Dallas--6th Floor Museum

On our way back to Katy, we stopped in Dallas and toured the 6th Floor Museum where there are artifacts and videos about the Kennedy assassination. It was very interesting. We got to see the spot where Oswald supposedly shot from, and could see the grassy knoll and street from above.

Texas time with the Hathaways and Bonnemas

Bruce and I finally got to see the Hathaways in their new home in Montgomery. They seem to be doing well in spite of Cindy having to go through chemo again. It was great to visit with them even for a short time.

On the way up north, we stopped to check out the huge statue of Sam Houston near Huntsville.




After that we headed up north of Dallas to see my cousins, Rog and Marcy and second cousins, Arch and Sherry, and 3rd and 4th cousins--Kelly, Covey, Austin, Boone, Tag and Jayden in McKinney Tx. Jacob was off in Botswana, so we missed him.




We had a great time visiting, eating and just hanging out. We went to the ranch to see the horses and other animals.








Rog and Marcy gave us a tour of the Croatian village being built near there home. All the buildings are modeled after those in Croatia, even Starbucks! It was refreshing to see the Biblical aspects incorporated into it. There is a statue of the dove from the ark being sculptured and Bible verses in other areas as well as a wedding chapel already built.

More Texas adventures

After 2 weeks of "Houstonitis" or some type of nasty virus causing coughing, blowing and general tiredness, I have finally started living again. The weather was pretty cold and cloudy during this time, so I didn't miss much.
Amanda, Michael and took advantage of a beautiful sunny afternoon to ride the nearby bike trail. It was wonderful, and even skimming through the puddles that occasionally covered the paths was fun.

Texas time 2

We are still enjoying our time in Texas. The weather has been great--mostly in the 70's! We got to celebrate John's 6th birthday with an ice cream cake and lots of presents.




The next day we went to the Downtown Aquarium where we saw lots of fish and enjoyed the rides outside.



On Friday, Bruce and I got to go to Forbidden Gardens, a Chinese museum with a replication of China's major historical scenes, including the Forbidden City of Bejing. There is a one-third scale model of the entire 6,000 piece terra-cota army which is really impressive. There was a lot of hurricane damage evident, but still quite amazing. Most of it is outdoors, but there are several indoor exhibits and a very informative video.







On Saturday, Amanda had to work but the rest of us went to the boys' Pinewood Derby. No trophies this year, but had a good time anyway. Bruce got to help Michael with his car.






Our trailer's leak has been fixed and so we're all set to go when we want to.

Texas time

We are now in the big state of Texas and finally enjoying some warm weather. The first week was very cold but we now have nice warm weather--in the high 50's! It's supposed to rain this weekend and then warm up again.
The boys are enjoying our company and we're enjoying them. John (5) likes me to go hunting for invisible bad guys, and read stories at bed time. Michael (11) just likes hanging out.
Bruce has had an opportunity to play his clarinet with a Jazz group on Wednesday nights. He enjoys being the "new kid on the block".
Amanda and I have taken the dogs to the Millie Bush dog park and went for a walk in the downtown Houston Arboretum. It was very nice and lots of interesting plants and birds. The most exciting thing we saw was an armadillo which did not pose well for us, but we tried to get a few good shots.
We visited a huge Baptist church which was very nice. Everything really is bigger in Texas!

Alabama adventures

December 5

We arrived in Alabama Monday afternoon and got set up. We got to spend a lot of time with the 4 grand kids here, even got to deal with pink eye outbreak! Only 2 of them got it and not very bad. We got to watch the kids a lot while their parents worked and were reminded of how exhausting parenting can be!

It was fun to listen to Alex (7) read and hear his southern accent, especially when playing "Ah spah with mah li'l ah". We got to cheer Kimberly (6) as she learned to do cart wheels and head stands, Madison's (4) desire to clean up with a dust broom and dustpan, and watch Tiffany (3) literally dance her pants off. She had Grandpa wrapped around her little finger with her cute antics, and we got to celebrate her third birthday, which is always a lot of fun. She got a lot of cool presents, some of which their dog chewed up, but most survived.

Since the kids were off from school most of the time, we got to spend a lot of time with them.




Some of our adventures were a trip to the Clarkson Covered Bridge--one of the longest in Alabama.

There was a civil war fought there, but it seems like there was a battle almost everywhere in AL.






Another trip was to the Civil War Museum which had a lot of artifacts from the Civil War. We weren't able to do the out door tour because of the weather, but it was very interesting anyway.





We also visited the Natural Bridge of Alabama which also has the Indian Stone Head.


It's a really nice walk through woods and rocky places, streams and waterfalls pouring down the sides. We had a picnic at the end of our walk and didn't loose one child in the water.



Another highlight was a wonderful Mt. Olive Baptist Church we attended right down the road. It was very old fashioned--wooden pews held together with brads, plain wooden floors, all old time hymns sung without accompaniment due to having no piano player. The sermons were down-home earthy and very enjoyable, even if Bruce had a hard time with the improper grammar. We attended a Christmas pot luck and had communion with them. They went out of their way to make us feel welcome and we truly enjoyed worshipping with them.

We got to welcome in the new year with Jeremy and Jennifer and went out to a nice restaurant for steaks.

We had only a couple nice days of weather, lots of wind and rain and finally very cold as time passed.

At last it was time to move on. Kimberly didn't want us to leave. "Whose going to bake cookies for us when ours are all gone?" she asked.

January 3 we headed off to Texas after a last minute birthday party in my honor.

Alabama bound

December 7
Today we leave for Alabama to see the first set of grandkids. This blog may be updated less frequently due to all the attention needed for the 4 little "Bamers".