A Day In The Life - 10/12/2011: Sushi Galore!

 To night was Sushi! Not just sushi but exotic sushi. We each did a couple of rounds.

 That means, like is common in many oriental restaurants, each selection is sufficient to feed several people. These were no different. Each cam with eight items per plate.

 And then we ordered a second round. We had eel and filet Mignon. I selected something just because it was wrapped in rice paper rather than sea weed.

 We had a blast, talking and laughing about everything.

Outside the restaurant - the Koi Sushi. It was next to the Verizon store in Gulfport, Mississippi where we were picking up a new protective cover for Gaye's phone.

A Day In The Life - 10/12/2011: Gator, Anyone?

 Around the corner from Drew and Beth's place is a sea food place that sells fresh sea food (piles of shrimp and other delectables). They also have a small restaurant. Our favorite item on the menu was the Gator. But I didn't try it.

We ate outside because the smell of all that sea food was making Gaye uncomfortable. It was interesting food but nothing great. But is hard to compete with MugShots from last night.

A Day In The Life - 10/12/2011: The Project

As we talked with Beth she was telling us about how tripod, their little pebble of a dog (with only three legs), keeps escaping from the yard. Sometimes he squeezes under the back fence.

Sometimes he, with Dweezle, the chocolate lab, escape the yard under the house. As can be seen, being less than a mile from the beach, the house is on mini-stilts.

So Gaye got me on a project to fix the problem. We went to Home Depot and bought some lattice and a few supplies.

A few half sheets on the back side of the fence finished that exit for our mini escape artist.

Then we added a lattice to the bottom of the house all around. It was a pretty quick job . . . except for the three trips to the hardware store.

But we finally got it up and it didn't look too bad. And that was one freaked out little dog trying to figure out where all of his escape routes disappeared to.

But now Drew and Beth can let the dogs out for awhile without having to sit with them until they tire or worry that they will be out after curfew.

A Day In The Life - 10/11/2011: Are We There Yet?

 It is still Tuesday. We picked up our rental car. This one is more interesting than most. It kind of makes me want to do some off-roading through the bush.

 We still had 90 miles to go from New Orleans to Biloxi - a different state and venue. I am SO looking forward to this.

 It is so good to see Drew and Beth. They are looking good and are in great spirits. Their house is very cute.

And we were feeling so great that our first night out we went to their favorite restaurant. It is a high-end, deluxe burger place. They made one of the best burgers and you got to deck it with just about anything. And . . . well, it was really good and I ate way more than I should have. As usual when I travel. Fortunately, we only tried out the grill. The bar still remains a mystery. But our drinks did come in mugs. At least I think they did.

A Day In The Life - 10/11/2011: The Long Way To Get There

 We decided to visit Drew and Beth in their new digs at Keisler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. So we booked our flight from hot and sunny Phoenix to New Orleans.

 But a direct flight was not in the cards. A person couldn't just fly from here to there. A tour of the country seems to be a necessary. This time, to get from Phoenix to New Orleans the flight took us through Denver with a change of planes there.

 But coming in from Denver wasn't all bad. I got to do a lot of reading and these pictures of the Mississippi River are interesting. And I always thought of the Mississippi as a "mostly straight" river - at least up north near Nauvoo it seems more that way than the snake wandering though the landscape that I see below.

It all kind of makes you want to grab your straw hat and jump on a raft and drift for a while . . . .

A Day In The Life - 09/24/2011: You Crack Me Up

 These pictures are large because I want you to feel my pain!

Here I was, upstairs, minding my own business. All of a sudden there is the loud crash downstairs. You know, there are crashes and then there are crashes where it sounds like a car just plowed into the living room. This was kind of like the second one.
I came running down stairs to see what had happened.
It is kind of hard to explain but there were a couple of closet doors that had been brought down and were very slowly migrating to the garage. evidently they were not leaning too well against the wall. and they tipped over, not only hitting the corner of the 2-month-old 51" TV (which would probably have been bad enough by itself) but pushing it off of the stand onto the floor.

The good news is that the sound still works fine!

The bad news is that I had to tell Gaye about the catastrophe when she got home from shopping. And, because we are just heading into football season, it meant that we had to "go to the store, buy one more, 2 giant TV's on the wall". At least the second one is going on the wall. Get that thing out of the way!

A Day In The Life - 09/17/2011: A Vater-Stash Party

 September is giving June a run for the money for birthday celebrations. Noah, Ben, Jennie and Kyle all have birthdays in September with Hero sliding in on the celebration from August.

 So we all gathered at Ben & Jenn's house for the parting. Gifts were distributed and paper was flying everywhere.

 Noah gets a bow on his helmet making it hard for anyone to take his attacks seriously.

 Then the surprise gift was unveiled - a package (or two) of stick on Mustaches delivered by none other than Snidely Whiplash.

 Snidely's stash is a hit with Jennie.

 Then she opens the gift . . .

 . . . and the virus is out of the bag. Jennie is the first to sprout a stash.

 Then Jase.

 It seems like everyone has one.

 Even the children are stashed.

 They are now a fashion statement.

 Oma has her hairy lip.

 And Amy is wearing one that matches her attire.

 Jennie's is sprouting in some interesting places.

 And now it seems that everyone is twirling and twisting those hairy patches and cultivating them in oh, so many places.

 Then we move on to socializing . . .

 . . . and doing designer cupcakes. Yum! Hero and Noah are getting into the act.

 Gracie is ready to consume the evidence. Gotta shoot fast.

Jase is decorating the invisible cake while Emma is wearing part of hers on her lower lip . . . or is that a mustache? Happy Birthday All!

A Day In The Life - 09/11/2011: The Goose Girl

I had finished reading the Hunger Games again. Gaye had convinced me that I should read The Goose Girl. But I wanted to get to another series that I was really more interested in. I figured that I would do a quick read and then move on. But then it got interesting. I read a few pages on Sunday (before Labor Day) and then I was hooked. I finished it Monday night. Gaye had mentioned that there were a couple more books in the series and she just happened to have them. Just happened. Right. Wednesday I started Enna Burning and finished it the same day. Friday I started River Secrets and finished on Saturday. Yeah, I kind of liked them . . . a lot. I recommend them to those who may be looking for a light read with an intriguing story line.

A Day In The Life - 09/10/2011: A Great Helper

 Being Opa's helper is a big responsibility. You have to watch carefully, find things that get dropped . . . sometimes on purpose.  And you get to watch Opa do whatever it is he is doing.

 Jase was watching me build mu burn barrel. I don't quite trust him with the metal cutting tools yet. And he is not muscular enough or tall enough to bring me the 4-pound sledge hammer . . . yet. But he did three jobs really well...

...Watching Opa work, holding that still down so it wouldn't float away, and posing for pictures when the job was done. Aren't grand kids wonderful!

A Day In The Life - 09/10/2011: Burn, Baby, Burn!

 I decided that I needed one of those cool burn barrels that lots of people in our neighborhood use to make a fire while they sit in their driveway or on the back patio.
I had this 50-gallon drum from my sojourn in Tucson that the goats used to climb onto and so I cut off a third of it.

 Jennie had this stainless grill hat came with her new sink that she didn't want. I got out my trusty cutter and trimmed the corners off of it.

I took the short barrel and cut some breather lines in the lower part of the barrel and then painted the whole thing black.

 I had cut the grill a bit on the large side because I wanted it to fit into the rings of the barrel. I jammed one corner into the groove and then did my hammer thing with my rubber mallet . . . and when that failed, a few taps from teh 4-pound sledge convinced it to co-operate.

Knowing that this thing would get really hot, I trimmed a couple of would spacers, tapered them to match the curve of the barrel and fastened the handle to my new cooker.

We tried it out on Halloween. It does a wonderful jon of keeping things warm. We may have to find a few more reasons to use this portable fireplace.