Mother's Day

So we have Mother's Day this Sunday. Here is my favorite picture of my Mom. She had it taken at the beauty parlor she use to go to in Carson City, Nevada. It just happened they had someone that day taking glamour shots. I love this picture. 

After we moved away from Canoga Park, CA in 1969, my Mom remained pen pals with a friend there and used the pen name of Mrs. Gotchalks. I think this is a fitting picture of her for that identity.

Mom passed away in July of 2010 at age 87. Almost six years ago. How is that possible that she has not been on this earth for so long? I grow to love her more and more as the years pass. I realize now that there was so much more to learn from her. 

I have become more aware that Mom ALWAYS had a cheery disposition. I can only recall one instance where she said something kind of negative about someone. It was my Primary teacher. She said "she wears too much mascara". The only other negative comment she would make came as she was advanced in her age and felt more sensitive to people who did not seem to give her the attention or treatment she felt befitting a woman of advanced years. She did not like to be "set aside" so to speak. 

I miss her. I wish I could honor her this Sunday in person.

I hope that my life for the most part brings her joy.

I hope she will be the one there to welcome me as I pass through the veil.  

 Toehead Taye 

Actually her given name is Elinor Taye Ensign

I'm pretty sure this is her missionary photo. 

She served a two year mission in the Northern States mission.

Here is my Mom's family. Dad - H.D. (Horace Darwin) Ensign, 

Laurine Ensign (the mother who raised her. Mom's mother Zelma died when Mom was 2 years old), 

In the back left to right: little brothers Gaylord Ensign and Tad Ensign. 

This is Mom's mother Zelma Webb Ensign. She died at age 24 1/2.

Wedding Day September 13, 1949

Sealed in the St. George Temple

I'm going to be so happy to see my Mom again,

Happy Mother's Day Mom!!

I love you!!!!

Second installment of vacation

These are pictures that Fred took. I definitely forgot some stuff.

We went to the Natural Bridge Caverns in San Antonio.

Over the years on road trips, we would stop and wander through caves. Usually lava caves.

Definitely, this cavern was far more magnificent. It was about 70 something degrees, but like 90+ humidity. Kind of miserable after a while. Jess again was a real trooper. She really doesn't complain. 

Here we are. 

The Natural Bridge Caverns are the largest known commercial caverns in the U.S. state of Texas.The name was derived from the 60 ft natural limestone slab bridge that spans the amphitheater setting of the cavern's entrance.

Here we are headed out for our excursion on Cozumel. I had my eyes closed because it was really sunny.

Here we are in the Razor that we drove around in.

Our driver Fred.

This is the road out of town.

Now we are in the wilderness.

One night in the theatre they put on a folded towel puppet show. At the entrance they had all their different towel animals on display. We thought we would see the puppet show, but after about 10 minutes, we had to leave. It was too painful.

We never ate at the buffet on board. We went to a sit down dining room dinner and breakfast. 

This is the fruit tray (with cottage cheese) yes that little dabble of white stuff is cottage cheese. Fancy food presentation is just so fun.

Here I am reading - you know, these lounge chairs are not comfortable at all. 

My butt went to sleep.

The last evening we finally went to a production. It was a 50's, 60's, 70's & 80's musical review. 

Not bad, but SO SO LOUD.

Now we are gearing up for our Alaska cruise in September.

I will be happy to wear layers for warmth instead of experiencing heat & humidity.

San Antonio ~ Cozumel ~ Houston Vacation

Fred and I went on a nice long vacation. Long for me because I had eight (8) days off work. Sweet.

We started out flying into San Antonio. We actually boarded the plane early in Las Vegas and as we approached the runway the engines shut down and the pilot said "We are waiting for clearance due to weather conditions. It will be about 30-40 minutes and we are #19 for take off. There were ominous black clouds in the sky.

It was about 1 1/2 hours before we finally took off.

We got to go to church with Scott and Jess. I love attending the wards my children are members of. It's nice to be able to picture them there and meet some of their good friends. Jess made arrangements to attend Relief Society with me. She serves in Young Women's. So here we are. 

Monday morning Scott arranged a tour for us at the Toyota Plant. They only make Toyota Tundras and Tacomas. It was very interesting and a fun new experience. We got to ride on little trams in the plant and wear safety helmets. These pictures are all in the "museum" portion of the property. There was no photography allowed in the actually plant where they build the trucks.

There were several cars halved so you could see the inner workings. Jess is in the very beginning stages of pregnancy. We didn't plan well this day to come with snacks for Jess. She was a trooper though. It's already muggy and warm and we did a lot of walking. 

I love the big map of Texas.

After our tour of the Toyota plant, we headed for the River Walk back in town.

Here we are eating outside. It was a Mexican Restaurant (surprise?) Tons of Mexican food places in San Antonio.

Here is the stage area where they filmed part of Miss Congeniality. 

This is across from that stage.

We invited Scott and Jess to come and stay with us at the Resort in New Braunfels which is about 20 minutes from San Antonio. Here we are playing the Daly Family card game "Hand and Foot". 

We went into the Historic district and had lunch at the Gristmill Restaurant. It was yummy and very scenic. Most all of the seating was outside along the Guadalupe River. 

It was actually kind of drizzly on this day. We walked around and looked at a few of the shops.

 I'm not remembering the order of what days we did what. 

This is Buc-ee's - The New Braunfels gas center is the largest convenience store in the world at 68,000 square feet. The store features 120 fuel pumps, 83 toilets, 31 cash registers, 4 Icee machines, 80 fountain dispensers, tubing and water gear for the Guadalupe River.

After this adventure, we went to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. We went to a theatre that serves you food at your seat. Scott ordered us popcorn. They bring it in a big stainless steel bowl. It was the best popcorn EVER. I also enjoyed a big diet coke. It was a fun movie.

On Wednesday night Scott and Jess both had Mutual and Scouts to attend. So they packed up and went home after we had dinner. This is the room we stayed in. It's a WorldMark property. We have a trial membership at WorldMark so that is why we had this particular vacation planned. It was 3 nights at this resort and a 4 night cruise to Cozumel. 

All the units are two story with 2 or 3 bedrooms. It was really nice and fit our needs just right. Although Scott and Jess had twin beds. They were upstairs and we had the master bedroom downstairs.

A very nice big kitchen. We only at breakfast and one dinner here. The plan was to have a big lunch out and then snacks in the evening.

While we were on vacation, Dallas experienced a hail storm with hail the size of tennis balls so when we called to confirm we were going to pick up our rental car, the car rental guy said hopefully they would have one for us. Seems all the rentals from here were shipped up to Dallas for all the people who needed rentals while their cars were in the shop for repair from the damage caused by the hail storm. We had reserved a Fusion size car, but ended up with this Corolla. It was certainly adequate for our trip to Galveston. Galveston is about 225 miles from New Braunfels.

Here we are driving through Houston . Neither of us have been through there before.

Finally on the ship. We cruised on Carnival Liberty. About 2,900 passengers. 

Here is Fred.

This is Deck 9 where everything happens. It wasn't quite this crowded all the time, but pretty close. We did not go swimming at all. 

This picture is taken from the glass elevator.

I was happy that this is the cruise line that makes the cute towel animals. Every night when they come in and turn your bed down, they leave one. I think they are pretty cute. This is a swan although now it looks like a snake. But the towel at the base is the wings.

Mr. Elephant

Bear cub?

Selfie before dinner.

Our shore excursion in Cozumel was off roading in a four passenger Razor, two man speed boat and snorkeling. Here we are out on the water. Neither of us went snorkeling. The reviews for snorkeling were only "eh" so we just sat in the boat for about 20 minutes while some of the group went snorkeling. The razor was fun, but really dirty and dusty. I felt pretty gross by the time we got back into town. It was bad enough that I didn't even want to shop. Now that is bad!

Back on the ship we took a picture of Cozumel. The water was beautiful 

It's too bad that the cruise ships don't have time to clean the windows before each cruise. They are always streaked and dirty.

We finally got off the ship. I think because Houston had just had flood rains the night before and still pouring at this time, getting the go ahead from shore was very delayed. We ran through the pouring rain to get to our shuttle. Pictures do not do justice to the intensity.

I kept trying to get pictures of passing cars to show how high up on the wheel wells the water was, but no luck. This is the splash from our own tires.

When we got off the ship, we already knew our 2:00 pm flight was cancelled. We got to the airport and they put us on a 7:45 pm flight. We stayed at the airport from 11:30 until about 4:30 when we found out the 7:45 pm flight had also been cancelled. By that time so many other travelers had already filled the nearby hotels that Southwest has $79 deals with. We ended up at a Hilton Doubletree. At this point, I'm just happy we get a nice hotel and I get another day off work.

It was a very nice room. When we checked out in the morning Fred flashed the card that the Southwest employee gave him that said $79 dollar room. Up to this point Doubletree had been saying "those rooms are all full". Glory be - they adjusted our bill and instead of $221 it was $92. He was much happier. 

On the drive home from Las Vegas it was the first time that even that desolate landscape looked beautiful to me. I was just so happy to be headed home. When we pulled into the valley of St. George, it was really the first time that I felt like it was home and I was so grateful. 

It was a long vacation and I was ready to be home. 

It was so wonderful to spend time with Scott and Jess. So that would be the best highlight of the trip. 

My other favorite things were the speed boat and the unlimited yummy swirl ice cream on board.