Back to Vicksburg

Warning: techno geek me cannot get these pictures to line up with the correct picture - but you'll get the idea.
Now you may be wondering - do these people ever stay home?
Well, Memorial Day weekend turned into a four day weekend, so we decided it was a perfect time to return to Vicksburg, MS.
So we headed northeast out of Texas, through beautiful, green Louisiana and once again crossed the mighty Mississippi River.
We enjoyed an unhurried day in the Vicksburg Military Park; the National Cemetery was very moving being so close to Memorial Day.
Every state that fought in that battle and siege has a memorial built around the Park - this is the one for Texas.














It was a little sad to have to find the Confederate soldiers over in the town cemetery. Yes, you can't quite see it, but those are small Stars and Bars flags. Remember where you are.
This time we also had time to visit the USS Cairo Museum on the other side of the Park. It was a Union ironclad gunship that was the first ship sunk by a naval mine in 1862. It was discovered around 1960 and raised in pieces in 1965.
We were able to drive home on the Natchez Trace for about 50 miles. The Natchez Trace is an old indian trail turned into a trader's trail/pathway that ran from Natchez Mississippi to Nashville TN in the north, about 440 miles. It is now a Scenic Highway and a dream to drive - very peaceful; very little traffic and big trucks are forbidden.
You gotta love the food variety in the South!!!

Elder Woodward update

Alex survived the MTC; said he loved the Spirit there and enjoyed learning how to teach as well as playing volleyball during gym time with the missionaries going to Sweden and Estonia. He said it was great to hear all the different languages in the cafeteria. Tie trading on Saturday evenings was a fun activity and he assured me he came away with most of his "good" ties. Elder Woodward arrived in the mission field on May 25th.
President and Sister Pendleton with one of their nine new missionaries!
He is currently serving in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas and his companion/trainer is from Salt Lake City. He is thrilled to be back in California and is enjoying meeting the new Ward members. Elder Allen took him tracting for the first time and Alex reports that most everybody was polite with only one door "forcefully shut" in his face. All his moving experiences and muscle came in handy when they helped an investigator move last Monday. Apparently they have a car and live in a small house behind a member's home.
He mentioned again that any and all snail mail letters or postcards would be greatly appreciated. I'll repeat his address - it comes through the mission office in Sacramento. (Antelope is a northern suburb of Sacramento).

Elder Alexander Sindel Woodward
California Roseville Mission
8583 Watt Ave
Antelope, CA 95843-9117

Visitors

Look who came for a visit!

For those few who may not know, this is our daughter Mary and her children, Gracie and Zachary.
You've heard a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are lots of pics.














At a nearby Mall playground. This is Gracie's new friend Jacob who announced a few minutes later that she was his girlfriend. It was very cute.





























In case you're wondering; Gracie is doing great health wise.

Old Favorites and some new Sights

After we dropped off Alex, we pointed our rental car South to hopefully escape the cold weather, revisit some beautiful country and do some visual family history research.
My mother was born in South Central Utah in the small town of Escalante. Family lore says my grandparents went out there to raise sheep and she was born there in 1914. Maybe they lived in a cabin like this reconstructed one in town built in 1890. After driving there, my admiration for my grandmother has increased 10 fold! Escalante is way in the heck gone out there! We traveled over the Boulder Mountains and through some of the beautiful Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. (Highly recommend seeing both!) We stopped several times as Roy was hoping to see a new bird that lives in that area, the rosy finch, but sadly it wasn't to be.
Escalante is a small town with a population of 818 in the 2000 census. We saw the turn off to the Hole in the Wall that the pioneers traveled 60 miles overland from town down to the Colorado River and then continued on to settle the Bluff area, but didn't think the rental car owners would appreciate that rough road. A great book about these courageous pioneers is Gerald Lund's new book: The Undaunted. I need to re-read it, now that I've seen some of their route.
From there we meandered towards the St. George area, stopping at the Petrified Forest State Park just outside of Escalante where Roy did see a new bird (black-throated gray warbler)! That is a petrified log Roy is sitting on!
This is just outside Bryce National Park. (already been there, done that.)


We stayed with a wonderful fishing buddy of Roy's just East of St. George; thank you Bob! We were able to enjoy his beautiful home and blooming cactus garden. We had a wonderful evening on the patio watching the stars come out in the desert and enjoyed a session in the beautiful old St. George Temple - the first Temple built West of the Mississippi River.
All in all, nice trip to visit friends, see some beautiful country and we really felt good about Alex starting his mission.

Elder Woodward

On May 5th, we dropped Alex at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. To tell you the truth, I wasn't too wild about this new curb side check-in idea but I have to say in hindsight it was very well organized and worked out for the best.
If you haven't already heard, Alex will be serving in the California Roseville mission. The mission home is in Antelope, California and the mission boundaries stretch from there almost to the Oregon border, east to Soda Springs (the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountains), west to the Coast Range; pretty much all of the northern central valley of Northern California.
The mission has a blog: http://californiarosevillemission.blogspot.com
As of right now Elder Woodward's address for mail is the mission home, or will be after May 26th.
Elder Alexander Sindel Woodward
8583 Watt Ave.
Antelope, CA 95843-9117
his email address is: alexander.woodward@myldsmail.net
I was going to be super ambitious and do a separate blog for him, but in all honesty, I can barely keep this blog up to date, so that just isn't going to happen. So stayed tuned for Elder Woodward updates here.
We've already heard from him and he is doing great. He said it took him about an hour to adjust to living fulltime in a suit but I think it was at least a whole day. So far he's been able to attend the Provo Temple and hear Elder Holland speak (lucky duck!). He also reports the food isn't too bad.
We're very proud of him and his preparation getting ready to go. Please write to him if you get a chance and I'll try to update this as much as possible. It will be so much fun hearing of his experiences and we're very blessed to have such a wonderful son.

FINALLY!

On our recent trip to Utah, we were finally able to stop and visit the Golden Spike National Historic Site near Promontory Summit - West of Brigham City. We've wanted to go there for so many years and gone zipping by the exit saying, "we have to go there!" too many times to count. Well, after about 30+ years, we finally made it. Many thanks to Doug and Karen for giving directions and braving the cold with us.
For those of you that may not know, this is where the Central Pacific Railroad (from the West) and the Union Pacific Railroad (from the East) met on May 10, 1869, to form the first Transcontinental Railroad.
We are standing in front of the Jupiter from the Central Pacific Railroad and the other is the 119 from the Union Pacific. These are restored operational steam locomotives.




And once again, the Woodward Travel Curse was alive and well. The temperature dropped 30* the day before we got there and this is what we woke up to on Sunday morning! I kid you not. Snow on May 2nd. What the heck!!!! I brought new sandals to wear!
A few days later it cleared up and we enjoyed this incredible sunset over the Great Salt Lake.

April Showers brought us.......

A great weekend trip to New Orleans to see the new World War II Museum. It was especially nice to have my sister Marilyn and favorite brother-in-law John join us there. (BTW, John is my only brother-in-law, LOL!) We are huge history buffs at our house and we enjoyed this beautiful museum from start to finish, definitely in the same league as the Smithsonian.
We really enjoyed:
- yummy Beignets at Cafe Du Monde for breakfast and a dinner cuise on board the stern wheeler Natchez; one of the two remaining steam powdered steamboats on the Mississippi today.
- as well as wandering around some of the French Quarter.
We did NOT enjoy:
- the ticket we got from the Central Parking Lot while we were in the museum. Boycott their parking lots or beware of the small print on the parking stub!!! (it's a long story)










A family get together that included:
- a trip to our beautiful Houston Temple; it was a indescribable experience to be together as a family in that sacred place.














-family pictures that probably took twice as long because we were laughing too much; which was the pretty much the theme of the weekend.













Sorry Mary, I just can't resist. Our Love Sac got the best of her at one point. LOL!

and last but not least, Roy stumbled into our bathroom scale one night. ouch!








Poor Roy, see what he has to put with!