Coltwood Facelift

We finally settled with Uncle Sam over some taxes so I promptly decided to spend it on a couple of long awaited house projects: downstairs painting and replacing carpet and tile a new laminate floor. My good husband probably would have preferred it in the bank, bless his heart. So here was the process, in order, I hope. Many thank to my wonderful friends who gave advise and put up with my moaning and groaning over paint color for several weeks. The one picture is not blurry, that is dust in the air. I am so glad it is over with and everything is clean again; I love the results. If you need the name of a good painter, give me a call; I was very pleased with their work.

Baby Blessing

Finally! Pictures of Miss Kathryn Jean's baby blessing. It was a windy day; please ignore bad hair and blowing clothes. Many thanks to Mary's friend Celeste for the pictures.
Mary, Kathryn and the very talented dress maker Cheryl.


















Stuart's oldest brother Cody, daughter Sarah with Kathryn



















Cousins.

Happy Birthday!

November is birthday month for all the animals in our house.
Rio, my still energetic walking partner, great watchdog and faithful companion turns 7 years old.
While my fluff ball kittens are now grown up cats. They are still pretty playful and very affectionate. Both of them are into everything, Gus especially - do not ask me how he got inside there.
I know understand the saying, "curiosity killed the cat". He had to "help" the dryer repairmen and I wasn't fast enough to grab my camera as they "checked the work" of the piano movers.
They lead a hard life! LOL!

Elder Woodward update

Alex continues to love his mission; do you think we'll be able to get him to come home in a little over 6 months? Wow! Time is flying!
He is still in the Antelope area, which is a northern suburb of Sacramento. It is amusing to sometimes think that he is currently serving within 20 miles of the hospital where he was born and a 45 minute drive from where he lived until he was 15 years old. Hey, Vintage Park Ward friends, does that staircase look familiar? As I said before, one of his current buildings is a twin to the building we attended for years in South Sacramento.
As with most missionaries, he is doing lots of service for anyone - members, non-members, investigators, inactives, you name it. This is a part of one of his letters last month:
Saturday was a day of Service. We started at 9 in the morning by helping Sis. G put up a new back fence. It was really fun (at this point Elder Gardner (his companion has a hurt foot) had the boot so he couldnt do much other then sit in a chair and supervise, and I enjoyed working with some of the good fun Ward members to put it up. At first we didnt have a nail gun so we did the first dozen or so slats "Amish Style" (hammer and nails) as Bro. T. put it. I was working with Brother Chad B, the Sunday School President, and we were the main slat attaching team. I gave him his nails, dug out a trench for the boards to all fit even, and we talked and joked the whole time. After the first dozen though we got a nail gun. The funny thing is that it wouldn't shoot a nail everytime, sometimes it'd only shoot air. So Sis. G's fence has quite a few extra spots in it (they don't go all the way through) due to the compressed air gun being so strong lol. After we finished with that we headed over to Sis. A.'s because she was being evicted from her home. She was moving up North to Redding with her daughter and son-in-law. It was an interesting move because she lived ina trailer but had a lot of big heavy things in there. So when we first showed up I realized that we needed a heavy lifting squad (the Elder's Quorum all bailed!!! Bishop H. himself showed up, and us, but no other males from the Ward!!) so I called up Bro. Chad B. The call was kinda funny as it went "Hello?" "Hey Chad, what are you up to? Are you laying down yet?" "Hehehe, yeah, why? What's up?" "You ready for round 2?" "With what?" "Sis. A. has moved and everyone else in the quorum bailed and I need some extra muslce cuz there's not very much stuff but there's some big heavy stuff." Chad agreed and showed up 10 minutes later. It's really cool to see how willing Ward members are to help each other and us, even when called on a Saturday morning after having an already long and strenuous morning. I've decided I want to be a member like that in the future, when I get home.
(names edited and emphasis added). We were thrilled and very proud to hear of his resolve. There are so many reasons Missions are great, and this is one of them.
He recently enjoyed a "sweet" ride in a member's sports car on a P-day and above, a recent baptism.

A Sweet Moment

I remembered I wanted to share a wonderful moment during our holiday in Orlando.
We decided to have breakfast together on our last morning so Roy and I took Scout, Isaak and Gracie in our car on our way to Cracker Barrel. I don't remember who started the impromptu little concert but the kids started to sing the hymn "Praise to the Man". They have all been learning this song for their Primary program this year and it was just so sweet to hear our three oldest grandchildren singing this beloved hymn about our prophet Joseph Smith.
Grandpa with our beloved singers the night before.

Orlando, again.

I know, you're thinking; "wait a minute, wasn't she just there?!" Yes, I was. But this time Grandpa was with me and we had some important family business to attend to and important people to see.

We were excited to be there and privileged to participate in Blessing beautiful baby Kathryn on October 16th in Mary's Ward. What made it extra special was having Becky and her family with us; they were able to coincide their vacation trip to DisneyWorld to join us. Ok, so where are some pictures? Silly me forgot my camera and friends that took some have yet to send them to Mary. As soon as I get them, I will post some. A friend in Mary's Ward crocheted Kathryn an absolutely, amazingly beautiful Blessing gown; I cannot to show ya'll a picture.

Since we had all the grandkids together, I thought it would be a great time to take pictures of them together and with Mee-Maw and Grandpa. Six children: an 8, 5, 4, two 2 year olds and a newborn. Gulp. But Mary was lucky to find an amazing, very patient photographer that I would love to recommend if you are ever in Orlando: Lisa Lyon Photography. We were able to get some good ones, I think and on the whole, the kids were very good. Thank goodness for Mary's package of jellybeans in her purse; it was a

great bribe.

So we spent 5 days there; sometimes together and

sometimes doing our own thing. Very fun! Stuart took Roy fishing and caught the biggest fish! We took Roy to see Blue Springs State Park (Manatee winter home); poor guy still didn't find the

two birds he has been hoping to see

our last couple of trips there.

The kids really enjoyed the pools at our nice Marriott Resort.

The Fowkes's did DisneyWorld for three days; we joined them for a long but very fun day in the Magic Kingdom. Thank goodness for

strong stomach Mary on the Tea Cups! Brave Space Mountain riders (minus the baby and Ellie)

We are blessed with two wonderful son-in-laws that we dearly love but this was just not Gerald's photo trip......

Chattanooga Tennessee

Roy came home and we drove northeast to visit with my sister Marilyn and brother-in-law John in Chattanooga and Roy wanted to do some fishing in Eastern Tennesee.

We had a fun day sight seeing at the Chickamauga Battlefield, which is actually in Georgia.

The battle was the most significant Union defeat in the Western Theatre of the Civil War and

involved the second highest number of casualties in the war following the Battle of Gettysburg.

We also rode the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway to the top of where? Lookout Mountain, of course! LOL! The railway is approximately one mile (1.6 km) in length (single track except for a short two-track stretch at the midway point, allowing operation of two cars at one time), and has a maximum grade of 72.7%. It is billed as the world's steepest passenger railway, a claim that can be disputed. No offense to the good people of Chattanooga or the Incline Railway but we can personally support that claim. We rode a similar small railroad in the Blue Mountains in South Wales, Australia, with the same claim. LOL!

Anyway!

They say on a super clear day, one can supposedly see seven nearby states from the top of Lookout Mt. Can you name them? I also believe The Battle of Lookout Mountain

was a Union victory during the Civil War.

Chattanooga is also home to the "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" from the song: "Pardon Me boys, is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo"...... written in 1941 and performed by Glenn Miller and his orchestra.

Then unfortunately (at least for my sister's car), on our way back to our hotel, we were reminded that life is never to be taken for granted, family is precious and cars can be replaced. In crossing an intersection during rush hour, we were hit on the right side of our car by an on coming car. The Good Lord was watching us for us though and

all involved walked away from it with barely a bruise. After calming down, getting the car towed, police report taken then getting a taxi back to our hotel, we were able to enjoy some great BBQ at Sticky Fingers; the best BBQ I've had outside of our favorite BBQ place right down the street here in Texas.

Roy went fishing the next day on the Hiawasee River, as previously mentioned, and had a good time although as usual, the Woodward curse had followed us. But as they say, any day fishing is better than, well, almost anything.

The next day we headed for Orlando Florida and our family get together there.

Oh, the 7 states you can supposedly see from Lookout Mountain, which is also in Georgia: Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia.