Bowker Girls Visit

Everyone here looks forward to Rita's visits once or twice a year. She comes down to spend a week with us, show off our grandchild, Alexi, swim in the pool and eat at good restaurants. That little girl has boundless energy. here she is bounding on a big Bouncy Ball that she has. It converts her to a Kangaroo and she is all over the house with it.

One of the things i enjoy most is Alexi's hair in the morning. She has a habit of twirling her hair with one of her fingers as she falls asleep each night. What results in the morning is a TANGLE resembling a beehive hairdo from the fifties. It's always a hassle untangling it and she is not the happy camper during morning UNTANGLING. Luckily, Rita is now expert at it therefore it is not as painful as if someone less skilled were to do it..

Imagination is great. I gained fifteen pounds last week from the many tea parties, pizza and cupcakes I ate (oh wait.... they were all plastic).

On friday July 6th, The marino and bowker clan all drove the two hours down to crystal city to celebrate Lucy's mother's birthday. She was 39.

Great Grandpa esquivel is wowing my college educated progency with a talking mechanical parrot. it repeats whatever you say to it or any noise it hears back to you within seconds of hearing it. Very AMUSING. Let's have another beer and talk to the parrott

I have a photo somewhere of Rita at this age with the EXACT same open mouthed, waxing eloquent to anyone within hearing distance expression. The difference between that photo and this one is that Alexi has mexican food surrounding her and Rita was holding a Crepe in Paris. I hope I can find that photo and publish it. Uncanny resemblance.

here's the Pride of the marino family, little Lenny. this guy is so smart i know he'll be a millionaire like Bill Gates when he grows up. I hope he doesn't forget his Grandpa when he is rolling in dough.

My daugher is a true gourmet. She's eaten in some of the best restaurants in the world. She knows good food when she sees (and eats it).

Four generations of the Women of our family. there are some strong, beautiful and intelligent women in this photo

Miguelito's restaurant in Crystal city. They have a very eclectic motif in the decoration of the place. Her you see a statue of a small boy standing next to one of the Mexican customers.

Birthday cakes for the 39th birthday. Grandma Lucy had three birthday parties and told us today she never wants to see another cake - she ate too much.

it has been raining cats and dogs in texas for the past three weeks. this is the river that passes through crystal city, the Nueces. It was flowing strong this day. We tossed in a pedestrian and he was gone before we could count to three

Father's Day in South Texas

Father's day was wonderful. We invited the new Marino's, My son Lenny and his family, to dine with us at Ruth Chris steakhouse. The food was great and gifts were exchanged. I got a years membership in a Gym from My son and his wife, Brandi AND a really classy barbeque utensil set, complete with a giant cooking mitt, suitable for handling molten lava without burning yourself.

While Ruth Chris is a pricey place to have a steak, particularly with five people, a wonderful thing happened the next day. I got a call on my cell phone and had won their "gift basket". They had signs up around the restaurant that they were giving everyone who ate there on father's day, a chance at winning a raffle style gift basket as a special promotion for father's day. I thought it was a sales call when it came and almost hung up on the girl. I didn't even notice or know about the raffle.

The value of goodies was over $800 and included two bottles of expensive wine, a gift certificate for dinner at the restaurant up to $150, an expensive pen set, a ton of golf stuff, two wine glasses, a container of breath mints (was that a hint), and a wine cork remover. All in all a pretty lucky day.

We decided to also take a beach trip to South Padre Island, we've never been there before. We booked a two bedroom suite at the Radisson Beach Resort. The room was nice and the view was excellent. We decided to take this trip despite the fact that it had been pouring down rain for several days (that and the fact that the resort required a non refundable pre-payment) convinced me to go even though we were worried about a "cloud burn".
Lenny, brandi and little lenny were all tricked out with new gadgets - they'd recently been rewarded with some extra cash and, like myself, love electronics and gadgets They had an incredible new GPS navigation system mounted on their Jeep dashboard. Here it is arrriving in IFR (instrument flight rules) conditions in the rain at the Raddisson.
The balcony was two floors above the roof and provided a very nice view of the pools and beach in the distance. Lenny and Brandi are fairly expert in the beaches of texas and volunteered that there are only a FEW sharks in this area. Jellyfish were what to look out for. There was an aquarium that has a nature walk allowing you to visit the alligators roaming free near the power plant. Everyone was driving on the beach (further down on the undeveloped part of the island. Most people are unaware of the serious damage salt water can do if you drive in it - but then they'll find out soon enough. We opted NOT to drive on the beach, personally, but were treated to some great views of the Sand Dunes.I'm taking a photo of my grandson taking a photo of me.

South Padre island is an interesting anomaly. It has a beautiful beach, but the commercial build up is unlike what I'm accustomed to, having grown up in Miami and lived in Hawaii. It is kind of developed like you would find in a small town. Lots of inexpensive stores and restaurants catering to the unwashed masses. We decided to leave after the first night and the Marino's stayed on for another night and day. We had a large quantity of unfinished business in preparation for Rita's visit and our pool repair, so we needed to be here in time to get ready for that. Lenny called us the day after we left to announce that the sun was out and all was well - it happened ONLY after we'd left.

As we were leaving South Padre Island we came across a dramatic statue by the side of the road hyping some sort of commercial business. It was visually quite a site and appeared to be doing it's job. Everyone was stopping to look at it.