Happy, Happy New Year!

From happy, happy us. Here's to a wonderfully crazy busy 2011 - let's hope 2012 will be even better, filled with more adventures I will share with you all here. I hope to be able to do a better job posting to this blog - that's my one resolution! :) Meanwhile, be careful out there and be safe. Meet you back here in 2012, my friends.

Intro to Beekeeping - Explore the Hive Video

This is part of our beekeeping class we did in our backyard last Saturday. I just realized it was posted on the KWED YouTube channel. Cool!

Mom's Plumeria

When I miss my mom a lot, I like to look at things that are hers or remind me of her. There are special pictures I like to revisit of her garden, her flowers, her scrumptious, edible works of art.This Plumeria is so beautiful and she has several in her Florida yard. It's perfect weather there for these. She has yellow and pink and one visit, she sent home a couple of cuttings for us. They did well for a couple of years until a hard freeze killed them, sadly. Anyway, if I want to see the most beautiful ones, I know where to go.

My mom had a bit of a health scare this week and she's on my mind and in my heart. But I think of her and my dad constantly and I have them in my heart always.

Wrapping Up the Year with Family

Today was the best way to wrap up 2010 - spending it with family. I hope you also got to spend some time with those you love as we wind down this year and welcome 2011. We got an awesome visit with our Mark's uncle and cousin and his wife. We don't to see them very often and it had been too long. Granpa, as we affectionately call our uncle, started keeping bees with my honey bee about thirty years ago. I have loved listening to all their crazy, fun adventures and they never fail to make me wish I had been there for the entire ride.

Granpa is getting up there in age so we appreciate any time that we get with him. To see him out in his element with the bees was a truly amazing gift for which I cannot even begin to express my gratitude. It's moments like today that make life worth living. I hope you have many of those in 2011 and I hope we will also.

Thank you stopping by here and checking out my photos and my talk. I met some of you this year and it really always made me wish I had more time to devote to roaming the city and countryside in search of things to share with you here. And just when I think I should hang it up since I'm neglecting this too much for my taste, one of you tells me how much you enjoy the blog, even now that it's sporadic in posts...and then how can I bring myself to stop? It really means a lot to me and I just wanted to thank you for all your kind words this year. Happy new year, my friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you, love!

Today was a difficult day and I want to say thank you to my wonderful love for being there for me; for hugging me and holding me; for reassuring me; for making me laugh; for watching How the West Was Won with me; for making dinner with me; but mainly for just knowing when I need his strength.

These wonderful heart tokens were a gift to Mark when I had to do some traveling a few weeks ago. If you haven't been to the Gift & Gourmet shop on Austin Street, then you need to head over there! They are also online and on Facebook if you're interested. It's one of my favorite locally owned gift shops in town.

Dad in Action

Yesterday, in honor of World Cup, I had intended to post a picture of my dad and his soccer team from when he played back in Viet Nam. Unfortunately, I could not find that picture (boooo!) BUT I did find this one. And I wanted to share it since my mind was on Viet Nam after reading the story in our paper about our local historian, who also served during the Viet Nam War. That's my dad in the center. He worked with US forces during his time and through his friendships, we were able to find a sponsor and move to the US in '75. We were very lucky to make it here all in one piece and altogether.

This picture makes me think of the story my mom and dad told Mark a couple of visits ago when we saw them. Apparently, while my dad was out in the field at one point, my mom took ME out there so he could see me. WHOA. Out in the field. During war. With bullets flying. What was amazing to me was that I had not known that all these years and Mark was the one who told me about it.

And no, this post has nothing to do with Seguin besides me and our local historian's story. But I just had to share it. :-)

Family Project

Tribute to my parents continue! :-) This is my dad and he still has the same smile now that he did back then. What struck me in this shot is how much like my dad my oldest brother looks! Whoa. I'm over halfway done with the scanning project - woohoo! My deadline is coming fast so I'm glad I got over the hump.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Hot, humid, wonderful.

Project Picture Scans

Sorry but I am on a pressing scanning project and I have a deadline! So I won't have time to tend to this blog except here and there, as you can tell. ;-)

I have my parents' family album - one left - and I need to scan everything in for everyone in the family before we head to FL, when I need to return the album after having it for toooooo long. This is a shot of my parents shortly after we came over to the states. It's one of the only times we actually had formal portraits done as a family. There is one of nine out of ten of us but that 8x10 is hanging on their wall and I'm not carrying our scanner on the plane, unfortunately. I really would love that one! I need to find someone there with a scanner, don't I?

I hope you all are having a great spring so far. We are getting plenty of rain and everything is beautifully lush. I love the greenness of things all around. The only thing I don't like is the humidity lately and the mosquitos. :-o

Welcome Back!

To us, that is! Hi everyone. I wanted to get a quick post in before I head to bed. It's been a busy week and an even busier day as we spent most of it tending to the bees at the farm location. That was a lot of fun. I had not seen any of the bees in over a month since Mark checks on them during the week typically and I'm at work those days.

We've been traveling quite a bit lately to get supplies and equipment ready for this year's beekeeping activities. This last trip took us to Georgia but we took a detour to visit my side of the family in Florida. It was wonderful to see them even if it was just for an evening and the next morning. This is a shot from my parents' front yard and in the shadows, you can make out Lake Louisa. Very pretty. So yea, I know it's not Seguin. But since I wasn't in Seguin this week, I've got to share this one with you.

I hope you all have had wonderful weeks and that your weekend will be even better! :-)

Flowers, Candles, a Bride and a Groom

Last week we were happy to be a part of my stepdaughter's happy evening as she married her high school sweetheart. And now they are awaiting news of where her husband will next be stationed with the Coast Guard. They are very happy and we wish them all the best in life.

Well, here we are at the start of another week and it's nearly October! I'm not closer to getting some relief at work so that's a tiny bit of a setback in terms of a return to my happy-happy state. Oh well. I remain hopeful that in this economy, surely we can find some great workers out there! Please send good vibes my way. ;-)

Sunday Evening Thoughts

Since some of you liked yesterday's shot, I thought I might share a follow up of the flower. The top shot is the lotus in full bloom. I am intrigued by it and love looking at the bloom -- look at all that's going on inside the bloom! It's multi-layered inside amazes me. Each part like it's own flower really. I just think it's neat.

Below is my favorite shot for many reasons. I love pink and green together because it always reminds me of one of my favorite memories from childhood. It was when my dad colored with us kids once. I remember he used this green and pink combination and at the time, I had never seen that put together in such a way that it just really drew my attention. I don't know why that stayed with me but it does. More than likely, I just really liked that he colored with us and then he showed his creative side, which we rarely got to see. I'm all mushy for a Sunday night. I should call them tomorrow. :)

Hope everyone has a great week. No Dallas for me this week so I am very psyched about it! :) Nothing like being home.

Bees & Spiders

Here is a shot of us out at the country beeyard. My sister-in-law and nephew are checking out one of the two big spiders "guarding" our bees. It's a little difficult to see but you can spot the spider if you look at the yellow part of Renee's veil. it almost looks like the spider is on her veil since you all cannot see the spider web.

Happy Father's Day

I hope everyone is enjoying this special day and that you are also surviving the heat. :) We were very happy to have Melissa join us for church this morning and then we took Mark to lunch. It's been a wonderful day and now I'm off to call my dad.

Moo Jesus Ranch Dairy

Since this is my first post in a WEEK, you get a big one! This past weekend, we had a wonderful visit from Mark's mom, dad, uncle and aunt. We headed out to the Moo Jesus dairy farm, which is only about twelve miles from our house. Who knew such a neat place was that close!?! I loved the experience!



The drive out there was very beautiful and peaceful. Once you're there, Gina greets you with a big, beautiful smile and a very warm welcome. She told us all about how natural foods help our bodies and we even sampled many of the cheeses they make there -- my favorite is the jalapeno cheese (we bought some!). After that, her husband Edward tours us around the property on our modern day wagon. It was nice to have the shade overhead as it was quite warm on Saturday.



Once we got back to the main area, we took a breather in the restaurant and waited for lunch. We even got to sample some fresh milk (super wonderful) and a drink that I can't recall the name of but it had beet and cayenne in it. Way too sweet for me but I'm glad I tried it.



On our way back home, we drove by El Capote Ranch since Mark's family and I have never seen it. The Capote has a rich history -- better told by Mark so I won't butcher it here. You can Google but you can also check the Texas Handbook. This is a wonderful day trip for the family. I highly recommend it!

Sorry about not posting at all for an entire week! I'm not sure I'm going to be any better anytime soon so my apologies for this weird period where there are infrequent posts. Work is really draining my time and my mind to be honest with you so when I am traveling every week, I get all caught up in what's going on right now. I hope things will settle down a bit and when they do, I should be able to once again enjoy photography and posting for you. Meanwhile, be patient with me!

Note: all these shots were taken with my Blackberry! Not bad, right? I couldn't believe my camera battery was DEAD. Not even one shot. Oh well.

Wedding Day

Sorry, been busy with work and life. But I'm nostalgic again and thinking of my parents so here's another photo from Vietnam. It is from my parents' wedding day. My mom is sort of in the center of the photo with the white flowers in her hair. The procession is marching over to where my dad was I believe. :) I LOVE looking at their wedding pictures. Everyone was so elegant. I'll see if I can find one of them both after the ceremony. You can visit La China if you want to see a shot of them in their early 20s.

When I look at them back then, it's like they are strangers. Like you're looking into an entirely different time and world. For example, when we came over here to the States, they were in their late 30s. And they had seven kids to care for in a foreign country. Can you imagine what that must have been like for them? I couldn't until I was much older and I have tried to let them know how much I admire what they did and how well we all ended up considering my dad was the only one who spoke English.

What would I have done? Would I have been brave (or crazy) enough to leave my country? Would I have been able to feed nine mouths and clothe us all? Would I have been able to make family vacation happen every summer on a meter-reader salary (and I'm talking driving us all from NC to CA or NC to Canada!)?

The Old Days

Lately we have been living in the past. What I mean is that I've been looking at old pictures. The digital camera era is super-fantastic BUT I still enjoy flipping through the photo albums once in a while. Some of my college friends started posting old pics on their Facebook pages so I went looking for some of my own in order to share with them. I also found some pictures that my mom brought with us when we left Vietnam; here's one of me. Last year I scanned in four albums worth of black and white photos for everyone in the family. I love looking at them.

Mark's been living in the past, too! He's making one more change in the book but he's pretty much done and it's now on the publisher's site (Janaway Genealogy Publishing) and I am thrilled for him!! [Congratulations, honey!] Mark's book is titled Slave Transactions of Guadalupe County, Texas and you can read a little more about it on Mark's blog about "Smokey" Joe Williams.

Kitty, Kitty

It's been so busy! Here's a pretty kitty I met while visiting Mark's brother. That's one of the nicest things about the holidays -- seeing relatives you just don't get to visit with during the rest of the year. Life just gets you busy and then before you know it, it's been a year again. We had a great time with them, however.

Gifts for family have been bought, wrapped and shipped as of today. What a relief. I was just so unmotivated this year but not because I didn't want to find something special for each person. At any rate, it's done. Now I can take some time to enjoy pulling together some small things here and there for Mark and some local friends. I love looking for just the right thing. It's so fun!

Family Night

Tonight has been so nice. My sister came by to have some dinner with us and we had some pretty good pho (Vietnamese noodle soup), followed by a relaxing evening of talk, coffee and dessert. And celebrating Lan's birthday a bit belatedly. Really wonderful evening.

When I'm happy or when I'm sad from missing someone, I like to look at some of my favorite things. These are some of them. People give you things and sometimes you keep it and sometimes you don't. I try to not be too cluttered but I keep things that bring fond memories and smiles. Like that frog. When I miss my niece, I like to look at it. It's just a button to some people but when my 6 year old niece gave me one of her favorite things, it meant so much to me. I am sure feeling mellow tonight. :)

Granma & Granpa

Mark heard from his cousin today about his uncle, who is elderly and is now living with family since Mark's aunt passed away. He's on my mind so I wanted to write about him and Mark's aunt. We call them Granma and Granpa and they lived in Burnet, north of here, past Austin and Marble Falls. It's so lovely up there and we used to love visiting Granma and Granpa. In the brief 12 years I have known them, I have grown to love them so and I miss our times together.

We'd head up there and enjoy a day or two of talking, walking out in the fields, tending to bees, playing a board game Granma just LOVED (she'd have the board waiting for us), eating great home cooking, swimming and just being together. They are quite a pair and it's hard when times change and we get older and we lose loved ones. I still miss Granma a lot. But memories of her also make me smile.

This is horse mint and we haven't seen much of it around here this year due to the lack of rain. Bees just love this and since Mark and Granpa kept bees together and even sold honey under their own label years ago, I wanted to dedicate this post to them. I love to hear their bee stories and it always makes me wish I had been there with them.

Post #300

Sorry I have not posted in a few days. One of the main reasons is that I couldn't find the right post to share for my special occasion of making it to the 300th one. So I looked a lot of photos and tried to find a special one but didn't feel any of them were right. And then I was chatting with my brother Tuan and I thought of what I wanted to share. My photography inspiration!

Tuan is my older brother and he's the best brother and friend any person could ever have or hope for. He's always been there for all of us whenever we need him and it doesn't matter how many miles are between us all. I have a pretty big family, eight kids. He's second to the oldest and I'm second to the youngest and we're both born year of the Rooster. And we've always had great times together, even when those times are bumpy.

I wanted to dedicate this post to Tuan because for as long as I can remember, Tuan's always with a camera. And I've always thought it was so cool that he photographs his life -- travels, marriages, births, school, friends, everything. He has a great eye and I often think, "Oh, if only Tuan was here, he could teach me so much about photography and we could have so much fun doing this together." I miss living close to each other; he's on the west coast.

Well, this hummingbird shot is one of the first shots Tuan took with his new camera and he said I could use it when I asked him. Thanks bro! You should have heard us on the phone, talking about his new Nikon D300. Very nice! It's a lot more camera than I can handle at this point but I'm impressed and I can't wait to see what else he will share with me.