Mighty Mighty Alligator Hunters

On a balmy December 29, Jamey and I decided to check out Brazos Bend State Park. Stacey had heard that there were alligators and other wildlife there for the (picture) taking, and it was a beautiful day. So we jumped in the Subaru and headed West. We took the scenic route, down Highway 35 and west on FM 1462. It was a beautiful drive and turned out to be a stunning day--and yes, we did see an alligator or two, one of them up close and personal as you can see!

Jamey had his trusty Nikon D50 with him, and he used up almost all of the room on his memory card. Because Jamey is a fabulous photographer and it was a beautiful day, he took home some stunning shots. We've shared some of of them here, and Jamey posted the whole smash online. You can see them here.

Taking a Walk on the Wild Side

Brazos Bend turns out to be an awesome place to view all sorts of wildlife. There are beautiful trails of varying degrees of difficulty surrounding the park, as well as a generous supply of facilities, picnic tables and grills.


We only had a few hours before we lost sunlight, so we limited our visit to the trails around Elm Lake and 40 Acre Lake.

Gators!

The park literature says that Brazos has 250 to 350 alligators on the property. There are signs everywhere warning you not to get too close or feed them. They even have an "Alligator Etiquette" sheet that visitors are encouraged to read--among the informational gems on that sheet: "alligators have the right of way" and "if an alligator catches your fish, let the alligator have it."

We saw two alligators on our visit. Stacey spotted one of them through the binoculars on one of the banks around Elm Lake.

This one was just sitting on the side of the trail around 40 Acre Lake, basking in the sun. He attracted a lot of attention because he was right next to the trail--if we had been brave (and stupid) we could have reached out and touched him, he was that close.







He didn't mind the crowd of people around him at all and it was more than a little unnerving to walk past this sleeping lizard that Jamey estimated was around 12 feet long with his tail. Jamey got some great shots of him, and he seemed happy to pose.

Golden Hour

Golden Hour is a Hollywood term for that beautiful time of day just before sunset when the light is perfect, and we got back to Elm Lake for a perfectly stunning Golden Hour.


The light made for some stunning photographs, and we got to see one of the most stunning sunsets we've seen in Texas.

If You Want To Go
(or if you just like to read informational stuff)

A little bit about Brazos: The park is approximately 28 miles southwest of Houston, and it covers roughly 5000 acres, with an eastern boundary of 3.2 miles fronting on the Brazos River on the southeast border of Fort Bend County. This was the area of Texas' first Anglo colonization. It was purchased by the state in 1976-77 and was opened to the public in 1984. Activities include camping, picnicking, hiking, biking, equestrian, and fishing. Six lakes are easily accessible to fishermen, with piers located at 40-Acre, Elm and Hale Lakes. You can read that information and more at the Brazos Bend State Park Website HERE.

Christmas in East Texas

Christmas in East Texas is really fun. This being Texas, everything is big: the light displays, the food, the decorations and the holiday cheer. 

We decided to let the cats star in our Christmas cards this year--they didn't get as much of a kick out of their costumes as we did...

This year's Christmas season has been especially exciting this year because it SNOWED last Wednesday.  This is our neighbor's yard, covered in snow:

Snow doesn't happen very often in this part of the world. It's usually pretty tropical--Jamey was wearing short sleeve when he put up the Christmas lights and he was warm. So when it actually gets cold enough to snow it's a huge event, and when it sticks it's even more huge. So on Wednesday night the neighborhood kids were dancing in the street and everyone felt compelled to make a snowman and/or start a snowball fight. 

It looked so beautiful in the moonlight (that's snow on my ficus tree--very odd), and it was still on the ground when we woke up the next morning. 

Of course it melted as soon as the sun came up, but it was an exciting event for the Houston area. 

BTW, we learned that every year we have a hurricane or a tropical storm, we also have snow. Since this year's hurricane was a huge one (remember Ike, everyone?), it makes all the sense in the world that the snow would also be some of the biggest we've had in a while.

The night it snowed we brought in a new refugee kitten. She was shivering in the snow on the front porch, so we invited her in and she was happy to come in from the cold. 

If (and that is a BIG if) we can teach her to use the litterbox, we'll help her find a good home and keep her here in the meantime. But she needs to learn that little trick first...

We're planning to go to Albuquerque for Christmas. Stacey is flying out on Thursday and Jamey will join her next Monday because he gets to be a sideline reporter for the Texas State Football championships! He'll definitely enjoy that and will do a great job, endearing himself to the football folks out here in East Texas. It will be nice to see the Ford family for a week or so--we're looking forward to it.

If we don't get a chance to update the blog in the next few weeks, we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

November Football

Jamey's family are avid football fans, and they are also huge fans of the UTEP Miners, even though none of them live in El Paso anymore. So everytime the Miners are playing anywhere in the vicinity, they try to be there to support their team.

Last weekend Jamey's brother Joey brought his wife Gladys, and Gladys's daughters Mayra and Jessica to Houston so we could all go to the UTEP/UH football game at Robertson Stadium. It was a beautiful day for a football game--perfect weather, beautiful blue skies, and lots and lots of UTEP Miner fans. Jamey had to leave early because he got to work the Round 2 AAAA State Playoff Game in Deer Park--he got to operate one of the video cameras and did a good job, evidently--7 of the replay highlights on the jumbo-tron (yes, they have  JUMBO-TRON at the high school stadiums here) were from his camera! 

The Miners lost 42 to 35, but it was a nail-biter to the very last second and we had a ball. 

Here are some photos from our day of fun--enjoy!

Jessica and Joey at the UTEP tailgate party

Crazy UTEP fan. He was actually a lot of fun through the whole game--kept us excited.

Gladys and Joey

Mayra, getting into the spirit of things...

The UT Band on the field

The La Portians

So now you've met our new fridge and you know that we have a strong affinity for our new President, but you might want to know a little bit about us. So here we are:

Stacey

Stacey is an arts aficionado and communications professional who is currently without job, but hopeful that she'll find a position soon. For eight years she was the host of the radio program "State of the Arts" that aired in El Paso, Texas every Thursday. She was also an accomplished actress and writer when she lived in El Paso, and hopes to have the chance to use those skills in the Houston area. Stacey is a bookworm, she loves to travel and explore new places, she's a decent dancer and she loves to cook. Every week she makes a valiant attempt at solving the Sunday New York Times Crossword puzzle, and she tries to volunteer in the community whenever she gets a chance. 

Jamey

Jamey is an uber-geek--he's the Director of Instructional Technology for the La Porte Independent School District. Yeah, he speaks Geek. But he's awesome because in addition to knowing everything about how a computer works and what computers can do to make life easier for people, he also speaks English, and is very charming and funny. Music is another of his favorite things: he has his own radio show, Audiosyncracy, that airs every Sunday on the local NPR affiliate in El Paso, Texas. He's also fluent in sports, theater, sailing, home repair, weather patterns and trivia. And he can do the Samurai Sudoku puzzle in one hour or less!

So we have four cats. Eccentric? A bit. But Jamey's kids are gone and they have their own room in the house so it isn't so bad. We inherited them when we lived in El Paso, and they made the treck to Houston with us last April and are very very happy living on the East coast. They stay inside, but nevertheless they've discovered lizards, bugs, green things and lots of neighborhood cats who like to come and talk to them through the door. Since you'll have to meet them if you ever come visit our house, we'd better introduce them too: 

George

George was our first cat. She (yes, she) was much skinnier when she first started howling outside of our door, so we fed her tuna fish. We thought she'd be an outdoor cat, but she had other ideas. Before we knew it she had insinuated herself in our lives, and she has driven us insane for the past eight years. Her name is actually a tribute to our soon-to-be past-President Bush. She came to us during the 2000 election season. She was sitting under the television when Bush was debating Gore, and we realized that the look on his face when Bush squinted his eyes and made a "serious" point matched the look on her face when she was trying to get food. So we named her George. I don't think she's ever forgiven us for that...George was lonely, so we auditioned the neighborhood cats to be her companion. The winner was Banzai--full name Buckaroo Banzai, the Happiest Cat in the World.

Banzai 

Banzai got the part of Second Cat with his natural good looks, charming personality, and ability to quickly grasp the concept of a litter box. He's awesome and ev

erybody loves him. He has a propensity to eat rubber, a habit that has caused us more money than should be spent on a pet...

Oliver

Oliver is a ham. Stacey found him in the backyard one night when he was just a tiny kitten, bawling his newly -opened eyes out because his mother (the hussy) had abandoned him. She was probably pushing him in our direction because she knew that Stacey would take him in. And she did. He and Banzai got along famously, so we let him stay...

Furbie

Furbie is the baby of the family and he's really shy, but very cute. He has a pathetic little mew and a way of brushing up against you to let you know that he wants to be pet. Most visitors don't ever see him because he hides under the bed when new people come in, but sometimes he makes an appearance.

So that's our little family in La Porte! Nice to meet you!

Our New Fridge

Yesterday we got a new fridge--an event that was slightly less exciting, and much less relevant, than Obama's victory. But we're happy about it. Here's the new addition:

Note the ice maker in the door. Could life be any more exciting??

Our other fridge is now in the garage, so we'll have cold cokes when you all come to visit. That means you actually have to come visit, though :)

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Yes, We Can

It was so incredibly exciting to see all of the major networks declare Barack Obama to be the 44th President of the United States just a few moments ago. This is a spectacular moment in our nation's history and the next four years will be eye-opening for a lot of people--in the very best way. 

Senator Obama will certainly give a spectacular speech later this evening, but I want to post the end of the inspirational speech he gave in New Hampshire in January of this year, because that speech captures so eloquently what this race has been about, at least for me and I hope for Jamey: 

"And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can." 

So, as Senator Obama said just before he said goodnight to us at the rally we attended in Houston years ago, "Let's go change the world." 

election day 2008

This is a historic day in America's history, so what better day to make history of our own by writing our very first blog post.

Jamey and I have been following this election closely, just like the rest of the country, and we've been excited about Barack Obama since we first heard his Democratic National Convention Address in 2004. We went to two Obama rallys in Houston during the Primary season and at both of them Senator Obama made us happy that we were supporting him.

It has been very interesting to watch this election season from the heart of Red State territory, and especially interesting to see how many people actually do support Obama. The Houston Chronicle endorsed him over McCain on October 19--you can read that endorsement here. That said all we needed to know about just how Red this part of Texas actually is. Jamey is predicting that Texas in general, Harris County in particular, will be much closer than everyone expects; I think he's right.

So we'll be tuning in this evening, rooting for change and hoping for few election snafoos.

Watch this spot for future posts, and the return of the Top 20/Bottom 10 from La Porte, Texas.

--Stacey