1967-2007

Saturday night we celebrated Mom & Dad's Ruby Wedding Anniversary. Lisa decorated her beautiful house with photos of our parents throughout the last 40 years. Leah arranged the photos with music for a powerpoint montage. Brian was in charge of the dinner, with a little help from Bryan. Together they plated a delicious dinner of Steak Diane (from the Brennan's from Houston cookbook) with fancy potatoes, shrimp remoulade, and crab cakes with lemon beurre sauce for the appetizer. We topped the cake with their original wedding cake topper from 1967 and an anthurium, which was their wedding flower.

Happy 40th Anniversary to two great people!

Cool Slideshows

Corporal

Can you spell it? Quit looking at the title, close your eyes and spell it. (I couldn't - kept trying to make it -OL). Maybe I should ask - could you spell it when you were seven years old?

Thirty-two students from 2nd to 5th grade participated in the school Spelling Bee this morning. Cameron qualified by being the 2nd best speller in her class. Sadly, this first word tripped her up and she was disqualified in the first round - along with 24 others. It was disappointing for her, even though the other little girl in her class also went down in round one on the word "patina" (which Cameron can spell - if only they had switched seats!). Round two had 8 spellers, round three had 5, and then there were 3 spellers for a few more short rounds, until the winner finally spelled alcohol and then tariff.

While studying, we wondered how they would call out words - whether they would go in an order, or mix them up between languages of origin, etc. (The Spell It! study book is divided by language of origin.) They went in order starting with the 3rd column of Latin words. Words like precipitate, erudite, intractable, exuberant, retrospective, spectrum, prescription, capitulation, incredulous, December (she can spell the last six....) Ah, but the confusing corporal with the AL not OL.

One fortunate older child got through two rounds with the words mummy and tuna (though down she went in round 3 with gazelle.)

I'm pretty proud. She was the youngest person to qualify for the school spelling bee. It was just luck of the draw that she received one word that she couldn't spell. She sat up there with the others, came forward to the microphone, and tried her best to spell that word.

I think next year will be a good year to try again! Guess which word we will be learning first?

Commercials

Brenna has been sick for the weekend and has been watching a little too much television. She has discovered commercials. She is every marketing agency's dream viewer. Just now...

"Hey Mom! They just showed a Swipper
(a Swiffer).

We should get one.
(we have one)

It's a kind of mop! We need to mop the floors!"

(gee, thanks hon)

Other products Brenna has endorsed this weekend include Easy Off Bam and Lysol Cling. Is she trying to tell me something??

Blue Monday

I just read in the news that a psychologist at Cardiff University has devised a formula showing that today is the unhappiest day of the year. He calls it Blue Monday. His equation takes into account six factors: weather, debt, time since Christmas, time since failing our new year's resolutions, low motivational levels and the feeling of a need to take action.

Well, if this is the worst day of the year, then I'm hopeful for a pretty darn good year. Naturally, there are just a few everyday setbacks taking place today. Yesterday, my car died in another city and had to be towed to a mechanic there. I'm waiting for word of the damages (ie: how much it will cost). One daughter is sick at home - we have a pediatrician appt. for 9:50 a.m. and the other is in school complaining that her throat hurts also. So that means I'm not at work, which only means there will be more to do tomorrow.

Like I said, if today is as bad as it gets for the year - then I'm looking forward to the rest of the year!! Happy Blue Monday everyone. Cheers!

Let them go...

So we're having breakfast one morning and I forget how the subject came up but Brenna, age 4, very calmly says, "You know Mom, you're going to have to let us go." I stop cooking, look up, and say, "Let you go for what?"

She sighs, does that little half-rolled eye look and says very seriously, "You know - when we're 18 or 14 maybe, you're going to have to let us go."

Yeah, right.

This morning Brenna is asking again how old does she have to be to get married? Is 14 okay? No, absolutely not. No marriage or kids until after you finish college - including your Masters degree. Oh, okay. Of course I full expect that she will be the one to move on long before age 14.

They talk about getting married all the time. Naturally they will live in Keegan's house, because he has an upstairs and we don't. (Brenna is fascinated with any house that has stairs.)

Marathon Man

My first post of 2007 is to let everyone know how proud we are of Bryan for running and finishing the Houston Aramco Half-Marathon. He started training for it last summer with Bay Area Fit, though the training was sporadic at best after he started the new job at Unified. (The morning commute replaced his morning run.)

He met Bay Area Fit at the George R. Brown Convention Center at 6 a.m. and they were in place by 6:30 for the starting gun, which records the official start at 6:59:14. The Houston Marathon & Half-Marathon are so well organized that not only could we watch the start on television, we also could track his progress- live-on the internet via the chip he was wearing on his shoe.

The girls and I met him around mile 8 on Montrose Blvd, which turned out be a great place to see him, because at mile 9, the half-marathoners separate from the marathoners and double back up Montrose to Allen Parkway. So by waiting around, we saw him twice. There was a fairly good crowd of people cheering them on, including one young man shouting out the Rocky theme da-da-DUM, da-da-DUM.

He was surprised and pleased to see us, and this really nice lady came over and took our picture as a family - Actually it was her idea! Then we waited for him to come around for mile 10. Mom tracked him for us on the computer, so we knew about where he was most of the time. The second time we saw him, the girls both opened their jackets and showed off their t-shirts shouting, "My Dad Rocks!"

Then we quickly drove back into downtown, parked near the GHB Center and took up a post at mile 13 as the runners came in for the finish. We cheered for him again, then went to find him in Hall C where runners meet up with their families. He's pretty tired and his feet & legs hurt, but walking on the way to the car, he was already talking about running in a 5K at the Texas Half (at White Rock Lake in Dallas) with his brother.

He ran the Half-Marathon in 3:04:40.

Christmas Eve

We had a good ol' traditional Chrsitmas Eve this year, gathering around my grandmother and full of aunts, uncles, and cousins. My aunts do a fabulous job organizing Christmas Eve - from the decorations, to the games, to the food. (Yum, the food.)

The second generations - 9 (of 12) grandchildren.

For a few years we were just a bunch of 20-somethings and high-schoolers, and Christmas just wasn't the same as when we were children. But then a bunch of us had children. And now Christmas is definitely "for the kids" again. The oldest great-grandchild is 21 and the youngest is a few months old, so we've got some years ahead to celebrate.

Here is Merr (my grandmother) with 10 of her 17 great-grandchildren, (14 living).

Merry Christmas to All.

I hope you are with family and friends who love you today!