| This year marks our 6th annual trip to Port Aransas aka “Port A”. Port A is my favorite Texas beach town that is located about 4 hours away from Houston just north of Corpus Christi. Over the years the weekend has fluctuated between Memorial Day,4th of July and Labor Day but after this year we have decided on Labor Day from here on out. Every year the group grows and this year was no exception. This year’s crew included:Me,Brian,Mariam,Jennifer,Jessica,Stephen,Nini,Indy,Kai and Ronin and on Saturday Tina,Pat,Patrick and Kayla joined. We rented a 5 bedroom house in Sandpoint Circle that is within walking distance to the beach and spent 2 perfect days on the beach,cooked out and patrolled our favorite nighttime spots including The Salty Dog and Bernies.  Shark Attack in Port A  Port A Beach In May of this year we went to Australia. This was an amazing trip and is one of the many places that we’ve visited that I could see myself living. It took us around 24 hours of flight time,and was completely worth it, to get to Melbourne which the locals pronounce as “Melbun”. We spend 3 nights there which included a side trip to the Great Ocean Road to see the Twelve Apostles. You can’t go to Australia with out visiting the Outback so we went to “The Red Center”for 2 nights and saw 2 sunsets and 2 sunrises over Uluru and Kata Tjuta. One of the best experiences was the Sounds of Silence dinner where we had champagne and watched the sunset then had dinner in the middle of the Outback do some star gazing including seeing the Southern Cross. Next on the list was The Great Barrier Reef for some scuba diving. We arrived in Cairns, pronounced “Cans”,and spent 1 near the marina and then headed to the dive boat for another night - The Reef Encounter. We did 5 dives including on night dive which was my first. The night dive did not really do it for me so I’m not sure if I’ll do another one. The coral formations were AMAZING and everything you could hope for. We saved the best for last –Sydney!! I could spend hours sitting at the harbor overlooking the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. While we were in Sydney they were having a festival call Vivid Sydney were there were over 40 light up exhibits which included lights being projected on the Opera House which is the only time of the year that it’s not white. If you have a chance to go I highly recommend it! Too see more pictures click on Elizabeth’s Picasa Web under photography.  The Twelve Apostles  - Sydney Harbor
 - Uluru
For Alison’s last weekend in Houston before moving to Orlando she got a group together for a night of “creativity”. We went to the Mad Potter where you pick out a ceramic piece and then paint it. I don’t consider myself very creative when it comes to this kind of stuff but I gave it my best shot and painted a “sushi bowl”. After painting we headed to Indian food at Indika which was tasty as always. Alison,Z and Little Luka we are going to miss you. Here’s a few pictures from the night: 
Who can resist a weekend at a “beach cabin”? Torres was nice and daring enough to invite 11 of us to her parent’s “beach cabin”on Boliver Island. Boliver is about 2 hours from Houston and a ferry ride away from Galveston. Boliver was hit pretty hard by hurricane Ike in 2008 and many houses were completely destroyed but luckily the Torres “beach cabin” remained standing. When we arrived to the cabin we were greeted by some very “friendly”guests…mosquitos!!! If someone would have had a video of me,Brian and Mariam getting out of the car they would have won a funniest video contest. Within 30 seconds of getting out of the car we were swarmed by hundreds of mosquitos which we proceeded to swat at while digging for Off in our bags . July has been a very rainy month and perfect for the little buggers. Luckily they did not follow us to the beach. We had a constant smell of off and sun block…great mixture! Once everyone got there we headed to the beach for some sun,swimming and games. We played bocce,ladders,tossed the football then decided to play “touch”football. Ofcourse the idea of touch football came after several glasses of Jerry Lewis’s,beers,white wine and vodka. So we picked teams and let the fun rip. Needless to say we ended up with:a bruised tailbone,bit tongue,one less toenail,several strawberries included 2 on a face. We learned to never play “touch football”without a first aid kit around…for the adults!  
Late last week my best friend since junior high school Dana and her husband Glen came to visit. We actually calculated that we’ve been friends since I was 12 and she was 11 and we’ve both known Glen since we were 14. On Thursday night we went to dinner at Shade in The Heights www.shadeheights.comwhich is always good but this time I had one of the best dishes I’ve had there (the scallops). After dinner we went to see Wicked which was Glen’s birthday present to Dana. The show was very good and it really beat my expectations regarding the storyline and in the comedy that was incorporated into it and if you get a chance to go see it I highly suggest it. After the show we went to The Dark Horse Tavern for some darts and around 1000 beers then went home and Glen and Brian made eggs and hashbrowns and then we finished off the night with Rock Band. Friday we ate lunch at Someburger which we’ve never been to then went bowling and then went to Lupe Tortilla for dinner to have the best beef fajitas ever! It was a great visit with great friends! For the 4th of July weekend we joined our friends Tim and Kelli and many others in Leakey,Texas for the July Jubilee. This was our first trip to Leakey and I’m sure it will not be our last. Kelli is from Leakey and still has family there who have an amazing piece of property on the Frio. We’ve had a very wet past few weeks and we were not going to let a little (ok a lot) of rain stop us. We took chairs to the river and sat under the “tallest tree in the land”for hours and watched folks jump off of the ”cliff”into the water which was hours of entertainment. Sterling decided to do his signature jump off of the cliff called the Parachute but it was quickly referred to as the “Bear Hug”which you can see below and see what you think. There was also a kid name Charlie who was about 11 who was not so sure about jumping off and everyone started chanting “Charlie,Charlie,Charlie”until he jumped so for the rest of the weekend whenever we wanted someone to do something we would chant “Charlie,Charlie,Charlie”….ahh good times! The weather did let up enough on Sunday for us to float the Frio River and then head back to the swimming hole for some more jumping and hanging out. We thank Bobby for introducing us to the “Jigger Trigger”aka ”Old Faithful” which is a portable and river friendly shot maker. You squeeze it and then take the shot from the shot glass on top:www.squeezeashot.com to see it. Don’t worry I’ve already emailed them for one  
 - The Parachute aka The Bear Hug
Over Memorial Day weekend the Thompson Clan headed to Charleston,South Carolina for a long weekend and very appropriately to a city very rich in history. Every Memorial Day weekend we try to get everyone together somewhere new to visit and spend time together. In the past we’ve gone to Niagara Falls,Savannah,and Orlando. On Memorial day we visited the Fort Sumter National Monument which you have to take a boat to and as you approach it the fort seems surprisingly small. We took a horse drawn carriage tour of the city where we learned a little bit more about the city and about a very unique feature of most of the houses…the piazza. A piazza is a covered,usually screened in, porch that is attached to the side of a home that is used for more living and entertaining space. Charleston was a great town and a fun place to spend a weekend with lots of stuff to do. Thanks to the Thompson Clan for another great Memorial Day trip! Here are a few of the pictures and to see more click on my picasa web link to the left under photography.  Carriage Tour  Broad Street  Elizabeth and Brian  Sandra,Max and Mike  Dave,Riley and Christiana  - Happy Birthday Nona!
In April a group of us (E,Brian,Mariam,Scott,Mandy,Marion,Mark,Jessica,Stephen and Mike) attended the Houston Heights Candlelight Dinner and Auction where we “won”a custom home portrait by Melinda Patrick. I was so excited we “won”because this was by far my favorite piece donated to the auction. Last week we received the final painting and it’s perfect. To see more info about Melinda visit her website http://www.melindapatrick.com/ Below is the picture of the house and the painting:  Home Picture  Home Portrait |
