Elissa Baptism

Today Elissa Nicole Boyce was baptised into the Presbyterian Church. The ceremony took place a Grace Presbyterian. Pictures below obviously biased towards the new Godparents - Dave and Barbara. After the service the Boyce's hosted a luncheon party second to none (folks are still trying to finish off the ham!)






The Proud Godparents





















The proud family!











Waiting for baptism

Gasoline Price Update

Pictures for Joanne

zoom of nursing sheep















zoom macro of lizard















Close-up macro of flower

Easter 2006 - The Year of Elissa

Elissa in her Easter best!















Easter Elissa!

Barbara and I spent Easter with her family in Kerrville. On Friday we visited the Johnson Ranch. On Saturday was a sip and see so that the other citizens of Kerrville could visit Elissa.






Barbara and Elissa








Tad and Elissa













Grandpa and Elissa









The siblings and Elissa

Weekend Report

This was excercise weekend - the first weekend of Daylight Savings Time!

Barbara and Joanne did major training for their May triathlon. David got a long bike ride in and essentially tried to make up for a week of no excercise while at ISP's Pt. Neches plant last week taking part in a safety audit. Saturday we biked in Terry Hershey Park - a nice trail along Buffalo Bayou.

Saturday night we had dinner with the Boyces and Elissa. We should have pictures soon to post.

Last weekend was the spring Bayou City Art Festival (and David's 37th birthday - now definitely above the American median age of 36.2.) We purchased two pieces from Metalquilt, that are now hung with two contemporary pieces created by Joanne.

Houston Livestock Show

Elissa's first rodeo - she visits with Mrs. Moo - then, time for sleep

New Patio Furniture

New patio furniture! Aluminum frames that allow you to insert 12" x 12" tile for the surface. We used tile that matches the multicolored slate in our guest bathroom.

Weekend Work Part XXXIIV

First job for the weekend (besides weeding) was installation of a new fan we bought in Kerrville
last weekend. This required also buying a light fixture to replace the fan. The results are pictured below, but me thinks that halogen spotlights will be replacing the new light fixture soon. These pictures do not reflect the awfulness of the bad 1950s light fixture and 1980s fan.

Installing the fan required reinforcing the electric box by Dave becoming one with the insulation. Sweat and celluose insulation don't mix well!!

Gillian Carter Sip & See

Sunday Tiffany, Michelle and Barbara hosted a "Sip & See" for Gillian Carter at Tiffany's house. 30+ friends and family arrived to celebrate the birth of Gillian. Pictures of the cute baby will be posted as soon as I get some (I forgot my camera...)

Weekend Work

This weekend we spent many hours in the backyard on weeding, mulch pile turning, etc. Also removed another 2-tons of cement chunks buried 1-2 foot deep in the SW corner. The first owner of this house had the original patio removed and then buried it along the fence line - miserly exercise?

We also completed the latest improvement to the Kitchen "hood" area. We first removed the non-working vent back in 2003 and installed a fairly ugly looking light to cover the resulting hole. More than 2-years later we finally bought a stainless steel microwave-vent to be installed above the stove. Installation? Not nearly as easy as the purchase, but now complete except for minor touchup to the woodwork.















Kitchen "Hood" 10/25/2003-----------------------> Kitchen Hood 10/26/2003















Kitchen Hood 3/1/2006---------------------------->Kitchen Hood 3/5/2006

Austin Trip No. 2

We went back to Austin for the 2nd time in two weekends for Lauren's 50th birthday party.

Friday night we caught the Asylum Street Spankers DVD release party at Ruta Maya's Coffee House in the new Penn Field development. Barbara had never seen them before, or as Greg put it "Barbara had never had to see them before." The concert was great, and Barbara enjoyed it too!

Saturday we ate and shopped on South Congress. The Great Outdoors nursery was quite a discovery. We then walked and drove around the Travis Heights neighborhood.

After working out at the Downtown "Y" on this gloomy Saturday we ate dinner at Opal Divines and then headed to Lauren's house.

Lauren's 50th was quite the event, with many in attendance. It was fun to re-meet folks I had not seen in years.

After the gloomy Saturday, Sunday dawned as an extremely nice day - sunny and 68F. Barbara and I went to McKinney Roughs for the first time and hiked 5.5 miles on the Coyote, Cypress, Pine Ridge and Bobcat trails to explore the site. The nature center led to the following two discoveries for Dave: 1 ) snapping turtles eat ducks and 2) rat snakes climb trees and eat bird eggs. Wow. World view change.

Austin Half-Marathon

6:00am traffic jam trying to get to the starting line of the half-marathon in Austin. The start was delayed 40 minutes. Barbara jogged over a mile to get to the starting line. I saw people still 3/4 of a mile away from the start 10 minutes after it started!

The temperature never got above freezing, see the ice crystals on Barb's hat after she finished. She cut over 16 minutes off her time from the Houston half-marathon!

Gasoline Prices 2006-02-12

Let's have a Beer!

Enough of all these cute baby pictures on other blogs! How about a vintage Baby Dave picture, with original caption by my Babci Pastalaniec.

Gasoline Prices 2005-06

POWER COST $/KWH

Just a quick update (after paying the power bill):

Sunday Barbara ran the Aramco half-marathon. She beat her goal by and is now headed to the Austin half-marathon next month.

After living with a non-openable garage door for a month, we finally had a repairman come out Saturday to look at it. Summary "We can't fix a door this old!" We called Precision, whom he recomended. Two springs, 12 rollers, two drums, two cables, 3 sets of bearings and $750 later our 51 year old door is as good as new and quiet. (ouch!) The door itself was fine, just all the hardware was so out of date that everything that broke had to be replaced in pairs due to different sizes, etc. Our 51 year old springs were replaced with springs that "should" last 20 years and have a 10 year warrenty - compared to an average spring life of 7 years. After 3.5 hours the repair man (when told of the other company's response) said "I thought about running, too."

Texas Longhorns - National Champions!

And Peace now reigns in the Pastalaniec Household - temporarily

Christmas 2005

Christmas was a busy day for the Pastas' as it is for many. We started at the Pasta parents' house down in Clear Lake. They generously invited Dave, Barbara, Ted, Kathleen, and Tadd down for breakfast, present opening, and lunch.









After unwrapping great gifts and sufficiently stuffing ourselves, Ted, Kathleen, Barbara, Dave, and Tadd headed back to D&B's to get ready for dinner. As the guys worked on getting an extra table for the meal out of the garage, Barbara and Kathleen worked on dinner--beef stroganoff, spinach madeline, and stuffing along with many delicious sweets.

Nick, Heather and Elissa joined us to open presents. Dave and Nick reacted like little kids as they unwrapped the light sabers Tadd had gotten for them. Elissa didn't seem to excited about all the activity and Barley enjoyed hiding in the presents under the tree. Dan, Margie, and Joanne joined us for dinner.

Brazos Bend State Park

Barbara, Ted, and Kathleen checked out Brazos Bend State Park today. Dave, unfortunately, had to work. It was a Texas beautiful day, the kind that makes those 90 plus degree days in August worth it. Our original intent was to test out Ted and Kathleen's bird watching skills, but we ended up seeing several other species that make their homes on the ground. We saw armadillos, snakes, and many alligators. Typically, the alligators are hard to find in the winter at the park, but since it was such a nice day, many were out sunning themselves. Fortunately, they were far enough away that we didn't have to make any mad dashes to the car. Our final count was 19 alligators of varying size. We recommend checking out the park. There are several trails and a planetarium which is open on Saturday nights.

2005 Christmas Ale Tasting Party

A fun time was had by all at the Annual Christmas Ale Tasting. We had several out of towners including Denver friends Eric, Anida, and Daniel Wheatley, along with Barbara's brother Tadd and dad Ted.

As in the past, guessing the correct beers proved to be quite a challenge. In the end, Dave identified the most, four out of fifteen, and started the White Elephant gift exchange. A wide variety of interesting, one of a kind gifts were brought. A Freedom Pack, Terrorist playing cards, a Got Beer belt buckle, and a special body "improvement" fund were all up for grabs.














After the gift giving, receiving, and stealing was over, many went outside get some fresh air by the chimnea. At this point, all flammable items were up for grabs. Several candles, bottles, and other objects unfortunate enough to be near the chimnea met an untimely, fiery death.



We hope everyone has a great a time as we did and we look forward to seeing everyone back here next year for the 2006 version.

Merry Christmas everyone!

'Horns going to the Rose Bowl! Dave went to the game with Greg and J.J. We biked from the 'Hood, running the gauntlet of car dealership helium balloons on I-610. We sat in the endzone, 9 rows up. UT-70, CU-03 - and we stopped playing after 2.5 quarters. Our 2nd string QB kept making 3rd downs so we put our 3rd string in. The ceremony for the Big XII trophy was cool, and then a rep from the Rose Bowl made the invitation. The players ran around the stadium high-fiving all the fans. Quite an experience!

Barb and the girls (including a special guest appearance by Beth) spent Sat. at Dickens on the Strand and then seeing the Fantastick's. Sunday was scrapbooking day for them, light hanging for Dave.

Thanksgiving w/o Photos

This year was Thanksgiving and the Boyce family compound with the Carroll's from Nacogdoches. A very peaceful visit. The trip up was great in and of itself as it took 4.5 hours, not 9 like our last visit as refugees from Rita. Kathleen set quite the spread for every meal throughout the weekend.

Friday we met up with Beth and spent the afternoon in Boerne. The first day of Christmas shopping was in full swing and the Boerninians were busy preparing for a nightime snow party. Happy hour was spent at the Dodging Duck Brew Pub.

Saturday we me Beth in Bandera, my first time to spend any time there. We took the long way from Kerrville and the fall colors on display in the Hill Country were great - much more vivid than usual due to an ongoing drought.

After lunch at the Old Spanish Trail Restaurant we went hiking in the Hill Country State Natural Preserve. It has some pretty sharp uphills and downhills that would have been really tough at 10,000 ft., not too bad at 1,500 feet.

After hiking we stopped for a couple of beers at Arkey Blue's Silver Dollar - a great hole-in-the-wall bar in Bandera.

Entertaining signs in Bandera:
-On Law Office door: "No solicitation, except for tamales"
-On repair shop bay door: "No spitting in work area"
-On gun shop door: "Attention gun buyers: do not point guns at clerk!"

Electricity Cost 2000-2005