Tag: Family

Best Photos of 2025

Well, this is photography blog, as well as other things. And I have been a bit absent minded when it comes to posting. So here are my favorite photos of 2025. Happy New Year.

We took Joey down to Galveston for New Year’s.

Kitchen Sunrise.

Celebrating our 10th Wedding Anniversary in Memphis, with some friends.

North Fork Holston River — Virginia.

Our granddaughter.

Our sleepy grandson.

Celebrating my 64th birthday at Tricky Fish in Fort Worth.

The LAST pair of Birthday Tecovas we will ever buy. See my previous post. AS a follow up, I did get my first pair resoled and the man who did it said I should buy Lucchesse next time.

Joey’s 18th birthday!

Joey’s graduation. I’m proud of him.

Our first visit to downtown Knoxville, with the rain shower option.

We found a quaint loft in downtown Knoxville.

Completely relaxed.

Picked up the boys for a drive over to Rockwall for some burgers and ice cream

One of the perks of my job: field trips to the petting zoo at the fair.

The absolute best breakfast of the year!

Ducking out of the wind, trying to enjoy the beach.

The best part of Galveston.

The best sunrise of 2025.

The best gift of Christmas.

Heidi and I found a great barbecue restaurant in Lebanon, TN. It was our last meal together before I flew back to Texas, in order to preach last Sunday. Alas, I was too sick to preach and slept all day. Heidi stayed in Tennessee with our daughter and grand children. We all ended the year under the weather.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons 2025. 

Destination: Boyd’s Jig & Reel

Driving across Tennessee in mid June, Heidi and I decided we wanted to find a place that had live music, away from the typical live-music venues. She found a pub in Knoxville: Boyd’s Jig & Reel. They had a Bluegrass jam session. I’ve never sat and listened to live Bluegrass before, so it sounded exciting.

And the night was exciting.

When we got downtown, we found a parking lot a block away from the pub and started figuring out how much money we needed to pay to be in the lot.

The cloud in the following picture loomed over us.

Before we could figure out the cost, the cloud let loose. It was what I call a “gully washer.” Everything was immediately soaked, and had we not hopped back in the car, we would have been as well.

Heidi asked: “do you want to skip it?”

“No way. We’re here! Let’s go.” I wasn’t going to let a gully washer get in the way of live music, and good food.

I got her poncho out of the back of the car and about that time, the gully washer was done. We were still wet, but it didn’t matter. We headed up the street in search of the pub.

We made it just fine. The crowd was light, the music was pretty good, and the fish ‘n chips were decent.

The only drawback was that I was freezing the entire time. The AC in the place was working fine. No complaints. It was worth it.

All photos copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2025.

New Year’s Eve at the Beach

After enjoying Christmas down in Galveston, we decided to go back for New Year’s. This time, we had Joseph with us and managed one good day on the beach. It was actually too cold and windy on New Year’s Day.

The above photo was replicating the photos Heidi and I took on Christmas Eve. This one below, is our first attempt, when Joseph was trying to keep his shoes dry.

Heidi says it looked like a body was lying there.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2025. 

 

Standing on the Seawall

How many thousands upon thousands of people have strolled along the Galveston Seawall since it was first constructed in 1902 is hard to imagine. We would probably be surprised at the numbers, or the celebrities, or even villains who have strolled along the wall, looking out over the sand and the sea.

But for me, walking with Heidi was a moment that I desired for a long time. I wanted to stand there, look out over the sea with her, just as my grandfather had once done with my grandmother. And perhaps, as my father had done with my mother. The sea wall, the soft sand, the pitiful waves, are part of my family history. Not a huge part, but a part nonetheless.

We stood, looking over the pitiful waves, feeling the wind on our faces, watching the sun set. It was a moment, where history came together, along with the love the LORD had given us. Words fail me…

 

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2024. 

Gaido’s in Galveston

I was almost like a kid last week as we crossed over the bridge in I-45 driving into Galveston. We were getting there before our check-in time at a VRBO down close to the Strand, and Heidi suggested we head on to Gaido’s for an early dinner. It had been almost 50 years since my last visit there, back in the late 1970s. My family often spent weekends in Galveston while living in Houston, either to go spend time on my father’s boats or to stay at my mother’s beach house out at Jamaica Beach.

I wanted to take Heidi so that we could enjoy the restaurant together. We certainly did, because it is an old-style restaurant with white table clothes, carpet, and no loud music. It had music, but throwback music to the 1940s or maybe 1950s jazz.

AS you can see, it has a wonderful set up, like something from the 1960s or before. Restaurants likes Gaido’s use  to be the norm, but so many of them have opted for the Spaghetti Warehouse model, concrete, wide-open spaces, with loud music, so that if you want to have a conversation, you have to yell to be heard.

We started our dinner with a plate of oysters. Since it was November, that is an acceptable month of oysters. You never order them in May, June, or July, only in months that have an ‘R’ in the name.

Our oysters were covered with a hollandaise sauce that has bacon bits and green onions mixed in for extra flavor. Delicious.

Heidi had one of the specials of the day, blacked snapper, which just melted in our mouths. Yes, she let me have a bite.

I opted for a combo plate with charbroiled snapper, fried shrimp, and scallops. As usual, hers was better, but mine was still excellent.

Did I mention the bread the brought with our appetizer? It too, was extremely delicious. By the time we finished, I think our waitress (yes, that is the gender proper form), knew better than to offer us dessert. We were stuffed.

Another neat aspect of Gaido’s is that they are also part museum since they have been there so long.

This is one of my favorite pictures, the construction of the sea wall from the early 1900s. The only problem with the sea wall is that it doesn’t circumnavigate the city. Otherwise, it was a great idea.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2024. 

Parallel Parking

Joey is working toward getting his driver’s license, so while he was here, we would go out driving, to give him more lessons and experience. Like everyone who goes through this, the greatest challenge was that of parallel parking. It strikes terror into the hearts of minds of driver’s everywhere.

The same was true for Joey. But we did it. I talked him through it.

Afterward, he swore off driving for the rest of his life (just kidding). Take a look. He did a pretty good job.

(SPECIAL thanks go to the good people of McGregor, TX, who put up with us while trying to parallel park on the Main Street through town.)

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2024.

Graduation: Timothy Andrew Hammons, Wills Point High School 2024

I can’t express how proud I am of my oldest son Andrew and his recent graduation from Wills Point High School. He not only graduated with honors, but also as a member of the National Honor Society. I’m not sure if those always go together. It seemed like there were those graduating with honors who were not members of the National Honor Society. But he was.

It has been a real joy to realize how much he has overcome in his 12 years of schooling. When he started in kindergarten, at a classical Christian Academy, I discovered that he was dyslexic, and I was told he would never be able to read, or go to college. He reads fine. He thinks clearly. He applied to a college, and got accepted with a boat load of scholarships. I guess those prognosticators in that classical Christian academy were wrong.  I won’t name the academy, but you can probably guess from the pics below.

Now, it isn’t just his academic achievements that give me reason to be proud of him. In the past three months, he actually bought a used Mazda RX8. He knew that it needed some work on it, but he didn’t know the extent of it. Well, turns out, it needed a new engine. As he said, with a rotary engine, it runs on a Dorito chip, or a cylinder shaped like a Dorito chip inside the engine. All three points of the Dorito chip were broken, which meant: it needed a new engine.

This didn’t stop him. After a short lamentation for the situation, he and the man helping him, went to work finding another engine and rebuilding it. He got it running, got the inspection and tags, and came to visit me earlier in the week. See pics below.

One other thing, he got his first job. He is now making enough money to fill up the tank of his RX8, which he says, only gets about 18 mpg. Not what you would expect, but I guess there is a price to pay for being sporty.

The following are the earliest pictures I could find of him as a student at Augustine Christian Academy in Jackson, Tennessee. Well, I guess I did name it after all.

A few pictures of Andy and the rebuilt Mazda RX8.

I didn’t get the chance to take him out after the graduation, so we went this week to Southern Roots Brewing Company. It’s the same place the guys from the church went for fellowship one night, and I was able to determine that it has some of the best pizza in town.

I couldn’t leave out Joseph.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2024. 

In Memory of Birthday Girl

It’s hard for me to remember a time when Birthday Girl wasn’t the resident queen of the pasture at the family ranch. I know there was a time when Custer was the king, but he was never as gentle, and loving as Birthday Girl.

My sister informed us of her passing today. She was almost 32 years old. Most of the following pictures were taken back in 2013. We will all miss her.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons 2024. 

Health Camp Waco

Picked up Joey around 6:30 p.m. on Friday night and headed back down south to Health Camp here in Waco. It’s a burger place that has been around since 1948. They have the best malts, shakes, and burgers around. It’s a legend.

By the time we got there, so did everyone else. We waited in line for about 25 minutes, just to place our order. It was worth it.


All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2024.

 

 

 

 

A Facebook Reminder

A Facebook reminder just let me know that it was 9 years ago that I proposed to Heidi Ann. She said yes.

The LORD is always good, and showed us kindness in bringing us together. The following was taken this past Christmas while we were visiting my sister and brother in-law.

 

 

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2024.

 

Pericope and Synecdoche

The moment that Heidi mentioned getting a cat, in early October, I made sure to be affirming in that desire. We’ve been through this before and she would come to her senses about all the upkeep, and food, and upkeep, and more food.

Then she mentioned that the cats she wanted were actually sisters. It was then that I began to realize that this was no fleeting desire on her part. There were two cats that were indeed sisters that were in need of a good home and … well, apparently, we are the ones with the “good home.”

I think those words are used loosely among those trying to find any home for cats. There was no Cat Placement Agency to come by the house to make sure we have enough fire extinguishers, or … running water. They just said that if it didn’t work out in two months time, we could take the cats back.

That’s why I said “yes.” After all, if they didn’t work out, we could take them back. No problem… give it a whirl.

Give it a whirl? Who was I kidding.

Allow me to introduce to you: Pericope and Synecdoche.

OUR cats!!!