O L I V I A

This is my niece. She's cool.

Jim has a new love....BABIES! You'll recall, from an Ofoto download not long ago, that Jim did not used to have such a good relationship with babies. In fact, he consistently made them cry. Hand a baby to Jim and both he and the baby would get VERY uncomfortable. Even with our adorable, happy neice, Jenna Hope, Jim is tentative. (Note: we'll be dedicating a whole blog to Olivia and Jenna, our neices, including some pretty awesome baby pictures of Olivia from back in the day. We'll also be creating an entire blog dedicated to Kate, during her most fashionable days. Posting old, embarassing pictures of people on the internet never gets old.) Anyway, with the help of a little champagne, it appears that Jim's baby attitude may have changed! We took a trip up north for Paul and Natalie's wedding and Jim, it seems, has become a new man! A BABY man.

The first picture is Jim, REALLY excited, because he just felt the little Bagley give a good hearty kick! Then, the next day, at Paul and Natalie's wedding, Jim played airplane with cute litte Ella Manon. She was so tickled that she threw up on him. After that, Jim was so enamored that he said, "I want one!" Suspecting that he had champagne goggles on, I re-confirmed the comment on Sunday and Jim quickly clarified, "I meant I want one some day a few years from now after we've travelled to Europe." Whew. (Don't worry, Mendy...some day we'll have one.)

In the meantime, enjoy these pictures of Jim with other people's babies. Unfortunately, we didn't get pictures of every baby over the weekend, but ALL the babies at the wedding (and there were a lot) were well behaved and could have been Gerber's or Huggies models.

Umm...ok. You should all look forward to some extremely humiliating pictures of Jim in the near future. Check back at the end of November, after I've had some time to riffle through the hundreds of Jim photos from high school that I have stashed in my bedroom in Tallulah.

One thing that Jim forgot to point out is that he, too, is in the prom picture (re:primary colors, airplane earrings). For the record, Jim was wearing a paisley shirt and had one of the most beautiful seniors as his date (I guess she could see past the shirt). I also was with a senior, who I wasn't really that interested in, but the thrill of going to the Junior/Senior prom when I was only a Sophomore, was worth it...and the guy was really nice. Anyway, at that point, Jim and I didn't know each other. I knew who he was because he was the object of all of the Sophomore girls' affections and was in with the "cool" crowd, but I never knew that the guy my sister and I had dubbed "Highwaters" (he rolled his pants up to mid-calf...some weird Arizona fashion, I guess) and who drove the pumpkin orange Saab knew who I was. I can't remember the details of the actual prom, but one thing stands out very clearly in my mind from the prom after party. I was off in a corner avoiding my date and suddenly Highwaters appeared and said, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could do some tequila shots right now?" I think I just looked at him. I probably didn't even know what tequila was at that point in my life. I think I remember thinking, "what a dork."

A couple of months passed and I was "dating" (playing pinball, not holding hands and not kissing) a guy my mother adored because he was handsome and a merit scholar. I thought he was boring, but in a cool way and as I was meandering my way through getting out of that relationship, I received an unexpect call. It was "Jim." At first I was confused. Who is Jim? Wait Jim Highwaters??! And why was Jim Highwaters calling me? He wanted to know if I was going to So and So's party tonight and if I wanted some crawfish. My mom freaked out because she was in love with the handsome merit scholar and thought that I, at fifteen, was making a horrible mistake by ditching him to hang out with some guy in the 11th grade, but I was adventurous and just discovering my manipulative woman side, so I went to the party with one guy and completely ignored him while I ate crawfish and played asshole with Jim Highwaters.

So that's how it all began. Eventually Jim and I went to the movies (Fried Green Tomatos) and stuck gummy bears all over the car, stop signs, and movie chairs. Then we climbed some trees in the pecan grove....and then my Dad came outside in his bathrobe and glasses and Jim took off so fast I figured I would never see him again. My dad has that effect on new boyfriends.

Fortunately, he came back...and he's never been able to get over those airplane earrings.

I'm still going to post some EVIL pictures of you, Jim Avant, so don't think you're off the hook.

As promised, here are some pictures of my one and only wife back in the '90s. Can you find her? Here's a hint: She's wearing a primary yellow, blue, green, red and white shirt with....and this is the best part...WWII airplane earings. I think they're P-38s.

What can I say, she was ahead of her times.



Thus ends the cruel and unusual pictures of Claire. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she posts the one of me wearing my Depeche Mode t-shirt and Flock of Seagulls haircut.
Bring it on.

Since I can't write as well as my wife, and I never ever will, I have elected to post pictures in the place of words. Here is a collection of random images taken over the years. And yes, several of these are revenge photos for the "cactus picture" that Claire promised she would never show to anyone. Enjoy.

Oh my, what have we here...could it be Claire in the 10th Grade? Why, yes it is!! Take note of the 4" diameter glasses (it should be noted that my glasses were approximately 2x the diamter of Claire's when this picture was taken)

Please note the red sleaves, polka-dot skirt and sailor-like collar. Stylish, indeed. (it should be said that this was about the time I fell head over heals for Claire and, yes, fashion had something to do with it.)
















Apparently, those are all the pictures I'm allowed to post in this blog. Must be a size limit or something. Anyway, my next post will be of normal photos of Claire during the '90s. Well, at least they were normal back then.....

Well, since my parents are completely lame and do NOTHING worth writing about during the week, I have decided to take over the blog to defend dogs of all shapes and sizes. This is Buster, the family dog. The ONLY dog. You should remember me, because I'm pretty sure I've bitten most of you at some point or the other.

Anyway, I'm writing because today my mom received a document from a friend which is truly, truly insulting and demeaning to all dogs. Basically it said that the only emotion that dogs have is blind happiness and excitement and that cats are full of deep and conniving thoughts. When I read it (yes, people, I CAN read...just because I can't speak your language, doesn't mean I'm illiterate. I mean, how do you think I'm typing this blog?) I was filled with rage and horror at how misunderstood, emotionally, we dogs are.

First of all, I'm sure many of you remember my early years in Houston. Contrary to the claims of the insulting document, I was neither blindly happy nor was I excited. I was nervous and scared and insecure. Why do you think I bit so many people?

Besides being a tender little thing, I also was, and still am, scheming and conniving. Although my parents have wised up in recent years and discovered that just because I have short legs, it doesn't mean I can't get up onto table tops and eat sheet cakes, I still do my fair share of getting into things. For instance, the other day I ate half a bottle of pills that were meant to help me with my joint pain. It wasn't my fault that my parents left them somewhere I could reach them, and that they tasted like treats! I walked really well for a couple of days....and then I got diarreah. Green, viscous diarreah, which I made sure to desposit in every room in the house...especially my parents' bedroom. How's that for conniving?

I have to admit that I do get excited. When my parents get home from work I AM really happy to see them, BECAUSE I HAVE TO PEE! And yes, I look longingly at them, BECAUSE I'M HUNGRY! I mean, I only get to eat one cup of food a day now and it's DIET food. Please...the only thing that I really, truly get excited about is going on walks. It's an opportunity to show everyone on the street that I'm the boss of this household. I get to drag my parents around by a string, while stimultaneously barking at all the dogs in the neighborhood, who don't have the priviledge. AND my parents PICK UP MY POOP. How is that for power?

I also feel true love. My pink pig, "Piggy," is the object of all of my true affections. I roll on him and toss him around, I rub on him, and...well, you get the picture. Without Piggy, life would be much less amourous.

So, remember people. Just because cats have big eyes and clean themselves, doesn't mean that they are the superior, more emotional race. When cats have the power to control the social lives of people, have the ability to lead humans around by a string instead of just playing with one, and figure out that leaves blown by the wind are not living objects and that the lazer pointer is just light, then we'll talk about emotions and intelligence. Until then, I'll just eat their poop.

In Fort Worth, TX, the summers are so hot that it's hard to go outside. Everything fries to a crispy brown (especially our yard...and the bushes in the back yard....we are bad, bad tenants). Walking from your office to your car is an intense and draining experience and getting into your car, after it's been sitting in the parking lot all day...torture.

That said, we welcome the fall with open arms and much enthusiasm!

North Texas has lots of state parks, so we have been exploring them. Today, we even bought a state park pass, so that we can go to the parks as much as we want AND we can bring fifteen of our friends with us. If we make sure that we visit state parks at least 15 times in the next year, we'll break even on the cost of our state park pass!

Anyway, until today, our experiences in the North Texas State parks have been pretty dismal. The first state park we went to, Lake Mineral Wells, was desert-like. It was 103 degrees outside and we had the brilliant idea to go to the park and take a bike ride. At first, we were enthusiastic, enjoying the scenery, marveling over the cacti, in awe of the coyote poop. Then, our bike trail led us into the town of Mineral Wells, which looked a lot like most towns around here--strip malls, huge pick-up trucks, lots of mullets and cowboy hats. Continuing on, we soon entered the ghetto of Mineral Wells, complete with falling down houses, chickens in the bike path, goats tied to trees in the back yards. Finally, the trail ended in urban Mineral Wells, where homeless, slightly demented looking people, were surrounding the water fountain. We chose to take a chance with our minimal water supply and headed back up the dusty trail. Moments after we stopped for sips of 100 degree water (baked by the sun), on a scenic bridge, I got a flat. We were out of water, it was 103, and we had never changed a bike tire before. But we made it back to Fort Worth safely, after taking a dip in the slightly slimey, luke-warm, and red-neck filled Lake Mineral Wells.

Our next park adventure was at Ray Roberts State Park near Denton, TX. This park is ideal for mountain bikers (which we are not), so we decided to take advantage of the mountain bike trail trail and hike it instead. Apparently, they had done some controlled burning right before we got there. Somehow, it wasn't the scenic experience we had hoped for.

So, today, when we decided, on a whim, to go to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, TX, we went with very low expectations. First of all, this park is called Dinosaur Valley, because there are fossils of dinosaur footprints in it and, on their webpage and all the guides, there are pictures of these huge, plaster dinosaurs. We figured it would be cheesy, but it was a beautiful day and we wanted to get out and enjoy it, so we took a risk...and it was SO worth it. The park does have giant, plaster dinosaurs, but they are there to give you an idea of the size of the dinosaurs that lived there. The first fossils they found there were of a giant plant eating dinosaur (something like the brontosaurus) being pursued by a meat eating dinosaur (something like a smaller Tyranasaurus...sorry, I'm not very good with my dinosaur names). Those fossils are now in the New York Natural History Museum. There is a beautiful, shaded river that runs through the park, and that is where we found our first dinosaur tracks. I was surprised at how excited I was and how cool it was to look down into the water and see the tracks from something that lived so long ago. It's hard to imagine North Texas, with all it's strip malls and bad traffic, being a place where dinosaurs used to live.

After the fossil viewing, we went on a hike up some bluffs and were, again, surprised at the beautiful views and the steep drop offs. There also were, as evidenced by this picture of Jim, many cacti.

We plan to continue exploring the Texas State Parks--next on our list is Colorado Bend State Park and then, our big trip in December, is Big Bend. We have to keep our food in a bear box and were warned, repeatedly, not to bring our pets unless we wanted them eaten by a bear or mountain lion or goared by a wild boar. And we were also warned, repeatedly, to make sure that our families knew where we were going, in case we didn't make it back to our campsite. Very reassuring...this will be a true test of my camping stamina and survival skills....stay tuned.