email files are another story!  I’m slowly but surely pulling some of the newer and more important emails off the Embarqmail server but everything that I had in Outlook Express folders is lost, as is my address book.  But I have enough emails (down to 4500+ right now) to be able to rebuild the address book!

Camera Critters Sunday!

I've been running down this lane between our house and the church lately and this guy plus two friends (see my Gun Barrel City Daily Photo blog) have been watching me -- or at least I've been watching them! Friday I stopped to take their pictures and they immediately came to the fence to pose for close-ups!

See more friendly creatures HERE.

Ice gauge?

Who would have thought that turtles could enjoy winter weather? If I were them, I'd be tucking my head, feet and tail under a blanket by the fire! Oh wait...I AM!

Yesterday I would have caught them with icicles dripping off their noses but I spent the morning Dodging Daring Drivers in Dallas....today it's just fog and frost...and a balmy 26 degrees.

Bird's Eye View: Sunrise Dec 8, 2008

Bird's Eye View: Sunrise Dec 8, 2008

Sunrise Dec 8, 2008

Wandering around the house and yard.....

Whatever catches my eye......

Sky Watch Friday -- glorious sunset on the lake!

Another of my quick shots from the shoulder as I return home in the evening.....
Click the Sky Watch logo above to see our sky as seen around the world.

Camera Critter Sunday -- OK, I'm a sucker.....

Miss "never another cat" Lake Lady brought home a new friend this week. I was out shooting a water tower for my ABC Wednesday series and discovered this little lady at a long abandoned building on the outskirts of a very small town. At first I was working really hard at resisting her charms .... but when I found that she and her mother had apparently been dumped out there and her mother had not survived, I realized I could not leave her to the same fate. Shortly after we got home, we were watching a Lifetime re-run of the TV show "Reba" and her theme song "I'm a Survivor" was playing when we decided to name our new family member Reba!

OK, I'm a sucker....but I held to my "never" for over two years this time!
Click the CC logo above to see other critters from all around the world today!

Sky Watch Friday -- here and there.....

The first shot was taken on my trip to Lufkin last week and the second was taken some months ago at our church building site. The first location probably won't change much for a long time, but the second is changing now! The plumbing and electrical rough-in is done and the slab is being poured today! Click the SWF logo above to see more views of our sky from around the world.

Camera Critters -- another peeping tom

I was working at home and on the phone with an associate when I walked over to the french door leading out to the lake. This little hummingbird was trying to tell me something! I grabbed the camera with one hand, poked the lens through the blinds on the door and shot this without letting my associate know that I wasn't really paying attention to him!
Click on the link above to see Critters Caught by Cameras around the world!

Photo Hunt: Colorful Colorado

I took this shot last fall in Silverton, Colorado....one of my favorite places. We usually go in the summer to camp, but we finally got an opportunity to go up for a few days and see the fall colors of the Aspen. As you can see, this little Victorian mining town is also very colorful!

TnChick hosts the Saturday Photo Hunt....go check out the other COLORFUL entries today!

Sky Watch Friday -- Sun, Sunflowers, Scorched earth

This young grasshopper seems to be trying to hide from the sun.
It's so hot and dry lately that sunflowers are about the only wild-flowers left and they're getting awfully scraggly.
The farmers have been "making hay while the sun shines" as they say. But look how dry and brown the earth is now. This field won't produce much more this year. I took these just south of Athens yesterday. Click the Sky Watch Friday logo below to see the sky from hundreds of blogger perspectives!

Late Summer Limits Flora and Fauna....

It's been so hot and so dry lately that it doesn't take long to walk around our yard and shoot the flowers! And even though I took these before church on Sunday and stayed in the shade, I was dripping with sweat by the time I finished. I took a few more shots and you'll see them Sunday for Camera Critters.

Praying for rain? Camera Critters Sunday

I don't know about this little guy but I could sure use some rain and/or cooler temperatures! We're in the 100's every day and the lake level is dropping before our very eyes! We'll take all the help we can get!!
Head on over to Misty Dawn's Camera Critters site for more variations of Critterdom!