Teenager

There is now a teenage girl in our family!

Today she is 13!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Food and Football

We had a great week end in Texas and ate some wonderful food.  As soon as we got off of the plane in Houston, we headed to Moe’s for delicious bar-b-que.  We each had a loaded baked potato and we shared brisket and sausage.

We went To Lufkin on Friday and got to eat Mexican for lunch…

After running errands, we went to the LHS football game, but forgot the camera!

Saturday morning we ate breakfast with D and S…

then we headed to CS for the A&M football game. We had hamburgers and cheese fries at Chicken Oil but again forgot to take the camera.

We watched the team walk to the stadium…

The boys each brought a friend with them to the game.

 

A&M played SC State and won 70-14.

As we were leaving we passed the President of A&M, so he graciously had his picture made with P and J.

The last picture should be of the McDonald’s ice cream cone that we ate on the way back to Houston!

It really was a wonderful week end of food and football!

Soccer on Sunday

It’s a new era of soccer around here…

R is now referring…

and T’s team is now playing with a goalie.  Everyone got a turn and T loved it…

We’re in the SEC!!

Mike, and Aggies in general, are glad and excited for A&M to be in the SEC.

Having ESPN Game Day on campus was an added bit of excitement for the A&M vs. Florida football game.

The crowds were energized as they awaited the A&M band and corps to march down the street.

It took longer than usual to get into the stadium.

The fly-over at the end of the National Anthem…

The new coach made some changes in the way that the team enters the stadium.

Ready for the kick-off…

The band acknowledged the SEC at the end of their performance.

Life Moves On

Wow!  I am really out of the habit of posting on the blog!  Since I last posted P and J came for a visit.

School has started for everyone…10th grade, 2 7th graders and 1st grade.

Fall sports have begun with P and J playing football…

and R and T playing soccer.

That’s a pretty good start…I’ll do A&M football soon.

Happy Birthday

The oldest grandson is now 16!  Wow, where did the time go…his mother is supposed to be that age!

Here is a picture of him along with the youngest grandson, who stayed this close to him the entire recent visit. (He has a real tendency to look oriental during pictures.)

Another one…see what I mean…the shadow is there!

De Last Juan

The final play we saw that the Utah Shakespeare Festival was Les Miserable which was a very emotional and wonderful way to end our week of 6 plays.

The play is a musical adaption of Victor Hugo’s epic novel set in France just before the French Revolution.  It is the story of Jean Valjean, paroled from prison after spending 19 years there (for stealing a loaf of bread), his adopted daughter, and Inspector Javert, an idealistic policeman that continues to pursue ValJean, mostly for being successful.  along the way, there is love, hate, revolting students, a massacre of those students,  and human redemption.  Interwoven in the plot is the message that love and compassion are the greatest gifts that one can give to someone else. (For more details, please see the 800+ page novel)

This play was preformed in the Adams Theater; this is where we see the non Shakespeare plays.

The next morning we went to the literary seminar for discussions on the play. Then we packed up and headed to Las Vegas where we would catch our flights back to reality! 

We took a back road as we drove south and found a very interesting town of Enterprise. On their square, we saw 3 generations of LDS churches; it’s hard to see the 2nd and 1st churches, but they are to the right of the modern church.

We stopped at a display of antique farm equipment.

Also at the park was the original tithing building for the town.

Of course, we had to have a snack and Twix and Snickers ice cream bars seem to be a great choice!

Not far from Enterprise, was the site of the Mountain Meadow  Massacre, which was the purpose of our coming this way. This is a picture of Mr. Blake, who donated the land to the LDS church. This where a wagon train from Arkansas came through and threatened the Mormons and said they were going to California and getting a militia and coming back and killing everyone.(They were angry because the Mormons along the way would not see them any supplies.) Somehow the Mormons got the men of the wagon train to give up their guns and then they, the Mormons, sent the women and children down the road and then they massacred the men!  it sounds very cruel but the more we learned about the situation, we were able to understand both sides of the story.

Mr. Blake,85 years old, lives across the highway from the monument and when he saw us, he rode his 4-wheeler over to visit with us and tell us the story and to take us in the field to show us the original monument that Brigham Young later had torn down.

This would be an interesting time in Western history to Google.

We had a another wonderful time in Utah with J and D.  We already have our tickets for next year!