I’ve been working on a new theme for the hubcrate.com site, and went looking for some sample content.  The second directory that I hit had a lot of great pictures taken back in 2009.  I don’t know who was taking pictures (usually it’s me), but it appears to be someone who was in cahoots with Daelynn.  I suspect Danaya or Rett neither of whom appeared in the pictures.

I was browsing through our file storage device of pictures, and thought that I would post some of them.

Here are some pictures of Daelynn at her sixth birthday party.  To get a the bigger version, click on them.

I missed last week’s “pictures of the week” posting in lieu of a couple of other posts, but mostly because I was busy and time got away from me and I forgot to do it, and, and, and.  So this post is pushing up a bunch of pictures from the last couple of weeks.

picture of Daelynn and Brody
Daelynn and Brody

 

 

too dark picture of uncle and baby
Uncle Brock pinching Brody

Actually I don’t think Brock was pinching Brody, but I will sometimes joke with people about pinching babies when the baby is crying while being held by them.  So, I got a kick out of this picture.

On the Sunday before Layne, Elissa and Brody headed home we went out for a family meal at La Hacienda, one of our favorite restaurants (although given how often we eat out, you could probably count the total number of Houston restaurants we’ve visited in the last year on one or at most two hands).  Over the years, our younger kids have not usually made the economic connection of eating at home versus in a restaurant, particularly when there are 8 to 10 people.  The other factor of course being Dad’s (Ben) notorious cheapness.

picture of mexican restaurant
Lori and Heidi checking out the menu
picture of menu examination at restaurant
Layne, Elissa and Lori
picture of table at a restaurant with some of my favorite peeps!
Brody is entertained by his frog toy, while a mysterious hand makes a grab for more chips
picture of Davison and his taco goatee
Davison has finished the “hunger” part of his meal and entered into “play” mode.
picture of fun people at restaurant
Daelynn, Brock and Danaya at La Hacienda

Back home for the next few pictures…

picture of relaxing folks
Layne, Brody and Daelynn
picture of orange climbing roses
Roses in the front yard
picture of Mikeala
A unique game of checkers with Mikeala
picture of Heidi the beautiful girl
Heidi, Mikeala’s opponent. Apparently we are missing some checkers.
picture of two large cherry tomatoes
Couple of garden tomatoes

This past Monday was Memorial Day in the U.S.  It was also our church picnic at a local park.

picture of Heidi on basketball court
Heidi gets pulled into playing basketball by her friend Brieanna.
picture of two lads in a bouncy castle
Brock and Paton have fun in the bouncy castle
picture of lads falling out of a bouncy castle
Brock and Paton fall out of the bouncy castle
picture of Sunday school picnic activities
Davison coming in from the outfield in the baseball game

Part of the “fun” at the church picnic was Davison paying attention to the base runner, not the ball thrower in the baseball game which resulted in him catching the ball with his face, right between the eyes.  A bunch of time with ice resulted in only a bit of swelling, with no black eyes in the bargain.

Danaya and Daelynn were not present for the church picnic, as they were visiting their friend Gracie in Hondo, Texas (about an hours drive the other side of San Antonio.  They took the bus to San Antonio and were picked up their by Gracie and her family.  A fun part of the  bus trip was that they paid extra to reserve two seats in the front row – on the second deck of the bus.

picture of Naya and Dill on the bus
Daelynn and Danaya on their way to San Antonio courtesy of Megabus
picture of kids weeding
Saturday morning weeding chores

Fruit Blossoms

picture of watermelon blossom
Watermelon blossom
picture of guava blossom
Guava blossom

Ben’s BirthdayI don’t have any pictures from my birthday party (maybe Lori might). We had the traditional birthday trifle with ice cream.

picture of father, son and reading glasses
Brock, Dad, reading glasses

 

Someone’s been using my cellphone

In reviewing cellphone photos for this week’s update, it was immediately evident that someone (likely Heidi or Davison as they weren’t in any of the pictures) had taken lots of pictures with my iPhone.  Here are some of the pictures.

picture of Brock and Danaya
Brock and Danaya
picture of sisters smiling
sisters
picture of Brock
Brock
picture of Danaya
Danaya
picture of Daelynn reaching for the phone
gimme da phone
picture of Brock and Danaya
Brock and Danaya share a chair
picture of Daelynn and Mikaela
we appear to be short on chairs
picture of Danaya
Danaya

New Refrigerator

When we purchased our refrigerator back in 2013, we also purchased a 5 year full coverage plan on it.  We’ve recently been having an issue with the fridge that numerous repair guys have been unable to solve.  So, Sears has labelled it a lemon and provided for a replacement.  This replacement comprises of a credit for the amount that we originally paid for the first fridge – that we can spend at a Sears store on a new fridge.  Warranty-wise, this new appliance takes over the last two years of the original warranty.  We can spend more than the credit and pay the difference if the refrigerator chosen is more expensive than the original.  As might be guessed, it ended up being more than the original.


The new fridge has LED lighting and quite a bit more space.

I love opening the fridge.  -Brock

Frogatorium

It appears that one of the attractions of our yard to neighborhood kids is that frogs (or maybe toads, or maybe both – do frogs and toads get along or are they like rival gangs or something) like to hang out in the damp dark space where our water meter and shut off valve are located.  While working in the yard today, there were a couple of times when girls came by, got out frogs and played with them.  One of those times; they took a couple of frogs off to the detention pond.  I was tempted to say “Hey, put those frogs back”, but then I remembered that I don’t like frogs, so kept quiet.

picture of frog habitat
the habitat
picture of frog habitat cover
the cover

Lanier Library Lecture

We’ve been enjoying the nearby Lanier Theological Library, usually going there on Tuesday afternoons and evenings.  I went to a lecture on Saturday night, featuring a University of Cambridge professor that they had brought in for the weekend, one event being the Saturday night lecture on the topic Jesus and Geography, in particular looking at the the validity of the gospels in their geography as validated by extra-biblical sources (i.e. Josephus, rabbinical literature, etc).

The speaker was Simon Gathercole, and it was a pretty good time.  The chapel was full, so I was in one of the two overflow seating areas in the library.  After the talk there was a question time in which the speaker was asked to answer questions ranging from the basic (“Are the Tyre and Sidon in the New Testament the same ones referred to in the OT?”) to the interesting (“Since Josephus was originally a Jewish generally, but then became a traitor who ended up on the Roman side, can we trust his writings?”) to the complex and open-ended (“Can you explain Isaiah 53?”).  Answers to the above by the way were yes, yes, and a rather longer explanation than I wrote down.

The host (Mark Lanier) and the lecturer had a really good rapport, and there was a good deal of banter back and forth during the question time.  One of the exchanges that was really fun was when Mark corrected Simon with “It’s pronounced ‘I-Zay-ah'” – versus the more academic/English pronunciation.

picture of the to the Lanier library
the path to the library
picture of gate in rock wall
One of the gates
picture of light tree
light tree by the library

It was a busy week at the Houston Huber Household.  Probably most important was that I completed the green card process, getting my permanent work authorization for the States.  No pictures to show of that.  In other news…

At a local Barnes & Noble store, I picked up a ‘build your own gliders’ kit (from their half price table).  After some tweaks to the tail ailerons, it flew pretty well even though it was sort of windy.

picture of lad throwing toy glider
Davison with the glider
picture of boy with toy glider
Brock with the glider
picture of girl and pet dog
the requisite Bilbo picture

Flowers and Fruits

picture of young grape bunch
next step in grape development
picture of mature pomegranate flower
mature pomegranate flower
picture of young pomegranate fruit
pomegranate fruit (really small)
picture of a rose flower
rose
picture of a rose bud
rose
picture of a rose
rose
picture of cocoa red roses
roses
picture of strawberries on countertop
strawberry harvest
picture of growing green tomatoea
tomates
picture of orange daylilies
yots of yilies

Flood Aftermath

Danaya and I took an alternate route to the chiropractor on Wednesday, driving through one of the communities that has been hit hard by the flood.  There were a lot of houses in this community with piles of debris (drywall, carpet, etc) out front.  I drove through again this morning, and a lot of it had been cleaned up already.  There were some streets that were still in cleanup mode.


Zach Winters house concert

On Thursday night, I drove Danaya and Daelynn to a house concert featuring a musician from Oklahoma named Zach Winters.  It was held in a large very soggy backyard (like step on the grass and sink into a couple of inches of water) and was a whole lot of fun.

picture of back yard concert
Danaya and Daelynn find a dry place to sit
picture of Zach Winters in concert
Zach Winters in concert
picture of Daelynn and Danaya with Zach Winters
Daelynn, Zach, and Danaya
picture of filament light bulb
One of the filament bulbs at the concert

It’s been almost two weeks since we dropped Daelynn off at the airport as she jetted off to Calgary for three weeks.  Being a contrarian, or possibly better described as a photo-oddarian, I enjoy taking pictures of people taking picture of other people.  (If I end up getting a couple of the iPhone packing kids in on the act and positioned people correctly maybe we could get into recursive photo taking).

So without any further blather, her are some pics of the photo shoot at the airport.


  

After church on Sunday, we stopped by a nearby water park area.  At one point there were some stepping stones down the creek, possibly involving a little wading.  It wasn’t until all of the kids except for Brock had gone that Mom arrived and noticed the rather large snake sunning itself on the rock nearby.  Brock didn’t go wading.

the snake is on the rock to the right of Daelynn

the sunning snake
We’re not sure what type of snake, but based on descriptions it was likely a water moccasin.

 Brock: “I’m just like a guy who works in a gift shop. I’m decorating gift wrap.”

Notice that the sticker on his back assures us that he is Organic, thanks to sister Mikaela’s apple.

   

      So fun doing lessons with this guy

  Heidi makes Dutch Babies for our lunch.

  

 You probably can’t see the cute little green frog in Brock’s net, but he is there.

 

  Davison enjoys a spring day

  

  Nighttime swimming

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Some backyard views

 Behind the rosemary plant is one of our new baby Meyer lemon trees.

 

 Our new baby pomegranate tree

 

  More babies: a blueberry bush, a lime tree, and a Meyer lemon tree

  

Our two baby peach trees

 And, sadly, our dead tree

 

  

  

   

 

Afternoon of the wildflowers

 

  

  

  

  

  

  Rainy days with friends and a crackling fire

Thanks for joining me as I roam through a few weeks of pics!

On the Friday before Valentine’s Day, we participated in a church sponsored progressive dinner for couples, being the final stop, serving desserts.  Being inspired by the photo booth at Grandpa and Grandma’s 50th anniversary party, we decided (the day before) to do something similar.  We happen to have a lot of dressup clothes for girls, ladies, Knights, monkeys, dogs and M&M’s – but not a lot of dressup clothes and props for grown men.  So we scrambled for props, and managed to come up with a few.  Meanwhile, Danaya and Daelynn were focused on making the desserts to serve our guests.  They baked up a wonderful set of desserts including cheesecake, creampuffs, a chocolate caramel flan, and something else I think.  We realized after that we missed taking a picture of the food layout.

Here are some pictures of our kids (with friends) taking advantage of the photo booth setup and props.

I am way, way behind on my Hubcrate posts (I have a bunch to pull together including Mikaela’s birthday, some from the visit of Cam & Coralie Koch & family, and Brock’s birthday). But in the meantime, here are some pictures that I found on the camera.

Picture of Brock Huber in disguise
Picture of Davison Huber in disguise
Picture of Daelynn Huber in disguise

And with a bit of down-time with American Thanksgiving, I’ll try and get some of those other posts queued up.