Do You Remember 8-Track Tapes??

Today I was in my Dad's shop and I decided to listen to some music while I was out there. Daddy started out recording on reel to reel tapes, then he went to 8-Tracks, and finally to cassette tapes. He mostly recorded church services or gospel groups who sang at our church. Here's a picture of his old 8-Track recorder/player, along with stacks of tapes. Some of these he recorded, and some he bought.

You probably can't tell from the picture, but I'm listening to Chester & Lester. If you didn't grow up in my house with my dad, you might not know that's Chet Atkins and Les Paul. Ironically, Kirby and I drove from Columbus, Georgia north on I-185 this week, and that highway is called the "Chet Atkins Parkway."

Behind all the 8-Track tapes are stacks of reel to reel tapes (some brand new and never recorded on). I picked one up just to keep it from falling when I moved some of the tapes in front of it and it was marked "Nixon Resigns." I guess I should go through all those tapes and see what other historic moments Daddy might have captured.

Speaking of historic, here's Todd in 1973 enjoying Grandpa's reel to reel tape player. Wonder if he's listening to Chester & Lester??

Hurricane Ike, Yikes!!

Kirby and I have driven through Houston twice since the hurricane hit and we were amazed and happy that the damage in the areas we travel pretty often wasn't as bad as we expected. Today we had a chance to spend the day with his Mom and step-Dad in League City. Here's a picture she took of Kirby helping clear a limb from their huge tree in the front yard. Believe me, getting him up there was a lot easier than getting him down!!








Before we came to town, they had already spent three long days cleaning up limbs from the yard and setting them on the curb for the trash people to pick up. Their neighborhood is looking pretty good except for all the fences that are down. We helped them go through all the privacy fence panels out back and salvage any boards they could reuse when they replace the fence. Other than the fence and the tree out front, they didn't have any significant damage. All day we talked about how blessed they were compared to the people of Galveston. That area was really devastated.



We spent the afternoon driving around looking at some of the damage in other neighborhoods and saw mostly the same thing - downed trees and privacy fences. Then we drove over to Kemah. It's a tourist area on the water with lots and lots of boats, restaurants, outdoor bands that play in a boardwalk area, and carnival type rides. What a mess!!! Boats blown around like toys, and mud and trash everywhere. One of the long time restaurants, T-Bone Tom's, had a sign that said "Open Someday." Another place had a sign that said "What Surge?" in reference to the 20 foot wall of water that caused so much flooding. Most businesses had their furniture sitting in the parking lot while they tried to clean up the water damage inside, and they were doing this without electricity.



As we drove home, Kirby's Mom said again how blessed they were to not have anywhere near the damage other people had. So, if you read this, pray for the residents of the Texas gulf. They still have a long way to go before they get back to normal.

I sure miss the babies!!!

I'm back home from El Paso, and I sure miss those boys. They were so much fun while I was there. They both think Grammy is fun because she doesn't have anything to do except play with them all day and read to them all night. And Grammy watches Noggin all day, too, without complaining. Grammy never turns on a boring ball game or news show (at least not while they are in the room). Grammy hardly ever says no. And when you get really fussy, Grammy takes you to McDonalds to play instead of making you take a nap.

I am so proud of Bailey because he has done really great with his potty training. I know after the way he acted the first day, Jen and Jake were amazed at how much he improved over the next few days. His biggest problem seems to be not knowing that all potties are the same. He uses the one at home just fine, but when we took him to the potty at a restaurant or the mall, he threw a fit and refused to even try sitting on them. He did do one funny thing last night. He wanted to go outside to play in the backyard, but we told him he needed to go potty first. Of course, he said he didn't need to go potty. So, I told him I'd take the little potty chair outside so he could use it when he needed it. That was OK with him. He went outside and after less than 5 minutes, he was pulling his pants down. But instead of sitting on the potty chair, he just peed in the grass. Jen and I were just glad they have a nice 5 foot stone privacy fence!!

Maverick is the cutest little thing you ever saw, but he is an eating and drinking machine!! He will eat 24/7 if you let him. And when you give him a sippy cup of juice, he drains it everytime. He doesn't understand the concept of "sippy". He sucks it down as fast as he can and then asks for more, along with "fish" (the cheesy cracker shaped ones) and "bar" (the granola kind, which he doesn't really want, but that's the only word he knows that gets the pantry opened so he can point to something else).

Here are some pictures I took while I was there. This is Bailey and Maverick after they'd just had a bath, turning out the lights trying to scare Jen and me. I was taking these pictures because Pop sent them some new pajamas, but as you will see, we never got them to stand still long enough to get a good picture.