NASA - mission control!

We stopped in at NASA on the way home from the beach and got to see both the new, exact replica of the Shuttle which arrived last week (remind me again why NYC got the real one... what did they have to do with the Shuttle program?) and Mission Control (which wasn't open to us on our last visit because they were busy using it for the last Shuttle launch/mission).

Ashes to Sea

A note from my personal journal...

We spread my mom’s ashes today.  My brother flew the two of us out over the Gulf of Mexico, just off shore from Galveston Island where I’ve rented a house for a week.  At about 250 feet above sea level, and with the terrain indicator alarm going off, I opened the window in the Cessna and with a little struggle was able to get the ashes out of the plastic bag and into the air.  Released.  And so it is, she’s come full circle.  Back into the waters from which she came, birthed all those years ago to an unlikely pair of rice farmers on the Gulf Coast. 

I feel good about this decision.  There have been so many, many decisions we’ve had to make in her stead these 13 years since she’s died, and not all of them have left me in peace.  Of the options we could come up with of where to put her ashes  –  this seems right.  When she found out she was dying she didn’t hop a plane to Paris, or book a trip to a Greek Island, she got in her car and drove to Galveston, Texas, where she checked into the San Luis for two weeks.  This is where she came, at every one of life’s junctions, to make peace.  And with this peace is made here and an era ends.  Each of the trusts have closed with my uncle Peter’s death marking the last; the work of it all is done and this makes this last letting go seem all the more timely.  The right thing.

I am so much older now than I was when this all started.  When she died I could hardly see my way to the rewrite of a life without her.  I could hardly bare the accumulation of years, stacking up to eventually be more than those I had with her.  And here I am at the halfway mark of 13 years, in a life that feels squarely like another chapter, equal in both value and depth. 

Us, headed out to sea

Galveston Island week

I rented a house on Galveston Island for six nights (Tuesday afternoon - Monday morning), and Eleanor and I headed south.  Amy took the week off to keep us company, Dad and Anna Lou visited for Thursday and Friday, Josh came over for the day on Friday, Mike arrived late Friday night for the weekend, and John + Kristanne came down on Saturday evening and spent half of Sunday with us.  This was SUCH  a relaxing time.  Really.  Eleanor and I mostly just laid around reading (newsflash: Eleanor reads to herself now.  Wahoo!) and playing in the Gulf's warm and relatively gentle waves.  Add in all of the extra time we got with family, and this seems like a stroke of genius.  I'd love to do this again. I can't believe I didn't get any good family photos at all the meals we had together!  I was so lazy, I just didn't even think to get the camera.

Playing in the Gulf on the upstream side of the sediment current is not without its challenges ( jelly fish, crabs underfoot, red tide).  But the more interesting and less threatening wildlife (rays, clams, cool birds) and the general wah of the place just wins out in the end.  And you can't beat this surf for playing around with kids, even if it is muddy.  Nothing we've found in Hawaii feels this safe, so there it is.

Day Trip - "Bluebell, the best ice cream in the count-ry"

Only, you have know the tune to make that title really work.  We stopped in and took the tour in Brenham, Texas, on our drive to Houston.  It actually was interesting.  And tastey.

One of the original delivery trucks.

 

House Hunting - Offered and Denied

We put in an offer on a house in Austin yesterday, but we were the fifth offer in a matter of hours and we weren't taken up on it.  We aren't bummed, but we are tired.  The house isn't exactly what we want (its too small, it needs a number of energy efficiency upgrades like windows and insulation, its in our personally designated second tier school list, and it just needs work). BUT it has a good feel in its flow and layout, it has room to add a studio and possibly a second story, and it is one of the only houses we've seen that I can see us falling in love with someday.  After some work.  The pictures on Zillow make it look more polished than it is, but here you go:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2503-Wilke-Dr-Austin-TX-78704/29322807_zpid/

Rag Curls

Mama Nellie (my grandmother) and my Aunt Marie used to roll my hair up in rags to make it curly. I loved that soooo much. I remembered this trick recently and gave it a whirl with Eleanor. I don't have a box of rags here in the Austin apartment, so I cut up a bedraggled T-shirt.

What?!?! Disney World?!?!

That's right, we squeezed in a trip to Disney World just because we could! (The flights are so much cheaper from here, we couldn't resist.)  To top it off, we got to see the St. Clair Grandparents!  As you might imagine, a trip like this generates PICTURES.  So, if you're a fan of Us you'll go to the Picasa site for that fix.

Mike is taller than an Imperial Storm Trooper