"Be Still - This Won't Hurt a Bit"

Sheila went to Waxahachie, Texas on Tuesday to be present for the first hours of the life of London Grace, Wendy and Paul's second daughter. London and her mother are both healthy and happy, and Sheila got to spend three nearly uninterrupted hours with them both in the hospital before returning to Cypress. Such close proximity to a tiny (six pounds) baby girl, along with 'pretty in pink' photos of her newest niece Lydia and hopeful predictions that Jamie is carrying a girl (we won't know until August), have her literally surrounded by girls. That her life consists of wall-to-wall boys is as often a torment as a blessing, as Julie surely knows. No bows for the hair, no frilly clothes, no tea parties, no dance classes.

Well, no dance classes isn't entirely true. You might count Austin's annual 'square-dancing' demonstration at school during the Houston Rodeo days, an event which inspires unparalleled mortification in Austin for two reasons: he's having to dance and he's forced to have physical contact with girls not of his own choosing. I say "not of his own choosing" because he might gladly hold hands with one girl in particular at his school, though the opportunity has not yet presented itself to express his affection for her. I'm sorry not to offer more details, but I'm not quite ready to accept this new, pre-adolescent development and therefore cannot yet write about it... After all, he's still just a baby!

Braden is 3 1/2 and yet has already developed a keen sense of the importance of the day's first pot of coffee. We have established a habit of having him "help" me make the coffee every morning - "I help you Da-ee?" - which is so important to him that he burst into tears one morning when he came into the kitchen and the coffee had already started brewing. He has two responsibilities - putting the filter into the basket and pushing the on-button. I have been going in to work pretty early the last two weeks to help night-shift employees with their annual benefits enrollment paperwork, so Monday morning I was making the coffee a little after 6:00am. He must have heard me, because he walked sleepily into the kitchen from his room holding his blanket in one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other. Stopping in front of the coffee pot, standing there half asleep, he put his right index finger on the on-button and waited for me to put the carafe in its place. After pushing the button, I carried him in to "Ma-ee's bed" so he could "nuggle", and he was back asleep within five minutes.

As for Sheila, she will love on any girl who crosses her path for the rest of her life, but as an Aunt or surrogate Aunt only. I have an appointment with a urologist in just a few weeks that will put an end to our procreation, so it's two boys for us, thank you very much. Two loud, wild, silly, big, messy, rough, smart, funny, beautiful, healthy boys.

"A blessing since the day they were born," as someone once said...

A New Year

Well it sure seems like Christmas and New Year came and went in a hurry. So much hustle (and bustle) and then a New Year is off and running.

Christmas was fun in Fort Worth, staying with Jeff and Jamie at their new house and spending Christmas Eve at Jim and Sheryl's. The boy's got a ton of new toys, books clothes and one iPod which is the apple of Austin's eye (pun intended). Santa brought Braden the excavator for which he was hoping, and so many toys that some found their way to the attic when we got home to be "discovered" in a few months when the excitement of his other toys wears off.

Jeff & Jamie came here for New Year's. Austin, Jeff and I went to the EV1.net Houston Bowl to watch TCU beat Iowa State, and enjoyed that with one of Austin's best friends (Trevor) and his father, who secured the luxury box tickets. The presence of two teenage girls gave Jeff and me opportunity to torture Austin ("go talk to her", etc.) when the game was slow.

New Year's Eve was quiet, with steaks and a movie. Austin set off fireworks with Trevor's family and enjoyed that. Since Jamie is pregnant (due this summer) it was a peaceful and calm evening for all.

Our anniversary weekend we went downtown to the Hilton Americas and enjoyed a vacation in town while Sandie came down from Tyler to stay with the boys overnight. The pictures are of the boys at the pond that weekend, which you can tell was absolutely beautiful - more like spring than winter.


My birthday weekend was very nice, with a special breakfast, grilled meat for dinner, presents and a family viewing of "Waking Ned Devine". Sheila suggested that watching that movie on my birthday should become an annual tradition, and admitted (I believe for the first time) that WND is one of her favorite movies, too. Now that's a good woman!

The Holidays, Houston Style

Two pictures and a quick story for your holiday edification.

The first picture is Austin and one of his best buddies Gibby, preparing for a little No Limit Texas Hold 'em poker action. The glasses are to prevent the other players from telling when you are trying to bluff, and the posturing is part of the male psych-out ritual which boys seem to have learned by age 10.


The next picture is of Braden playing in the "snow". Our neighborhood has an annual Holiday party which includes having human-made "snow" dumped on the ground near the clubhouse, one patch for the pre-schoolers to enjoy and one patch for the bigger kids. Here is Braden with a couple of kids on their patch (approx. size 10' wide x 25' long). Please note green plants and grass in background.


Finally, Saturday night we enjoyed our annual Christmas tradition of going to Starbucks for coffee and hot chocolate (5 words: Chai Egg Nog Latte - yum!) and driving around looking at Christmas lights. After a half hour or so, Braden shouts from the back seat "Look Ma-ee - it duh "kay-no". (Proper spelling would be 'cano.) We had him repeat this several times, as no one could figure out what he meant. It was not until several blocks later that we realized he was saying "volcano" in reference to the strings of light people had placed in their yard going from the ground to a tree that looked like an upside-down cone. To him this obviously looked like a volcano, so the rest of the night we all took great pleasure in pointing out the Christmas 'canos in people's yards.

"But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy." - Luke 2:10

Thanksgiving, Approx. 9,000 Words

Halloween, 2005

In a highly unusual turn of events, weather has impacted the Horst family in Cypress, Texas. The skies opened up and rain fell in sheets starting at about 5:00pm tonight, or about a half-an-hour before we were set to unleash the pirates upon the neighbors for a good old-fashioned ransacking.

Dawn brought over her 2 boys (JP - the older boy and Miles) who hung out with us for awhile, joining us for some Mummy-dogs and spooky juice. After pictures, the Moms grabbed their umbrellas and set out to do some trick-or-treating or else...

With All Due Respect to His Uncle Steve...

Have you ever seen a finer pirate in your entire life?

This is Braden's costume, which he wore on Friday night for the carnival at his pre-school. He tells us that he looks "boo-key" (spooky), an assessment with which all of us are inclined to agree.

Austin will also be going as a pirate, so we should have pictures of the two scurvy sea-dogs up later in the week.

Playa de Carmen es Muy Bueno!

Most of you have probably heard about our vacation to Playa de Carmen from the standpoint of narrow escapes from the Hurricane Wilma. As the above picture shows, it was not all hand-wringing over the weather.

The Sandos Gala Playacar where we stayed was a beautiful, all-inclusive resort with a number of really good restaurants and a beautiful, long stretch of beach. Our room overlooked the ocean, and our front door opened up to the courtyard with the fountain in the picture - beautiful. We explored the rock formations down the beach from our hotel, turning back at the rock with the words "nudist beach" painted on it (for obvious reasons).

The iguana is "Fred", a native who we ran across during one of our walks. (Sheila named him Fred, and I'm not exactly sure why.) We got to dress up a little for dinner, and snorkle and lay out on the beach and take naps - a real vacation.

At one point, the locals taught me how to spear fish with a sharpened bamboo pole, which I demonstrate above. I caught a 27-pound mexican grouper right after that picture was taken. Shelley was so busy helping me club the great beast into submission that we both forgot to take a picture of it before giving it to a local family for their supper.

And just for the sake of meteorological accuracy, I should note that the clouds in the picture on the bottom row are from an outer rain band of Hurricane Wilma. We didn't get any rain until the shuttle ride to the airport, but man did they get rain after we left.

Where to Begin?

Since my last post, the following has happened:

* Shelley and I went on a vacation to Playa de Carmen, and narrowly escaped the wrath of Hurricane Wilma by getting out 2 1/2 hours before they closed the airport in Cancun. We would literally still be there today (a week later) if we hadn't gotten out when we did.

* My personal computer at home was all but wiped out by a nasty virus named Trojan.Vundo, which was finally removed Tuesday night but has left my computer with a severe case of the "slows". I will be re-loading Windows XP this weekend and hoping to recover all the files which seem to be lost for now, hopefully recuperating my ability to work on my business, as well.

* Did I mention Shelley and I are both taking two antibiotics each for the dysentery we picked up in Mexico? Dysentery, according to the dictionary, is an amoebic, parasitic infection of the intestines usually transmitted by contaminated water. [Note to self - next vacation must involve an area safe from hurricanes where the primary language spoken is English and the water is safe to drink. Consider trip to St. Paul, Minnesota to see "world's largest adirondack chair".]

* The Astros won the National League pennant for the first time in their history, but tickets to the games locally were $1,000 each, pricing Austin and me out of the market. Just as well, since they lost both games in Houston while being swept by the Chicago White Sox. Disappointment reigns at my house, but we are encouraged that maybe the souvenir t-shirts and pennants will come down to a less-obscene price over the next several days.

Finally a story intended to bring a needed smile to my sister. Three weeks ago, Braden asked Shelley out of the clear blue "where'd Aunt Julie go?" Shelley told him she was at her house in Oklahoma, with Uncle Jeff, Jefferson and Jacob. Braden looked at her, puzzled, and asked "Homa-homa?" which made Shelley laugh. And because she laughed, we spent the next week having our 3-year-old run around the house repeating "Homa-homa, Homa-homa" while all of us fell about in stitches. Eventually Shelley would try to correct him - "no baby, it's OKLA-homa" - to no apparent effect.

This morning, because such things were woven into our everyday lives by Mom growing up, I was singing the lead song from the musical "Oklahoma". (Except I was doing it to torment all the groggy people milling around my house trying to get going.) Braden interrupted me from his usual spot on the bar stool at our kitchen island to say "id not Homa-homa da-ee, id Okla-homa". So it is baby - so it is...

You're in our prayers, Sis.

October, 2060

Three men and five children sit together in the media room of a comfortable home watching a Major League Baseball playoff game. The three boys range in age from 5 to 10, the two girls are 8 and 11. The two 30-something aged brothers are the fathers of these five, and the oldest gentleman is the patriarch of the entire bunch.

The game is tied through 10 innings when the youngest boy questions no one in particular how long the game will last.

His father answers "until someone is ahead at the end of an inning".

The 10-year-old, a blue-eyed wisp of a boy with an insatiable curiosity, wonders out loud "what's the longest playoff game ever"?

After a brief silence as the two middle-aged men look at each other, the tall, thin, handsome old man speaks: "18 innings - nearly 6 hours."

"Wow Grandpa - that's a long time," says the youngest daughter. Her father, well aware of the old man's tendency to embellish the truth from time to time for the sake of a good yarn, asks "how do you know that, Dad?" To which the old man, a sparkle in his sky blue eyes, responds "because I was there". All heads in the room turn to the old gentleman as he relives that beautiful fall afternoon from so long ago.

"I was your age David" he starts, nodding at the rapt 10 year old. "It looked like the Astros would lose that day for sure, as the Braves hit a grand slam off our starter in the top of the 3rd. Their starter was mowing our guys down - we could only score one run in 7 innings. In the 8th, we got the bases loaded and Lance Berkman hit a grand slam that made an already electrified crowd explode. It was the only time in playoff history 2 grand slams were hit in the same game.

Still behind by one run in the bottom of the 9th, we had two outs when our catcher hit a massive home run over left center field to tie the game and cause your great-grandfather to lift me off my feet and hold me over his head while 43,000 fans screamed and clapped in ecstacy."

"For the next 3 hours, neither team budged. Their pitchers were stingy, and ours were persistent. We used Hall of Famer Roger Clemens to pinch-HIT in the 15th inning, laying down a perfect sacrifice bunt. He then came into the game, on 2 days rest, and pitched 3 innings of inspiring relief. The presenter mentioned that game the day he went into Cooperstown."

"Then suddenly, with 1 out in the bottom of the 18th inning, a rookie, who was called up to the major leagues on my birthday that year, hit a 2-0 fastball over the left field fence and we erupted in one final, exhausted, thrilling celebration. That game clinched the National League division series for the Astros, who went on to play in the World Series that year for the first time."

By now the old man's wife has entered the room, and she sighs "Austin are you telling that story about the Astros game AGAIN?" The kids, (their spell from the story broken by their Grandmother's arrival with Rice Krispie Treats), fall out laughing as Grandpa Austin rolls his eyes at them all.

And once more, the glory of sporting achievement bridges the generations, even if just for a moment on a cool autumn afternoon...

Austin Won!

Austin found out today he was the winner of the election for Mrs. Reese's student council class representative! He was very proud, as are his parents, and he was hamming it up pretty good on the bus ride home. ("I'd like to thank everyone who helped make this possible, etc...")

Finding out this news was quite a turnaround from yesterday's talk about how he is not popular enough to win, the other candidates have more friends, etc...

Happy day for everyone here today - tomorrow the difficult work of representing his constituents begins!