Roadtrip, Interview, and Family History

I made the trip down to Houston recently to rescue my kids from their imprisonment. I also took my mom along. She wanted to visit her sister, my Aunt Betty. All in all, it was a great trip. We spent quality time with my aunt, visited the Houston Zoo, ate some fine seafood at an established seafood restaurant near the San Jacinto Monument, and got to visit with one of my brothers on both legs of the journey.

While we were there in Deer Park at my aunt's house, I took lots of pictures of the photos and family memorabilia in her house. I also conducted the first (of many.....hopefully) sit down interview with one of the elders of our family. It yielded some surprising results and fun facts that I would never have heard otherwise.

This trip and some of the activities we enjoyed on it, are exactly the kinds of things of which this blog was started for, to highlight and document these things and the people from our past. This journey I am on, helping my mother and trying to ensure that she enjoys as much of her life as she can from here out, took a huge step forward on this last trip. We are already planning the next trip and trying to include more people.

Some of the more interesting facts I learned from the interview include:

My mom's cousin, Al, introduced her to my dad and Aunt Betty to my Uncle Rob.

My mom's dad was the youngest of eleven siblings, nine boys and two girls.

My great grandfather Unger lived to be 101 years old and was THE Paul Bunyan's best friend (and here I thought he and his ox, Blue, were a myth) and he played a mean violin.

Last order of business:

Top photo - my son, Aunt Betty, Mom and my daughter

Second photo - My mom is standing and Betty is to her left, the other two are Aunt Bonnie and Aunt Bea

Third photo - My mom with the baby, Betty on the far left, Aunt Bonnie and Aunt Bea, and Aunt Bridgette is the baby. No idea of the dog's name.....yet.

Fourth photo - me and the kids for fun at a county line next to the Brazos River

Last Photo - Grandma Agnes, Aunt Betty and my cousin Evie

Tues....wait....Wednesday Caption Contest

It's Tuesday again!!! Because it is my favorite day, we will run another caption contest. This will be the ninth installment of the Tuesday Caption Contest.

A quick review of the rules.


1. Entries must be posted by Saturday evening, 11:59pm.
2. Entries must be no longer than one sentence if it is a regular caption contest. If it is a mutated caption contest, then I am looking for no more than a thousand words, and poems of any form will get extra consideration.
3. I am the sole judge of who wins each week, but may give special recognition/prizes to unusual entries.
4. One entry per contest per person.
So without any further delay, the new photo is up top. Have fun and good luck.

Caption Contest Winner news and rugby zulus

The last Caption Contest went pretty well. I had a lot of responses concerning the four interesting photos I threw up for you all to use to give me a new nickname. There was a lot of speculation as to which person I was in two of the photos, and that would make a huge difference as to the nickname with which you adorned me. Having identified myself in each of the four photos, after the deadline for entry submissions, I love the responses to each of the photos. Some of the suggestions were Cuppy, Pidasstrian, Stu-Pid-Ass (twice) and Stewey.


My choice of awarding this weeks prize goes to Drama Mama for her submission of Stewey. I will therefore add Stewey to the long list of other names people have and still do call me. Drama Mama joins, Angie, Wendy, myself and Melissa in the past winners circle. I do want to give an honorable mention to Jennifer P., who coined the name Cupsy for me. Any of you that saw the third photo of me in that post can understand. As unpleasant as it may sound considering, it too would be one that I would wear with pride. I will take into account any input the past winners want to give for future selections of the top honor for any of the future Caption Contests, I know who you are so just leave any suggestions in the comments. I want to thank all who have stopped by to play or even just to give some comment love. Keep coming back and, please, spread the word; the more playing the better. And as a parting gift I give to you a picture of the rugby tradition called "zuluing"! But if Becky's Top Ten List came with a picture of all her top ten choices zuluing, you girls would probably never leave her site!! And I laugh that some of the guys are still wearing their cleats. Drama Mama please leave a list of three CDs and an address to mail one of them. You can leave it in the comments or email it to me, your choice. Look tonight for today's new Caption Contest photo!! God Bless!

Opening up.....Part 2

So, I talked a little bit about my nicknames, my inner fear of exposing my information (not myself, apparently), and my lovely sister. Now let's talk about the rest of my family in relation to those four photos I posted.

In the first photo, it was obvious which one I was, in between my sister and my mother.

In the second photo, again, it is easy to tell which one I am. The others are my son (in my lap), my daughter (beside me) and a girlfriend with her two boys. She has her own story which I may get to some day, but for now suffice it to say that her chapter is written, done, over with, finis, kaput, through. She will always have a place in my heart, but that is all she will have.

The third photo was taken after a rugby game, before I was married (I think, I'll have to confirm that later though). As incredibly embarrassing as that photo is for me to show to other people, it is dead on as to how my personality can be ultra-uninhibited. While all others are looking at the camera, I am intent on....well....you can see for yourself. It is one of those things that remind me to be true to myself. I am no pervert, but I am fun loving, open-minded, adventurous, and a carefree spirit.

The last photo is the one that I want to identify for all of you. It was our family Xmas photo from 197...something, I am not sure. Just look at my mom's hair-do and that will give you an idea of how old it really is. I am one of eight sons and nine children all together (not including the few extras who moved in with us over the years). We are Irish Catholic. My siblings, by initials, in order (and location) are: HGW-IV (left back row), MEW (right back row), PFW (middle back row), DRW (right kneeling), KMW (left kneeling), KMW (middle kneeling), WHW (seated left), GEW (me, seated middle) and KAW (seated right). There is a 15 year spread amongst us. I turned forty this year and my only younger brother is thirty-seven, which would make my oldest brother fifty-two this year. We have blessed my parents with ten grandchildren. One, who I will post about later, is kind of estranged from us by our lovely court system here in America. She turns eighteen this year and is a senior in high school, so the laws which prevent my brother from contacting her are about to lapse. We will be mass communicating with her at that point. We all so miss her and want her to know she has a whole mess of aunts, uncles and cousins that are just crazy to meet her.

So now you know who I am a little bit more, and I hope you can forgive me for being overly cautious on my hording of personal info, but I will come out of my shell and share all of my dirty little secrets (well maybe not all of them). So until then, adieu.

Mutated Caption Contest

That's right kids; Tuesday IS my favorite day. That means Caption Contest time (and the crowd goes wild). This week I am going to try something different. The photo for the contest is from my personal collection. I took this during a road trip in the northern extremity of Texas. My son and I took my mother to the north. We were going to see my sister, but she and my favorite brother-in-law had high-tailed it to Mexico for the week. We found her teenagers hanging out at the house SOLO!! No big dealio though, they are smart good kids who seem to keep their noses clean. The Son had a blast with the cousins, I got some writing done and some photos taken, while Mom got to relax and spend time with the grandkids. Those two cousins were a good influence on The Son, he learned the inner workings of a potato cannon and a hover craft. He is now in full blown engineer mode, downloading stuff to build exciting new toys.

Instead of a caption, per se, I want all entries to be your own written thoughts on this particular photo. I will post mine next Monday and I will award a prize to the author I deem to have the best submission. They say a picture is worth a lot of words, so let's see what some of those words are. Good Luck and enjoy your time composing.