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!

34 years and counting!

"Grow old along with me

the best is yet to be

when our time has come
we will be as one

God bless our love,

God bless our love.

Grow old along with me

two branches of one tree

face the setting sun

when the day is done

God bless our love,

God bless our love.

Spending our lives together

man and wife together

world with end,

world without end.

Grow old along with me

whatever fate decrees

we will see it through

For our love is true

God bless our love,

God bless our love."

(John Lennon)

Happy Anniversary today, my love.

top picture: Spring 1976

bottom picture: Fall 2007

Bluebonnet time in Texas!

Spring has finally come to Texas after a record breaking cold winter ( just our luck!) which means the Bluebonnets are blooming! Along with some beautiful Indian paint brush, evening primrose and the neighborhood azaleas have been stunning!
Did you know the bluebonnet is the Texas state flower? well, now you do. Never know, it might be a final Jeopardy question someday.......
My good friend Karen came from Utah to help me unpack; man-o-man, she was a real slave driver (LOL!) but we got a lot done and then had time to go play and of course, do some quilt shop hopping.
As with all of our visitors, we took her to Galveston so she could do some wading in the Gulf of Mexico. As you can see, Rio loves these trips!

She and I also took a day trip northwest to Brenham and on the way got the above wildflower picture and not only did we find a cute quilt shop there, we could not pass up the chance to tour the Blue Bell Creamery, home of Blue Bell ice cream. Yummy stuff!!! If you know me, anytime there is ice cream involved, it is a good day!
Many, many thanks for coming KK!

March

MARCH brought us:

a Mission Call for Alex to the California Roseville Mission; he reports to the MTC on May 5th and it goes without saying that we are super proud of him. He opened his call, laughed and said, "I'm goin' home!!" His mission extends from the north side of Sacramento almost to the Oregon border, east almost to the Nevada border, and west to the edge of the Central Valley.

some Adventurin'! We took a long weekend drive (1100 mi) to Pensacola Florida on one of the main highway arteries of the South - Interstate 10. On our way there we detoured a hour north for some bird watching in Big Thicket National Preserve in eastern Texas near the Louisiana border. The scenery was beautiful; the bird watching wasn't so good as we seemed cursed with a family of small noisy children that mysteriously seemed to choose the same trails we did. We stopped for the night in Louisiana and OMHeck do those good folks know how to cook!!!! We just waddled out the door of "Guidrey's Reef". Catfish, shrimp, crab (all fried, of course) and seriously the best seafood gumbo I've ever eaten - well, except, it does give you pause when your first spoonful has small crab claws in it. LOL! The little tuft of meat on them was yummy though! and we just couldn't pass up dessert, right? Peach cobbler and bread pudding with praline topping. My mouth is watering just remembering this! Onward to the East through those two little toes of Alabama and Mississippi - wow, you almost blink and you are in another state! We made another detour; this time south of Mobile to the Gulf of Mexico and out to Dauphin Island for.....? You guessed it, more bird watching! Roy is trying to turn me into a birder. I do enjoy it, especially the walking; can't decide if I'm serious enough to start a birds-sighted list though....... whereas it is Roy's other passion (fly fishing being #1) and his list is quite extensive.
Unfortunately our time in Florida was brief as we passed our extra washer and dryer to Mary and Stuart and enjoyed an all too quick visit with Zach and Gracie.

Roy fished on the Guadalupe River; as you can see he had a really fun day!

Alex is working full time at Joe's Crab Shack and had a quiet 19th birthday celebration by himself as we were "adventurin" not to mention, he had to work a double shift that day.













and last but not least, a new Home. We have purchased a house nearby in our same northern suburb; so it is looking like Texas will be our home base for a good long while, I hope because I am thoroughly sick of packing and unpacking!!! Looking forward to hanging our pictures and unpacking all the books. More about that later as we move this coming week!