More Christmas...

There's 12 days to Christmas, let's live it up. I may have enough Christmas pictures for each day.

Here Katie auditions for a re-make of the old Lawrence Welk Show.
New blog character Jeff was under intense examination, as all new blog characters are during their probationary period.
They got laughing gas for a present.
I couldn't tell what this picture was. I think it was made during the great silly string massacre. This unidentified person had silly string spewed at them and they ducked and I just happened to get a photo of it hitting the back of their neck. You can see from the angle how their head points down and the curve of their back up. They also have on some kind of hat.

Hey, I am good at figuring out stuff like this. I should get a job as a super hero or a blogger or something where I can use my input for the good of humanity. Wait a second, I think I may be already doing those things.

34 Degrees This Morning...

But that did not stop us from enjoying a sunny day. Here is Rose and Juan relaxing on Cafe Sam Rayburn. Once the sun came out it was very pleasant.
Cathy takes big fish honors again. This blue cat weighted in at just over 5lbs. Total count on catfish was 48. We seem to be stuck and can't quite break that magic 50 mark.

We filleted this old boy out real nice and grilled him with butter and cilantro over rice and had him for supper this evening.
This is the closest you may ever come to looking down the barrel of a loaded gun.

The Great Silly String Massacre...

So someone thought it would be great to put silly string in every one's Christmas stocking. This resulted in what is now know as the great Christmas silly string massacre.

Here is Katie and Jeff.







Mary and Miguel got cover up. Different people used different tactics and methods. Those that fired on full automatic were later sitting ducks for those who opted for expertly placed aims.

Silly string is more fun to photograph than I expected.
Note the traditional Christmas crowns worn by Rose and Juan as well as all others in these pictures. They come out of the English style Christmas poppers.

So I had to work today...

There were others who braved the rain to fish. Those who did not fish just snuggled together.











Others relentlessly thrashed the water to a froth.













Another new blog character alert, Katie's boy friend Jeff.

Final catch was 19, they are swimming in our bellies.

Christmas Eve at Grandma's...

Here's Morgan with new blog character, Ali. They have been dating a few months, her first appearance here.
Glenn flies the colors, two of his favoite teams.
Miguel closed at J.C. Penny's, his day job, right before coming over. He cruelly locked the door as late shoppers pounded on it, their flesh rotting and falling from their bones in despair, turning silver from the fallout of gift deficit.
Are these to guys the same person?

It's Christmas Eve Man...

Merry Christmas to all!

Couple of shots of decorations around our place. This is really more of a Holy Family scene, but I like of like to imagine this is what it looked like that late night in the brushy manger, lights all set about so that when the new baby made it's appearance it shined to the world.
Mary and Joesph knew they were blessed, but like all parents, and I think kind a prayerful look of concern shows here, they knew it was not going to be easy.

Foggy Pictures, Spooky Christmas...

Seems like I got a lot of fog pictures lately. Some on the lake, some in the woods, couple of nights ago the fog started really rolling in around the house as I was taking an evening walk and I tried to capture a little spooky Christmas Spirit with some photos of our decorations. Here is the house

A new thing this year, the ball tree with lights. The ball tree is a tradition, one of Cathy's things. I think the lights really make the balls stand out. These last two pictures are without a flash, in the fog.








Here's the ball tree with flash high lighting the fog. All pictures made from about the same vantage point, you could barely see the house from here.Now for the spooky score keeping part, if you are nice and snug with Christmas Spirit, I took a count of the cards I have received. We are losing, 20-11. That's 2o secular cards with pictures of Santa, snow men, bunnies, dogs, nanners or what ever. Now a couple of these are from places like work or my stock broker that either have rules about the kind of card you can use or are headed to Hell anyway. Maybe these people are just Obama supporters. I know there is the school of thought out there that he has not even took office yet and the country is in a hand basket, oh wait a minute, it's been in a hand basket for 8 years so maybe that's not it. Anyway I mentioned this to a few folks and they have said they would help by sending cards that reflect the reason for the season.

I had to do some edits here, this post came out weird. Spooky Christmas indeed.

So My Mother Gets a Call...

Looks like these would slow down as we both get a little older, but someone always feels the need to pass on "news" as some call it. This news person can remain nameless because as you know we never make fun of people here and of course it is embarrassing to find your name on the web, as this story points out.

Seems that my Mother got a call informing her that the December 17th issue of the Diboll Free press has a little community news column that carries this one liner reporting a change of address for me and my wife and I copy and paste for your enjoyment:

"Cathy and Carl Wallace are getting ready for Christmas with their cute house on Groesbeck."

Verify at this address if you will:
http://www.dibollfreepress.com/news/2008/1217/news/012.html

I am a pretty busy guy. I suppose I could have got a cute house on Groesbeck ready for Christmas and not even noticed. Being my wife's name is mentioned it is possible that we did it on an off day of hers after she worked the night before, (her own words, "Stupid Day") and she would not have noticed for sure.

I guess I could really have, my mother no doubt thinks it's possible I would purchase a different home just to make trying economic times interesting, confuse the kids coming in for Christmas or who knows what else. I think maybe it's the bull in a China Shop Syndrome. You know what I'm talking about. Bull gets in China Shop. He thinks he just did a little. Everyone else thinks he did a lot. I think this happens to me often. After some event reaches it's conclusion, it could be something at church, a musical gig or even a patient treatment people all come up and say "thanks for all you did!" and I am left standing there thinking, "well I did not really do all that much."

So either I am all ape shat with modesty tonight or these thoughts in my old head are turning to visions of pooping in a China Shop, at church, during a musical gig, a patient treatment or on Groesbeck Street.

Taekwondo Christmas Party...

Here is the food line, stretched way out as people wait in line to eat at our Taekwondo School Christmas party. I think we counted 110 folks eating and eat the did. It was pot luck and do not think there was enough left to fill a good pot.

Mary and Miguel goofing off.













Mary serving at the desert table is like the fox guarding the hen house.

I Did Catch a Few...

Contrary to what some may suspect, I was out there fishing and I did catch some yesterday, here's proof.
A two self portrait, we were trying to hold up the biggest catfish, but arms weren't long enough.
That's 12lbs of fillets. Too bad I am headed to work this morning, I bet they would bite. If I carried you fishing, I would wager that I could catch a fish on the first cast and I bet it would happen.

A Little Something For the Warm...

Boat launch, no rain, calm, not too cold, just foggy at dawn.
Did not take long, rain, wind, a cold day on the lake with the depth finder telling the story, 23.3 feet deep, 53.2 water temp. Bottom looks flat, but we are tied up right on the break that drops into the old river channel.
Cathy scores big fish of the day, 4.5 lb blue cat.









Just about filled the tub today. That's 47 catfish, caught in the time it took to listen to 3 compact disks. For you music fans the artists we listen to were the Hacienda Brothers, Sonny Landreth and Led Zepplin. The big fish bit during the Led Zepplin.

SFA Graduation...

We went to see a friend from church, Beverly graduate from Stephen F. Austin State University this morning. Quite a field of graduates. We kind of considered it a practice for when some of our kids start graduating from college.
Here's Beverly and husband Terry. Terry was put to sleep by the graduation speaker. I must admit it was the worst commencement speech I have every heard. It was by a professor of history at SFA and I seriously believe he is completely out of touch with the world his students will face as they seek to begin their careers.

It was a good time for Beverly though, congratulations to her and all the hard work she has put in.

Taking a Treatment...

Cold as heck, sleet, snow, something coming down tonight. I'm taking a dip in the hot tub and as soon as the snow banks pile up I am going to run jump in one. Stuff like this really builds up a man's constitution. Heck if I had one of the colonic cleanser potions I heard advertised on the late night AM radio I'd drink it (maybe not while I'm in the hot tub) and I would be all fixed up.

More Big Slough Pictures...

I might tell you that I like going hunting, but what I really like is sitting around in the river bottoms. It's relaxing and quiet, with the only sounds mostly birds and the occasional unseen crashing in the brush when you manage to startle the occasional unseen Big Foot.

I think I Mentioned an ongoing contest at the Museum for Neches River bottom land, flora and fauna. In these shots I thought I might capture something worth wild, but I don't think this is it. I thought this picture it might look good with the straight log offset to the side.





Here you see early morning fog over the big slough. Use your imagination to fill in the sound of wood ducks squealing as they look for a place to land.







Is that a big foot stepping behind that tree?

Speaking of big foot, here's a good site:
http://www.texasbigfoot.org/
Be careful here, not all are sympathetic to this great creature. If my wife finds me doing research on this site she sharply directs me on to other activities.