Our Trip to Texas

(A brief note: Blogger seems to be having problems, so my pictures are not sized like I want them, and I can't even add captions or delete pictures once they're loaded. Weird.)

     Last Tuesday we left in the morning for Texas. We made it safely through Moore the very next morning after the Monstrous Tornado hit - it took longer than usual to make our way down I-35, but not impossible. The devastation is just terrible. I've seen lots of tornado damage before - spent plenty of time in a cellar waiting out storms too - but this was just mindblowing. The amount of damage is just beyond words. It's going to take a long time to clean up and rebuild. My camera was packed in the back (I know, I know - I'm not a very prepared photographer!) so we grabbed Amelia's and snapped a few pictures from the window. You really can't tell much - the lens captures so little in comparison to how big it was.


This is one side of the road - I believe that is the hospital

     We made it to our motel in time for Amelia to test out the pool before we dressed and went to the funeral home for the visitation. It was good to see family again. We also used the time to run through our songs, adjusting microphones & sound.  Afterwards we took Amelia to Rainforest Cafe as she'd never been. She loved it. (again, pictures from her camera) We had a good visit with my Aunt, Uncle & some of my cousins over dinner and then headed back to our motel.

 

     After the funeral, everyone made their way to Restland Cemetery.  I knew that my great-grandparents were buried there (both of their funerals were held in the little chapel on site, pictured below) and I'd brought my camera to get pictures of their headstone. To my surprise, there were many more headstones for our family besides theirs. My dad's cousin Robert Lee told us that great-great-grandpa Ed Cox bought 14 plots for $400.00 back in 1941. (That's about $3,000.00 in today's money) Each of those plots sell for about $12,000.00 now.  He really liked the water tower at Restland, so bought his plots next to it. When they got out the contract, it was actually written by the founder of Restland Cemetery. This was all quite fascinating to a genealogy buff like myself. :)



Amelia with her cousin Michaela

Playing Chase

We certainly leave a messy table :)

     After dinner with family, we headed home. We made good time until coming upon Moore again, and this time there was no getting through. I-35 was basically a parking lot. And when we exited and tried to go around, we kept hitting detours and blocked roads. We finally ended right back where we started after an hour of riding around in a hot car (because we were never moving fast enough for it to cool). We decided to get out & eat at Schlotzsky's (a favorite) only to find that they were out of bread! We finally made it home around 11:00 after one very long and tiring day.

Uncle Charlie

     Uncle Charlie was my Grandma Stewart's brother. Tall - so very tall - and so kind & gentle. We always loved seeing Uncle Charlie when we went to visit that side of the family. And we loved to hear the stories they would tell of times when they were younger. Such funny stories ..... stories of times so different than now (they grew up in the late 30's and 40's). My grandma passed away in 2005. Then we got word on Friday that he was gone too. Rather sudden - but then, death is rarely expected. We'll be heading down tomorrow for the funeral which is Wednesday. Dad will be performing the service, my sisters and I singing. We'd appreciate you prayers.
 

With Uncle Charlie at my cousin Lauren's wedding (Jan. 2013)



Silhouette Series

     I was editing pictures from the weekend wedding last night and just fell in love with these! It was one of those crazy busy times at a wedding where you snap something that's just happening across the room from you (the bride & groom snatching a moment to themselves) & then you don't even have time to look at them or decide whether you actually got something worth having. As I came across these last night, it was just wow, so much expressed here.

Busy Week

Wow, what a busy week this has been. Of course, for us most weeks are busy. However, these pictures were taken on Tuesday and I really thought I was going to get them posted that day, and here it is 5 days later and I'm finally getting to it. Tuesday was a beautiful Spring morning - warm & sunny - as Spring should be. Something we've seen very little of this year. Anyway, we were outside for a little, Amelia playing with Boots (as she does every day) and she had her camera out. I borrowed it from her and snapped a few. (These are a little fuzzy, coming from her camera)

Yes, we have a very lazy dog.

Amelia took this one - Boots decided to sniff her camera when
she was taking the shot. When she showed us later, she could not
stop laughing, she thought it was so funny. (so did I)

I did a wedding yesterday. It was a beautiful wedding and I'm really happy with what I got. It was absolutely out of the ordinary weather-wise. It was an outdoor wedding, or supposed to be. The unseasonably cold weather (55 for a high) and blustering high winds, required a move inside. Nonetheless, we braved the cold for outdoor shots, and got some great pictures - can't wait to show them to you!