Michelle’s Graduation

Our Granddaughter, Elizabeth Michelle Reay graduated from The University of Texas at Austin on May 20, 2011. This is the cute graduation invitation she sent out.

Commencement for the College of Education was held at Gregory Gymnasium on the UT campus. Inside Gregory Gym looks just like it did the last time I was there the first time I registered for classes in the Fall of 1956 and for my for my last time to register in the Fall of 1971. I was a very slow learner.

The Commencement speaker was Mack Brown who is the Head Football Coach at UT. He gave a very inspiring talk and gave incite to some of the things he experienced as a new graduate looking for a job.

We didn’t get a picture of Michelle crossing the stage but her father did. She graduated with High Honors and we are very proud of her.

Her father presented her with an absolutely beautiful cake that was decorated perfect for the occasion. And it tasted good too.

Here she is cutting the cake. I can’t wait to see her cut her wedding cake in a year and a half.

We made her put her cap and gown back on to get pictures with family. Here she is with her Grandma Doris and Papa Bob.

Here she is with her Grammie and Papa Wayne/

And here she is with her mother, Nola, her father, Tom, and her brother, Matt.

Here she is with her fiancée, Michael.

And this is her cousin, Cassandra, who is Catherine’s daughter. Catherine is the one who went to LV with us last month.

Dee’s sister, Elaine, presented Michelle with a hat and scarf that her great grandmother had crocheted especially for her.

I goofed and didn’t get a picture of Elaine, Catherine, and Cassandra with Michelle.

Here is a picture of Michelle with the rifle that her Papa Wayne loaned her. It was Wayne’s dad’s rifle so it will have to be passed down on loan to family or revert back to the Stamper family.

We have less than two weeks until we go to Waller for Matt’s graduation. This is a busy time for us.

Seaport Village and Bette’s Birthday Dinner

Sunday afternoon we decided to blow off the zoo and go to Seaport Village instead.  This is an area right on the waterfront of shops and restaurants.  This is one of the restaurants that sits out over the water.

From here you can see the bridge to Catalina Island.

And you can see Catalina Island as well.

This place is laid out nicely with fountains, gardens, and even waterways with lots of places to sit and rest.

  

There was a family of Mallard ducks in one of the waterways.

Someone had balanced these rocks and was requesting donations for taking pictures of them.

We still had time to go back to the hotel and rest before dinner.  We went to an upscale Italian restaurant in Little Italy to celebrate Bette’s birthday.  The ladies front to back are me, Bette and Syrena and the men are Wayne, Jim and Gene.

Then it was back to the room to pack.  We have a 10:20 flight to Houston on Monday.  We will pick up Trouble at Nola’s and then drive back to Aransas Pass.

Old Town San Diego

We arrived back in San Diego and drove to Old Town which is now a State Historic Park.

The area is not too big for us to walk around in.  There are many historic buildings and lots of vendors.  There was also several areas with music.  Mostly of the American Indian woodwinds.  It was beautiful.

 

This is the first building that you see—the old Tinsmith’s shop.

Here are Wayne and Jim waiting for the women to get back from shopping.  You can see one of the stages in the back left corner with some of the instruments set out in one of the patios.

This old Catholic church sits right across the street from Old Town.

I think this is the Harwin House.  It is also outside of the State Park area but is old and you can tour it.

Another old building houses O’Hungry’s where we ate a late lunch.

Can you believe we did the seals, surfers, and Old Town all before lunch and there is more to come.

La Jolla, CA – Surfers

We drove around until we finally found a street that went down to the water.  We parked in a parking lot next to one of the many colleges here and went to see what everyone was looking out.  This time it was human seal or rather surfers.  There were probably a hundred or so in the water and on the beach.

They looked like a lot of dark dots in the water.  We were up high. 

This is looking way off to the left at more surfers.

If it hadn’t been so hazy we would have gotten better pictures.

Wayne did get some good shots with his telescopic lens and then with my cropping here are some of the better ones.  This guy was standing on his board and using a paddle.

                        

We had lots more planned for today so we headed back to San Diego and Old Town.  Again, too many pictures so that will be the next blog.

La Jolla, CA – Seals

Sunday morning we met for breakfast in the hotel restaurant.  Then Jim and Gene went to pick up the rental car and the six of us drove to La Jolla.  We drove out to La Jolla Point and got out and started walking down the sidewalk.  There were beautiful bluish flowers and a rocky shoreline with a seawall extending out.

There was some sort of vine with bluish flowers growing out of the cleft in the rocks.

As we got closer we could see ground squirrels playing in the rocks.  They were really cute and posed nicely for us.

Looking up away from the seawall this was the view.

It was only then that i noticed what everyone was looking at.  Seals!!  These were on a rock just to the left of this picture on a rock.

Looking back towards the seawall there were lots and lots of seals.

There were all shapes and sizes of seals.  Some were on the beach, some in the water, and others on rocks.

This one seems to be balancing on the rock.

There were even some baby seals.

We loaded up and drove around sightseeing.  That is where we found the surfers.  Too many pictures so they get a blog of their own.