Washington D.C. for Jeanna's Wedding

Dear Family & Friends,

Lina and I recently traveled to Washington D.C. for Lina's best friend Jeanna's wedding.  Lina was her Maid of Honor.  Here are some pictures of the trip with the Tuckers.

Kurt & Bill (Jeanna's Dad)

Lina (Maid of Honor)

The Flower Girl (so cute!).  Makes me want a little daughter.  

Jeanna and her new hubby, Steve Bini.

Two of my favorite women in the world. 

Twirling the flower girl.  She was utterly impervious to dizzyness.  Me... not so much.  

William telling the garbage bag people what is up.  This is outside the Hirshorn Art Museum in Washington D.C., a venue that is pretty much the worst place to visit in all of D.C.  Unless you are really into art (especially abstract art), I would advise all would-be D.C. visitors to spend their time elsewhere when there.  The most memorable attraction, the oversized naked giant man.  Most memorable... and most disturbing.  

The sky was really nice for some pics of the D.C.  temple.  

Lina and I recently moved back to Houston, Texas (a transfer with Lina's job).  As much as we enjoyed our Newfoundland adventure, it is wonderful to be home again in the United States.  We especially love living in Texas.  It is a magnificent State.  It is sometimes easy to forget what financial straits much of the country is in while living here because it is such a bustling, growing, and prosperous part of the country.  We lived here for a year before we went to Canada and I became so enamored of this unique place that I recently joined the Texas Volunteers to keep all us Texans free for one more year.

I have been passively interested in re-enacting for quite some time now.  I recently obtained my first opportunity to make my dream real by participating in the re-enactment of the Battle of San Jacinto.

The Battle of San Jacinto was the battle where Texas gained its independence from Mexico.  All of you have heard of the Alamo.  On March 6, 1836, Mexican troops under the command of the vicious Mexican President/General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana stormed the Alamo and killed all the Texas fighters bravely defending it.  Three weeks later, Santa Ana's ordered his troops to murder over 300 unarmed Texan prisoners of war.  Less than a month after that, the remaining Texas Army, under the command of General Sam Houston caught Santa Ana off guard without his entire force to defend him.  With shouts of "Remember the Alamo!" and "Remember Goliad" on their lips, the Texans routed Santa Ana's confused army and captured Santa Ana, the nefarious self-anointed Napoleon of the West.  From that point on, Texas was an independent republic of her own.  Then, in 1845, Texas joined the United States as the 28th State in the Union.

Here's a shot of the Mexican Army

  With a Mexican Soldier 

                                                                   Three Mexican Cavalryman

                                                  With three soliders from the Texas Army.


The battle re-enactment attracted literally thousands of spectators and was played out near the original battlefield where a monument larger than the Washington Memorial stands (everything is bigger in Texas.  Texas' capitol is even taller than the U.S. Capitol).  It was a wonderful experience, and I thought family and friends might enjoy seeing some pictures and video from the event.

                                                                          With Cannon

Video of Cannon Fire

With musket

Video of musket skirmishing

I also played the drum during the actual attack.  My friend that got me into this re-enacting stuff (Frank McLane, our former Bishop) is the flag bearer.  

Frank and me

With the women folk that cooked mah vittles that day for lunch.  Can you see Lina joining them next year
  : )

                                  With General Sam Houston (notice monument in background)

We also recently went to Boston to cheer on Joe as he raced there by qualifying last year.  He did a good job running in the hottest weather in the history of the Boston Marathon.  It was quite an experience to be there with tens of thousands of people lining the streets cheering the runners on that very hot spring day.  Here are some pics from the Boston trip.  

On the beach at Cape Cod.

                                                           Joe and Julie at Cape Cod Beach

                                                                 On a replica of the Mayflower

                                                   Site of Thoreau's cabin near Walden Pond

       At Salem; in honor of one of the witches hung after the Salem witch trials in the late 1600s.

                                                        Jordan's up next!  (Witch cackle...)

                     At the Boston Temple.  Joe and Julie and Lina and I were able to attend a session.

Icebergs, Theatre, and the Skerwink Trail

So, for my birthday this year we took a trip to Trinity and Bonavista, Newfoundland. It was a really nice trip and we got to see some pretty stunning views and meet some great folks.

We left on Thursday, Oct 22 after work and drove to Trinity that night. It was pretty tough to find it, but we got there eventually. We took a couple wrong turns and missed our chance at McDonalds :( So, we ate at the Bed and Breakfast we were staying at. Luckily they were still open and we had a yummy dinner there.

The place we stayed was called the "Eriksen Premises" and was this cute B&B in the middle of town. The town was so small! The people who ran the B&B mentioned that during the winter there are only about 30 people who live there. However, the summer brings lot of tourism as they have a great theatre there.

We finished our dinner around 9:30, and went to our room. The rest of the town was just completely dead. It was really eery and so quiet and dark.

The next morning we walked around Trinity a little bit and took some pictures. It is such a photogenic little town. Here are a few of the pics we took in the morning.

After wandering around Trinity for a bit, it started raining so we drove to Bonavista, which was about 45 minutes away. We were on the hunt for icebergs since we saw on the icebergfinder website that there were a few just off the coast. We were not disappointed! WOW!! The icebergs were absolutely fabulous. The first two we saw were further away and we tried to get closer. We parked our car and made our way through some trails to the edge of the land closest to the icebergs. When I was walking along, I came across a bunch of goats! They were really cute and all so different. I yelled a little when I first saw them because they scared me, which scared them away, but then I stood still enough that they stopped running away and we got some cool pictures with them.

The next iceberg was closer to shore and we got some pictures with us and the icerberg in the background.

Bonavista Bay is also where John Cabot initially landed in Newfoundland. Here is the statue they had in the bay that had the icerbergs. He landed a REALLY long time ago!

We went to this place called "The Dungeon" and it was this really neat rock formation. This is a picture of Jordan running around it. I don't really know how this happened over time, but it is a pretty spectacular thing.

The last iceberg was actually pretty small but it was right next to the land and it was shaped in an amazing way. We think it looks like a mother holding a baby. But, seriously, how does this shape happen??

Another thing we noticed in Bonavista was that everyone had these HUGE piles of logs around their house. I guess the electricity isn't as reliable, or they all have woodburning furnaces in their homes. Anyway, here is a picture of one. Pretty impressive, right? I wonder how long it takes to make these stacks.

After Bonavista, we drove back to Trinity for our dinner reservation. We ate at a place called the Artisan Inn. I had orange carrot soup, pecan crusted salmon with potatoes, spinach salad, and an amazing partridgeberry bread pudding. Jordan had tomato basil soup, lamb shank, spinach salad, and the same bread pudding. They had these fun candles on the tables... :)

After dinner we went to the "Rising Tide Theatre" where we saw a play about a couple in the 1920s. There were only two actors (boy and girl who end up together at the end after a lot of arguing) and there were only about 16 people in the audience. We had front row seats and we were only about 10 feet from the actors in some parts. It was really good though, and they did a great job weaving in Newfoundland history into the whole thing.

The next day we went on the Skerwink Trail close to our B&B. It is supposed to be one of the top 3 trails in Canada to go on, and it did not dissapoint! Here are a few of the amazing views from the trail. The fourth picture down is actually a picture of the town of Trinity. So amazing!

Just wanted to leave you with a picture that to me captures some of the spirit of Newfoundland - Clothes out on the line to dry. Love you guys and miss you tons!