Dad's birthday!

We celebrated Dad's birthday last month. I'm not sure if I can officially release his age, so I'll play it safe and keep quiet :)

This guy isn't my Dad... he's my best friend's dad, and since our families are friends we celebrate their birthdays together!

Happy birthday Dad!

Vacation at Corpus Christi

For one of very last weekends of the summer, our family took a little vacation! We had blueberries for breakfast in the car to start off the 7 some hour drive, went down through Austin, slept as we drove (the passengers, not the driver!), cruised through San Antonio, had lunch somewhere in between at Polak's Sawsage Farm, and made it to Corpus Christi.

Some of our journey was documented by what Ella (the elephant), Little Bear (the bear), and Mucho (the monkey) ate, saw, and generally did. This original trio accompanied Ellie and Clara on adventures for much of the childhood, particularly road trips. 

Blueberries for breakfast.

Ice cream sandwiches as a gas-station treat on the journey. 

There are a lot of bridges down there by the bay, so then we drove over one, and then went under the overpass and through some little streets to a seaside-looking area, and then to the beach. We walked along the shore, got sand between our toes, and tangley windblown hair.

On the Corpus Christi Beach

Along for the ride

After we had dinner in Portland with some friends, we embarked for the drive back to our hotel... and as we drove, we saw fireworks! They were being shot off the water near one of the big bridges, and it was so fun to drive up to them and then next to them.  

Traditional sandcastle crew

Touring the castle

We spent Saturday morning on Magee Beach, where we made a sandcastle, played in the waves, and a very kind gentleman took our family photo. 

We had seafood for dinner at Joe's Crab Shack on Saturday night, and along the bay we saw a replica of the Niña that came to America with Columbus. For this group photo, I set my camera on a flat surface and used self timer instead of asking a fellow tourist.

On Sunday morning we went to Calvary Chapel Coastlands, (and after catching part of an old Gary Cooper movie and eating lunch) we went to visit the USS Lexington. It's a 1940s aircraft carrier that is now an awesome museum on the bay. 

Airplanes, on an aircraft carrier, no less

I loved hearing Dad's stories from the Navy. He explained many different areas and functions of the ship and its parts, and it was so fun to hear navy history from his perspective. 

On the aircraft carrier

A partial family photo from Melissa's Instagram.

Mom and Dad and the Gulf of Mexico, from Mustang Island

Slowly we'll get used to autumn, with cooler weather, school starting again, the pool being closed, and... hatch chiles! That post will be coming soon. 

summertime 2012

I thought that my life would slow down after school ended... but no. Boy was I wrong! It's gotten busier and busier. Clara started a new job - she is now a cashier at a farmers market, the same place where I (Ellie) work. Melissa and I have been teaching swim lessons at the city pool all summer, and we've had several house sitting jobs too.
My sisters and I visited the Dallas Farmers Market one weekend - we rode the DART rail down there, walked about a mile, and explored the produce stands and toffee shops and flower carts. It was an adventure! We all had fun.

For 4th of July we had some friends over and we ate delicious grilled food and all kinds of other things, and we saw fireworks at a neighborhood in our city. No photos were taken of the fireworks this year, just enjoying them with my family :)

These photos are of my and my family being wacky!

Happy rest of your summer :)

Ellie Graduated!

Today I graduated from high school! It's very exciting and a little scary, because everything will be so new.
Here are a few pictures from the graduation ceremony.

 Hey guess what! I graduated :)

family heritage, book talks, and the atomic bomb

We just returned from visiting family in New Mexico! Our main reason was to celebrate my  Grandma's 85th birthday, but one thing we also got to do while we were there was attend a book talk. This wasn't just any book talk, but one close to the family.
My maternal grandfather photographed the creation of the atomic bomb in Los Alamos during World War II. I am proud to say that I am following in his path as a photographer :)
My Aunt Toni collected a lot of Grandpa's photos, and together with my Uncle Jon wrote an Arcadia book about Los Alamos during the war. This first Los Alamos book came out in 2005, just a week before my Grandpa passed away. His dream of publishing his photographs had been realized.
(Read about the history of Los Alamos told through photographs.)
Last year, my aunt and Los Alamos author Sharon Snyder (and the Los Alamos Historical Society) compiled a complete history of Los Alamos, also publishing the book through Arcadia. The book talk my family and I attended was for this second Los Alamos book. Authors Toni Michnovicz Gibson (my aunt) and Sharon Snyder talked about the book and the history of Los Alamos...

 And Mema, my grandmother, talked about what it was like to live in Los Alamos during the war and about meeting my grandpa.

I'm so glad that we were able to be part of it.

back from the road!

We just got back from a quick trip to New Mexico. Basically we were just there for the weekend, specifically for my Grandma's 85th birthday celebration.

The drive took just 11 hours each time, which was a record for us. It was nice to not be driving for so long! We were just in Albuquerque for two whole days, driving in on Friday and driving home on Monday. And I don't know how it happens, but just sitting in a car all day turns out to be exhausting. Maybe we'll get to bed early tonight.

Pictures will come soon!