A Unique Style

Lily went duck pin bowling Saturday night with her friend Ellie. She's got quite a distinctive style.

Michael and I went out to dinner to celebrate our 17th anniversary. Went to a Belgian restaurant, Mannequin Pis, for Belgian beer, mussels, and french fries. Mmmm. Many thanks to Ken and Maggie for giving us the night off!

Thankful . . .

...for family. The Baldwins and Claire were here for Thanksgiving.

... for Mary, who did a ton of the cooking. Claire too.

...for Chloe, who kept things hopping.

And that maybe, just maybe, my Dad is noticing some improvement from the stem cell therapy.

Ferretería Efren

My relatives in Spain have run a hardware store since 1870 - that's three generations. They have a web site that contains a history section, with these old photos. I did my best to translate the Spanish.

1915 - hardware store and bar.

The little boy all the way to the left is my grandfather, age 4. He had 4 brothers and two sisters.

1936 - the business was hard hit by the Spanish Civil War, with supplies being requisitioned and sent to the front.

1940 - starting to recover from the war.

For Sale

Anybody need a house in Southwest Florida? Here's the full listing. I can vouch for the current owners. ;-)

Because the TV Told Me To

Lily: Can we go to pbskids.org?
Mom: Why?
Lily: They said to go there on tv.
Mom: Do you know what it is?
Lily: No. Is it far?

Raking

And raking and raking and raking...

And that's just the front yard.

Halloween Past

No good pictures of Lily from tonight, so here are some old ones:

Late 1960s - me, Frankie, Mary, Manny, Joey, Linda, Michael. I'd love to know who that is with the red sock on the right. I'm wondering if this was Halloween or some other party?

Maybe this is what started my fear of clowns.

Lee in the infamous clown costume. I think every kid in our extended family wore it.

Me as a witch.