Thursday, May 19, 2011

Celebrations

I just had a wonderful weekend!  It lasted 4 whole days and it was a blast!  First, a little history.  Back in 1981 as Hollis and I planned our wedding, we agreed that is would be best to get married at the Walker County Courthouse in Huntsville at the end of the spring semester.  
The two of us in 1981
 We finished our classes on Tuesday, May 12th and didn't really want to have the ceremony on the 13th, so we waited until Thursday morning.  We were joined at the courthouse by a handful of friends and Judge Walter Cooksey tied our knot.  Afterwards, we went with our friends to the restaurant where we met and had lunch.  The guys decorated Hollis' truck and once lunch was over, we took it straight to the carwash - he was worried about the paint job.  After that, we drove to Houston where we met Mom and Daddy at Brennan's for a celebration drink.  Alan Alda was at the restaurant being interviewed for whatever project he was working on at the time and I got to shake his hand and have my photo taken with him.  Unfortunately, the flash did not go off and you can see nothing in the photo, but I have witnesses!  I met Alan Alda on my wedding day!  After that, we drove to Corpus Christi for the weekend.  I only remember that it rained quite a bit.  On Saturday, we drove to San Antonio to celebrate with Hollis' mom and 3 grandparents.  They had a cake for us and Mama gave us a microwave oven large enough to hold a 13x9 pan.  That microwave oven ran mighty well until just about a year ago - but I digress.  We went back to Huntsville on Sunday and worked at our jobs until summer school started.  A few weeks later, our friends Scott and Nancy Bounds gave us a wedding reception at their home in H-ville and it was just lovely.  I have a great scrapbook of all the events.


Fast forward to our 10th anniversary.  I agreed to the courthouse thing with the stipulation that someday we would have our civil union blessed as provided for in the service in the Book of Common Prayer.  H agreed that 10 yearrs and 4 boys later, it would be cool to do that.  We had the ceremony at St. Margaret's and a reception at our house with friends and family.  I have great pix of that too. 

For our 17th, I had some major surgery on my right shoulder and hand - not our most romantic day but Hollis and Mom took great care of me that week. 
For our 20th, we had lots of things to celebrate.  I was graduating from Southwest Texas State Univ with my teaching degree, Morgan was graduating from Canyon High School and Hollis and his partner had just finalized the paperwork to buy the business he worked for.  We had a big ol' party after my Saturday AM graduation.  With so much to celebrate, why not?

For our 25th, Hollis and I went to Ft. Leonard Wood to see Harris graduate from Army Basic Training.  It was the first time he and I ever got on an airplane together.  It was very emotional seeing what Harris had accomplished and also realizing that he was now trained to go to war and in a year or so, that would happen.

You will be relieved to know that we are now up to last weekend!  We both took vacation days for Friday and Monday and had lots of little errands to accomplish.  He was in the middle of a major tractor rebuild and I had lots of stuff to do.  Friday for lunch I met Caroline and Mason for lunch.  Mason is a sweet little two month old boy and Caroline and I could not stop talking!  She even ran me around New Braunfels for some of my errands so we could spend as much time together as possible.  
Hollis, Chelsey and me
Saturday was a big day in a couple of ways.  Chelsey was graduating from Texas State - ten years after I did - with her degree in education and Hollis and I went to San Marcos for that.  Chelsey had her graduation party at Buddy's Backyard in New Braunfels and Mom and Mama and Carl were all invited.  What a cool way to see our moms on our anniversary!  After hanging out at the party for a while, I went to get a haircut so I could look good for our evening.  The boys, Desiree and Kristin all met us at the house and we took them to dinner at a restaurant in San Antonio.  I sort of dropped the ball on the restaurant selection.  I picked an Italian place that got great reviews but while I was hoping for something fairly quiet and intimate, Sorrentos was not that place. It was a small, crowded, very noisy place.  The food was pretty good but we could not converse much and we were kind of crowded into a corner.  With some anniversary gift money we got from my mom, I had purchased 2 bottles of champagne.  We asked the waiter for 8 glasses and Hollis opened the first bottle.  I had asked Curtis ahead of time to propose the toast and right in the middle of his toast, the waiter came to the table to take our order!  Even after bringing us the wine glasses and watching Hollis open the bottle, he barged right in!  I will not forget Curtis' words though.  He said that the four of them are really proud of their married parents and all any of the want is what we have.  I was very moved.
The two of us in 2011
Kristin and Harris
After dinner, the family went back to NB and Hollis and I went to downtown San Antonio for a night at the Marriott.  We had a suite on the 32nd floor with a great view of the city that gave me my 5 most favorite guys ever!  We walked around a bit but then went back to the room to have some room service dessert.  I called and ordered a piece of dulce de leche cheesecake and about 20 minutes later, a waiter delivered a piece of chocolate macadamia nut mousse.  We ate it anyway.
Curtis and Clayton
Morgan and Desiree






Mi Familia


This guy hovered near a fisherman just waiting for a handout - it worked!
The view from the 32nd floor.

This is the small guy - about 2 ft long -  just hanging out.




Saturday morning we got up, packed up and headed south.  Since we had gone to Corpus Christi for our honeymoon, Hollis suggested that we take a day trip to the coast and since we were already in San Antonio, Sunday seemed like the right day to do that.  We drove to Rockport and walked around the marina for a bit and then went to Fulton to have lunch.  After that, we went to the Arnasas National Wildlife Refuge.  It's a massive place with driving and walking trails and lots of wildlife for the viewing.  At one lake I got some great video of a big gator coming up on land to chase a small one and there were deer, birds of all kinds, butterflies by the hundred, and mosquitoes by the million.  I was wise enough to take sunscreen but not bug repellent - live and learn.  We bought some fresh shrimp and fish and iced it down and then drove home.  We are having this really comfortable May and the high for the day was only in the mid-80's.  It was a perfect day.  On Monday, I relaxed some more and then we went back to work.  Weekends, anniversaries, celebrations don't really get much better.  Flawless? - not even.  Memorable? - forever.  I think I'm okay with that.  I hope you enjoy the pix!

Butterflies were everywhere.
This guy is about 6 ft long and he was about 3 feet below the deck we were on.
These two were air wrestling