A Glimpse at Balboa

We headed down to the Balboa House again this year.  But as the children have become busier with their own lives, it has become more difficult to go as a family down to the house.  So this year, it was a short, but very sweet trip.
The whole family headed down on Saturday afternoon.  We arrived just in time for Maddie and Patrick to go around the island on the kayaks before darkness set in.  Maddie always likes to go around the island, so it was very important that she went!
Sunday we tried to do as many things possible.  We played games in the morning.  Patrick introduced us to scrabble.  Allie really enjoyed playing it and continued playing by herself for the remainder of our time down there.  She had some very interesting words during her own games!
We went to church.  That was one of the biggest sacrament meetings that I have ever attended.  We arrived were barely able to snag some seats in the back.  More people poured in and they continued setting up chairs until the entire cultural hall was filled!  After church, we took a quick look at the temple.

We went for our traditional Sunday afternoon walk around the island, although this year we walked all the way around the island, we usually skip the west side of the island since it is crowded with shops.
After dinner we walked down to the beach to eat ice cream.  That is our new Balboa tradition.  Since we seem to be there on Sunday's, buying ice cream on Saturday, then eating on the beach is a better tradition for us.  Then it was time for Jeff, Maddie, Patrick and Jayd to head home.  It was a quick little family day, but with work and other activities, that was all that we were able to do.
Allie, Gabe and I spent another two days at the house.  We had a very relaxing time.  We went to the beach, swam in the harbor, went on the kayaks, rode bikes around the island, built sand castles, and played lots of video games!  It was very nice to just do things as they came without a schedule.

I Love to See the Temple

Over the past two weeks, our family has gone on a grand tour of the Old South.  We have had a great time, and would love to share our adventures with you.

Our first and last stop was the temple.  Whenever we travel, we like to stop and see the temples in the cities we are visiting.  We walk around the temple as a family, and take a picture to put on our wall.  If possible, we do temple baptisms.  Prior to this trip, we had seen at least 29 temples.  This trip added another seven temples to our list.  We started with the Mesa, Arizona.  A pioneer temple, we loved seeing the Greek features, including several friezes of the pioneers coming across the plains.  

 The Gila Valley, Arizona Temple brought us along the pathway less traveled to find the temple in the middle of nowhere.  There wasn’t really a town, stores, or even a gas station.  One or two houses, a temple, a stake center, and a fabulous softball field.  What a group of stalwart members must live in that valley! 

 The Dallas Temple reminded us a lot of the Chicago temple.  We noticed that there weren’t any windows at this temple.  Allie has a special connection here, she alone was able to do temple baptisms here, a place where none of her siblings have been.   

The Baton Rouge Temple was very pretty.  It was a mini-temple built in the year 2000.  We were surprised that the temple was smaller than the adjacent stake center, but it outshone the stake center in every way.   

 

The Houston Temple was very pretty.  We especially enjoyed walking around this temple.  There was a forest with a brick pathway leading you through.  It was peaceful, quiet, shady and very unique.   

 

The San Antonio temple was beautiful.  Even from the outside, the stained glass windows were enormous, and vibrantly colored depictions of forests, water, and the sun.  I can only imagine how much more brilliant they would have looked from inside the temple.   

 

The Gilbert, Arizona temple was our last stop on the way home.  It is the newest temple on our trip.  Despite the 110 degree heat, the temple grounds were green and inviting.  We loved seeing all of the temples on our itinerary.  It reminds us of our purpose here on earth, and of the importance of being an eternal family.  We can’t imagine a more appropriate stop on our family vacation!

The Road to Dallas

The journey out to Texas was at a slower pace.  With just three of us, we had a little more room to relax and enjoy.  We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns to see the beautiful wonders that are hidden deep within the earth.  It was amazing.  The formations in the caves were just astounding.  They were so big, yet they take so long to make.  The ranger pointed out some formations that were 80 years old.  They were only about a half inch long.  Some of the formations that we saw were 20 feet tall.  Incredible!  My favorite part of the tour was when the guide turned out the lights (standard), then turned on a candle lit lantern to show us what the early cave explorers would have seen as they traveled through this geological wonder.  It was so different to see the features individually from a single light source.  The shadows created by them were full of character.  That was one of the most unique experiences.

We also made a stop in Dallas.  My cousin lives there, so we spent a few days with her and her family.  We went to Six Flags over Dallas.  I took 6 kids to the amusement park myself.  We had a great time on the rides, and being together.  That theme park has a lot of flair, and a whole lot of Texas in its theme!

We also visited downtown Dallas to see the site of the Kennedy assassination.  After seeing so many movies about the assassination, I really enjoyed seeing this location.  With the exception of a few markers, it really isn’t any different from that fateful day.

Houston - We Don't Have a Problem

We spent multiple days in Houston, but most of it was in the Convention Center downtown.  Jayd was playing with a club team that was participating and we spent a large portion of our time watching them.  Despite a rough first day when they were nearly eliminated from the possibility of attaining a medal, they came back to win the bronze medal in the tournament.  It was very exciting and fun to watch.

We were also able to visit some of our friends while visiting Houston.  We were there for the 4^th of July.  Unlike California, in Texas you are allowed to have fireworks!  So Jeff and I went to a fireworks stand and stood there like children in our first candy store.  We bought all sorts of fireworks to do with our family.  It was very exciting to light the fireworks, then run away.  We did all sorts of things.  Our friends weren’t nearly as excited, they do fireworks twice a year, but this was a once in a lifetime experience for us!  It was very memorable.

As a finale to our visit in Houston, we went to the Space Museum.  Anything to do with rockets, or space, or aeronautics is one of Jeff’s favorite things, so he gave us the personal tour explaining all of the items in the museum.  We saw mission control, the simulator room, and the enormous Saturn V Rocket.  It was hard to believe that enormous rocket was made to send a tiny little capsule up into space.  It was really something.

Vicksburg

Since I am a huge history buff, and I just finished studying the Civil War with Gabe during his history lessons, I just couldn’t resist the chance to go to Vicksburg, Mississippi.  Vicksburg is one of the two most important battles of the Civil War, with Gettysburg being the other.  Both battles ended on nearly the same day and turned the tide of the war, however, Gettysburg happened by chance.  Vicksburg was a patient and calculated campaign for domination of the Mississippi.  The city, located on a hill overlooking the Mississippi, was the last Southern stronghold on that important water highway.  It took over a year to get near the city, and then another 3 months for them to lay siege and starve out the army there and force them to surrender.  Our pilgrimage started with the visitors center where they shot a cannon!  They had a bunker laid out similar to the southern fortifications within the city.  They actually went through the motions required to shoot a cannon, then they really shot the cannon.  It was loud and messy.  There was smoke everywhere.  It was very exciting.  We drove around the Northern and Southern lines surrounding the city.  There were lots of monuments designating the locations of various battalions that fought there.  Each state had a large monument dedicated to their men who died there.  One of our favorite stops was the ironclad ship.  It had sunk in the Mississippi River and was recovered about 120 years after the war.  They had restored it and put it on display.  It was really fun to go on this monstrous ship that changed the course of naval warfare.

We went into the city of Vicksburg to visit their other claim to fame, the first bottling plant for Coca Cola.  It was a tiny museum with a lot of Coca Cola paraphernalia.  But it was a fun visit.

We also hopped over to downtown Jackson for a quick walk around Mississippi’s state capitol.  We had a lovely walk, and despite the fact that it was 3:00 on a Monday afternoon, we hardly saw anyone else on the streets.  There was almost no foot traffic, and we hardly even saw any cars drive by.  There weren’t any stores or even café’s open (we were looking because we were really thirsty!)  Maddie commented that she never realized just how fast our lives are living in Los Angeles.  This was amazingly slow and calm. 

New Orleans - Quartering the French

We spent a day in the French Quarter of New Orleans.  For our first stop on the itinerary, we actually left the French Quarter and went outside city limits to the cemetery.  It was the oldest cemetery in the city.  Because of the low water table, the banned burials within the French Quarter so that they could maximize the space above sea level.  Therefore, the cemeteries were required to be above ground in crypts.  Wealthy families bought a crypt which was basically large enough for one coffin.  When someone died, the crypt was opened, and the casket placed inside.  It then remained sealed for at least a year and a day.  After that period, if another family member died, the crypt was reopened.  The coffin was broken down and anything that remained in the coffin (bones, etc) was placed in a bag and put back in the crypt.  Eventually it would be pushed down to the bottom by the new coffin.  It was fascinating.  All of the crypts were close together.  Some have been abandoned, no one knows whose family owns the crypt.  We loved this stop on our tour. 

After that, we walked through the French Quarter.  It was so beautiful.  Nearly every building had a porch that went all around the street side of the building.  They all were done with intricate iron railings.  The buildings were so colorful and the black railings were such a striking contrast.  The creoles, people of European descent, but born on this continent, considered the balcony a room of the house.  The living quarters would have been on the second and third stories of the building.  There would have been three rooms without any hallways.  They would connect to each other, and to the balcony.  That was the basic format.  Once I understood that concept, the necessity of the intricate balconies became obvious.  I loved walking through the French Quarter and seeing all of the unique buildings, the ghost stories that follow them, and the ambience.  Although, the comment “It’s just like Disneyland” was made more than once.

While in the French Quarter, we sampled the famous New Orleans cuisine.  We were introduced to “gator bites.”  Yes, we all ate alligator while there.  True to it’s reputation, it tastes like chicken.  We also tried a muffaletta sandwich.  Some of the family were not thrilled with the olives, but other than that it was a hit.  We stopped at the Gumbo Stop for some creole flair.  We tried gumbo, jambalaya, and red beans and rice.  My children were surprised to find that they actually liked all of the dishes.  The most surprising discovery was by Gabe.  He found out he really, really likes shrimp.  For dessert, we had fresh New Orleans beignets.  They were hot and fluffy and delicious, although with an extra generous helping of powdered sugar, they were a little messy!