Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Texas and Nephews






Texas and Nephews

Bonnie and Mike traveled to Houston during 13-15 November 2009 for Mike’s 50th High School Reunion (see Lamar59.org for the details and photos on this gala gathering). During two events of the Reunion, we went by the old 2307 Gramercy homestead to ensure it was still in existence, and not looming as large in life as in memory.

Post-reunion we made two family related visits. On Sunday afternoon we went to the Nottingham area, Kellywood Lane in Houston, to visit with Eric and Kristen and 3-year old David. This is a beautiful residence in a beautiful residential area, and we enjoyed meeting David: he’s cute and bright-eyed, and actually behaved better in the restaurant than we did! (see photos). We went to Escalante’s for Mexican food – next time we may try Nirvana for Indian food… well, maybe not Bonnie!

Eric’s job with Decision Strategies Inc keeps him busy as he is ‘farmed out’ to Energy companies for his decision analysis skills – he is a methodologist in this area, as opposed to an oil and gas specialist, so his role is special. Kristen has begun working again, part time – not the job she wants or is challenged by, but conveniently located right across the street from David’s pre-school, and it gives her 20 hours a week.

On Monday morning, we checked out of our Hilton Garden Inn Galleria (Reunion hotel) and headed Southwest on 59 to Sugar Land. There we received a good/not so good surprise: Sarah Grace was there with Anne and Andy – great as we had expected that she would be in school/not so great as she was home because she was feeling punk. Sarah Grace was still gracious however, so we did get a few photos of her, before we took Andy out to lunch at Salt Grass Steakhouse (and send home a cheeseburger for Anne who had stayed home with her 3-year old patient.)

Andy commutes about 15-20 minutes each Tuesday and Thursday to teach his 15 hours (5 three-hour classes!) in biblical studies at the College of Biblical Studies. (Note: one of the reasons CBS was so eager to hire Andy was to strengthen their accreditation efforts - this has recently been successful! Yea, Andy!) Andy also travels to different locales for churches that want him to come talk at their venue. For several years, Andy and Anne have talked about creating a text book for Andy. We also talked about creating a web site for a non-profit that the team is building. So much to do!

Summary: much energy in Houston! Great visits! We need to return before our next 50th Reunion!