Friends and Family
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LisaDiane’s 30th Birthday – September 2005
I decided turning 30 would be no problem if I got to have a big party! I even got a fancy party dress for the occasion. Lots of food, and a great cake made it even better. Things got really crazy when I opened my presents to discover that my idle comment about wearing a Wonder Woman costume at the party had been exploited. Mom and Dad sent the costume, and everyone else had fun convincing me to wear it. Thank goodness for pictures, which will preserve the memory forever! We topped it all off with a water balloon fight, and a piñata.
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Papa’s visit to Austin – July 2005
This year Troy, Kay, and Mama gave Papa a trip to Austin for his birthday. We did a little scheduling and managed to find a weekend Papa could be away from work and Troy, Kay, and I would all be free – of course it was 2 months after his birthday, but we found one never-the-less. We took Papa swimming at Barton Springs Pool, toured the new Cabela’s store in Buda, had pizza at Mangia, and took pictures of deer in my neighborhood.
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Gear Up for San Francisco – July 2005
Mom had a Gear Up (the grant program that she works for) conference in San Francisco. While she was planning the trip, I was lamenting that I had not been to San Francisco in more than a year. She suggested that I join her and be her activity coordinator for sight seeing in The City. I agreed immediately. We really had a great time seeing the sights, shopping, and visiting. We had a wonderful time, just us girls. Thanks Mom!
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Asher – June 2005
Asher came into our lives on 17 January 2004. We have worked hard to spend as much time as possible with him. We love every minute! His Momma and Ima are pretty good company too!
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Christmas Morning 2004 and New Years Day 2005
LisaDiane and I enjoyed our Christmas holiday with Troy, Kay, Mama, and Papa altogetheredge here in Austin. A week later LisaDiane and I held our annual New Years Day party. I’ve posted several photos from Christmas morning and a few photos of various people lounging after the New Years Day party. Enjoy 🙂
- Abroad, Chambersburg, College Park, Friends and Family, Laura and Jason, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ted and Becky
Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania – November 2004
Laura played Rosina in the Barber of Seville at the University of Maryland. The last show was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Joey, Grandma Margaret and I decided to travel north to see the opera and celebrate Thanksgiving with the Mercados. Jason Wright, Laura’s boyfriend, and Jason Kaminsky, Laura’s roommate and fellow Barber of Seville star, both joined us for Turkey Day. Of course, we all consumed huge amounts of delicious food, and had a wonderful time.
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Nanny’s Memorial – November 2004
Our paternal grandmother, Nanny to us, died on November 15, 2004. She had been living near our our Uncle in Kansas and had made arrangements to be buried alongside her husband in Pampa, Texas. Kay, Troy, and I made the drive from Austin to Pampa and attended Nanny’s Memorial service in Pampa on November 22. Our parents drove from El Paso, and we spent most of our visit at Aunt Suzie’s house visiting with our cousins, aunts, and parents. I was so happy to meet for the first time some of our cousins from Massachusetts. Nanny’s obituary is archived at Charmichael-Whatley.com. A photo of the obituary from The Pampa News…
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Mustang Island State Park – November 2004
We decided to take a trip to the beach. Trusting that the weather in Texas is always warm, we set out for Port Aransas the second weekend of November. Our weather theory proved incorrect, and we had rain, wind and forty degree temperatures! We also had a great time relaxing together, playing games, walking on the beach and kicking back and taking it easy for a few days.
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Halloween at Troy’s – 31 October 2004
Troy gave us all a fun opportunity to get dressed up for a Halloween Party at his home. Joey was given the job of handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, owing to his great dragon costume. He was too much for one little-one who was overcome with the dragon at the door!
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Here be dragons – Halloween 2004
As many of you know, Joey has a great love of dragons. He has asked me to make him a dragon costume several times over the years. I had never managed to, and sometime around Labor Day I casually mentioned this to my mom… She became a woman possessed. Within an hour of the original phone call she had e-mailed me a picture of the material she was planning to use. Throughout the dragon’s creation she kept saying, “I’ll just do this little bit, and then I will send it to you”, but she continued to work and created nearly the whole thing with design and spacial relations assistance from…
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Kay’s Birthday – August 2004
Kay’s birthday was a piñata smashing success. Troy hosted a backyard birthday party in his new backyard, and Kay made a custom piñata (she bought two piñatas, removed the paper, attached the framework of one to the other, and covered the new piñata with new paper – thus yielding an effigy of the friendly worm character from Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth”) which we helped her destroy. A bunch of Kay and Aaron’s friends joined us for the celebration.
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São Paulo, Brazil – July 2004
Sujata and I travelled to Brazil to train the employees in our São Paulo office. Our training class was fantastic; the room was great, the view was beautiful, and the trainees were charming, lovely, and smart. We did not have too much time for site seeing, but we did manage to eat at a churrascaria (yummy) and go shopping a couple of times. Our shopping trips were very different from each other: the first was to Xtra Hipermercado, the Brazilian equivilant of Target, and the second was to Embu das Artes, an outdoor market located about forty minutes from the part of São Paulo in which we were staying. We…
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Frisbees on Joey’s Birthday – July 2004
We spent the evening throwing frisbees in Troy’s backyard on Joey’s birthday
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Our New House – July 2004
LisaDiane and I have spent the last few weeks unpacking boxes and settling into our new house. Many little household adventures have come and gone (there was a laundry sink saga – eight Lowe’s receipts in one day) and we are beginning to feel settled. We are hosting a baby shower at our house this weekend, so we will make one more push to get the last of the pictures hung before Friday. Click on these pictures to see some more photos of the house.
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W.H. Taft High School Class of 1994 Reunion, San Antonio, Texas – June 2004
Even though I graduated from “that other school” my friends from Taft High School encouraged me to join them at the 10 year reunion. Luke and Joey opted to stay in Austin, so Aleisha and I went to the reunion together. We went to a picnic on Saturday, the dinner and dance on Saturday evening, and on Sunday we had breakfast at April’s charming home. We caught up with lots of old acquaintances, and spent time with our longtime friends. We had a lovely time!
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Cambridge, England – June 2004
After our sojourn in London, we set down to work in Cambridge, but you would never know that from the photos!
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London, England – June 2004
Work required that I go to Cambridge, England for two weeks. I had never been to England before, so I decided to go early. My co-workers: Sujata, Jeannie, Katie, and Quinn had the same idea. We spent three days in London prior to beginning work in Cambridge. We took in the sights, ate lots of fish and chips, and a pint to wash it down. We had a fantastic time just being tourists!
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Mother’s Day in El Paso – May 2004
Troy, Kay, and I drove to El Paso on May 5th with the intention of spending the Mother’s Day weekend remodeling Mama’s kitchen. (Roadtrip!) Papa had already removed some of the cabinets and taped, floated, and painted the new walls. We spent the next few days cutting tile, sweating new joints into the plumbing, running new lights and outlets, and replacing all of the cabinets and countertops. Ross and Kat were in El Paso while we were and we spent some time with them. I hope we can do more family projects like this. It was fun to all work on the project together.
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Passover – April 2004
For several years Kat, Ross, LisaDiane, and I have celebrated passover together. Kat is a marvelous cook and she has always treated us to a lovely dinner at passover. This year Kat was working in El Paso and could not join us – so we had to make do on our own. We invited a larger group than usual, and everyone contributed to the evening. Kay (who joined us for passover for the first time last year) brought her friend Aaron. Troy, Christine, and Sujata all attended – and helped us cook. We had roast lamb, roast beef, charoset, broiled asparagus, palak paneer, boiled eggs, matzah balls, carrots, and potatoes.…
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House Shopping – April 2004
Troy and I have been doing a little house shopping. Amazing how much you can do on the Internet before you begin to drive around. Here are a few photos of what we have seen so far.
- Abroad, Chambersburg, College Park, Emily and Scott, Friends and Family, Laura and Jason, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Ted and Becky, Woburn
A Wedding, Our Nation, and The Frog
Our good friend Scott Howard and Emily Lovejoy were married on Saturday the Twenty First of February at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Woburn, Massachusetts. Scott had just come to serve at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer when he and Emily met (she drove Scott to the pot-luck dinner held to welcome him to the church). Ever conscious of propriety, Scott attempted to conceal his attraction to Emily from Emily and the congregation for months (after-all, he is a priest and she was a member of the congregation). Of course, Emily, being the perfect match for Scott (and a member of his evaluation committee), attempted to conceal…
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The McNay – January 2004
Kay and I drove down to San Antonio to see the Nightmare Before Christmas exhibition at the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum. The exhibition had original models and artwork from the stop-motion animated film “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. The museum is housed in a 24-room Spanish Colonial Revival smansion set on a manicured twenty-three acre lot. The collections include works by Cézanne, Picasso, Gauguin, Matisse, O’Keeffe, Cassatt, and Hopper. Kay and I spent the day touring the various collections on display.
