SAMA

In case anyone is still checking my blog after so long a period of inactivity, I will post some pictures of our field trip today. Unfortunately, they only allow photos without flash and I only had my phone to take pictures anyway so they are not of the highest quality. I was helping to chaperone the Latin students on a field trip to the San Antonio Museum of Art to experience some of the Greco-Roman culture. Since they didn't have anything specific for me to do, I pretty much just toured the museum. They have the largest collection of Greco-Roman art in Texas and probably in the Southwestern US. Here are some of the things that caught my attention (mostly not Greco-Roman).

This was in the modern collection


This was in the Southwest collection, I believe.


You would have to see this one in person to get the full effect. It is a huge very ornate carved wooden desk in the Mexican collection. A close up of the top below.


A huge (about 12' tall) very ornate painting of the famous Virgen of Guadalupe also in the Mexican collection.

Another view to try to get the whole thing in one frame. The long candle holders on the sides were at least 6' long.

Unfortunately, this is not a good shot. It is a relative of ours (on both Suzanne's and my lines) from the European collection. A member of the English Royalty or Nobility. I dont remember her name now.
A French desk (Louis IV era) from the European collection.


These two portraits of husband and wife by the same artist (Charles W. Peak) are the most life-like I have ever seen. He even captured the glistening from the moisture around the eyes. Unfortunately you can't see them very well in these photos. The other portraits looked flat and lifeless by comparison.

I will post some from the Chinese collection in another post.

Interesting information on the Hulets

I found some interesting information in a blog about the Hulets.
This one shows the Native American ancestors which are disputed by others. It also has histories of many of the Hulet ancestors.

Hulet line

This one has a video of the Charles Hulet farm area and the Sylvanus Hulet grave headstone in Ohio. (Click on the First LDS Member
link)

Gardner Blog

How Many of Me?

Our librarian at work is always sending out links to interesting web sites. This is one she sent today.

www.howmanyofme.com  

Did you Know?

• There are 2,626,763 people in the U.S. with the first name Richard.
• Statistically the 8th most popular first name.
• 99.77 percent of people with the first name Richard are male.

• There are 141,834 people in the U.S. with the last name Lawrence.
• Statistically the 219th most popular last name.
• Famous people with the last name Lawrence:

• • Brian Lawrence
  • Francis Lawrence
  • John Lawrence
  • Marc Lawrence
  • Martin Lawrence
  • Quentin Lawrence
  • Ray Lawrence

There are 1,211 people in the U.S. named Richard Lawrence.

Letter

It has been quite a while since I posted anything. I started to post an old letter that I found among Grandpa Wilkinson's things from William Wilkinson last week. I am not sure how he is related. I wanted to post a transcript with it but I found that my eyesight is not as good as it used to be and I couldn't get it all transcribed in a reasonable time so I will post it anyway and maybe we can make it a group effort. Anyone who is interested can add to what I have. This is what I have so far.

Old England
Cawthorpe, Novr 15, 1853

My Dear Brother, Sisters, Nephews, and Nieces,

With great pleasure I have again written a few lines to inform you that I received your kind and welcome letter of the 22nd of September and myself and family were very glad to hear of you and yours being thankfully well and we hope this will find you all still in the enjoyment of good health. I feel truly thankful to our Heavenly Father for his preserving care over me and mine to the present moment of time and that through His mercy I am ___________ to say we are all in good health for the present. And I think I shall not be wrong in saying all our relatives are tolerably well. I have not heard anything to the contrary lately. I was over at Birmingham and .........

Living room

Its been so long since my last post, I thought I would let you all know what has kept me so busy. I have been obsessed with getting the living room done before school started so we could get our furniture off the patio in case it ever rains here again. (Actually we got 1.5 inches at our house last week the day we got the last of the furniture in, thank goodness.) Here are a few pictures of the almost finished product. I still have to put in the trim (stair nosing and transitions to the tile floor in the family room), replace the closet and pocket doors and put the mirror back up.

For those who remember what the living room was like, this is the area were the half-wall was that we removed. (notice the open closet without a door)



This one gives an idea what the ceiling looks like after we scraped the popcorn off and re-textured, thanks to Jenny's technique and Janet's help.


The floor is a bamboo laminate. We decided to go with that rather than the vinyl plank we were planning to use. Finishing up the details on this and the laundry room/downstairs landing will occupy my spare time for the rest of the year. We also need to get an area rug and window curtains/drapes.

New York

I had a great time in New York last week. Got to visit with Jenny and Nina and some of the in laws and with Spencer, Lila and Miriam. So far I have seen Miriam at yearly intervals. Nina wanted to do everything with Grandpa for the first 3 days or so and then the novelty wore off. She is learning about family relationships and enjoyed telling me that I should tell my daughter things. One of her little friends from the neighborhood stopped by when we were outside and the topic of who I was came up. She said O he's just an old grandpa.

We had fun going to the zoo in Rochester and Stony Brook State Park for a picnic and playing on the playground. It was a welcome break from the heat wave here in San Antonio. For most of the time I was there it was cool and rainy and every thing is very green as opposed to hot dry and brown here. One would think we had moved to Arizona or that Arizona moved here except the humidity is higher. This is our 5th day in a row over 100 for highs and the 11th day over 100 for the month. It's usually not this hot even in July and August. Average high for this time of year is about 10 degrees cooler.

Still Alive

I haven't posted in a while so I thought I would let everyone know I am still alive. My summer has been busy so far. It's surprising how much time and attention one tree falling in the front yard can occupy. I spent the first week of summer break attending continuing education seminars and hauling off tree limbs. We called the city to estimate how much they would charge to haul away the debris and they wanted about $200. Since I have a broken down old pickup and a little time off, I decided to do it myself. Turns out when I started digging through the pile that the guys we hired to cut it up also left another tree on the curb along with ours. This is the wimpiest of the 8 loads I hauled away to the brush recycling center



and this is the pile of chunks that are bigger than the recycling center will accept (nothing over 6" in diameter). They will remain in our driveway unil it is our turn for brush and large item pick up again (sometime in Sept - Nov). The fine is something like $2000 a day if you leave stuff on the curb when it is not your turn.




The big chunks from the live oak tree that they left along with ours were hauled away by Carolyn's (Suzanne's boss) husband for firewood.

No one wants our tree for firewood because chineese pistache is a relative of poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac and the smoke and fumes from burning it are irritating to those sensitive to the poisonous plants.