#229 Nomad Diary. 8-14 March 2025. Last Few Days in Alabama. Son Jeremy's Family Visits from Brazil. Our Full Family Together for Pictures! Drive West to Vicksburg, Mississippi, Two Nights, Civil War Battlefield Tour.

Quinn (4 1/2), Owen (3 1/2) and Esther (1 1/2). Me, the Grandma, Soaking In This Special Love!

Saturday. 8. This day has been beautiful! I woke up around 4:30 am. Felt okay but I wanted to think and cry about the griefs I carry. I prayed to cry and the tears came. I thanked God for allowing me to cry and to feel and to love. I was up in the adjoining bathroom to blow my stuffy nose. After my prayer and meditation, I crawled back into the soft warm bed and relaxed. We both got up a few minutes before 6am. We did one of our more difficult exercise routines, 40 minutes in length. We have our yoga mats unrolled in the living room and facing the picture window looking out at the reflective pond with the morning light rising. We had a hearty breakfast and did some reading. I baked a couple of batches of simple oat banana muffins mainly because Owen had asked me twice this past week for banana muffins! We looked around their kitchen and came up with no muffins! Around 9:30 we walked over to Eric and Erin’s house with a few small muffins. It’s trying to be 60 degrees with little wind. It is just cool enough for a jacket. Eric was weeding and installing an edging into and around the main flower box at the front of the house. I went inside and delivered the muffins. Esther was ready to get her shoes on and go outside. It’s one of her favorite activities to play outside! We went out. Erin and Owen followed. Darrell and Eric were both working hard to weed and get the edging done. The kids both took out some weeds. Erin and I pulled a few too. Owen played with a big rake. We stayed outside for about an hour. Owen asked if I would play with him inside the house. I told him that I was ready to go play. We left the men still weeding. Erin and Esther stayed outside and went for a walk. Owen and I went to play. He was letting me lead the play this time. I gave him a list: play with trucks, or blocks or have a coffee party? He liked the coffee party idea which he had begun days earlier. He set up the 4 toddler chairs around their oblong toddler table with toy animals. Today he had a stuffed dog, Kermit the frog and a bunny rabbit. Owen sat at the end of the table in the 4th chair. We need cups for coffee. I walked from the sunroom into the living room and chose objects from the strewn toy pile. I brought the ‘cups’ back to the table and set one in front of each party goer. I asked Owen the names of our party animals. He says, “Dog. Rabbit and Kermit.” I get party ‘hats’ for the three animals from the toy pile. Owen is delighted to watch me set the table and he gets a coffee cup too. We also have a toy block with a cow head as our milk for our coffees. Owen says we need cake. I get the idea to build a ‘cake’ with some toys that are magnetic squares. I show Owen how to make the magnets look like pretend cake wedges. We find the wooden knife in the toy pile and he slices the wedges of the ‘cake’ apart and sets a piece in front of each animal, and he takes one too. It was all very much fun to play together! After a couple of minutes he says, "Okay, it’s time to clean up and throw the leftovers away.” He collects all the cake wedges and tosses them into an empty toy box! Funny! He also enjoyed eating about 3 oat muffins during the morning. Darrell came in from weeding. We are ready to leave to walk back to our house. The children run over to tell us bye. Owen says, “Thanks for coming to our house! Can we have squishy pancake hugs?” I started this formal goodbye since we’ve been coming and going from their house a lot. Sometimes one or both of them fuss after we leave. This helps conclude our visit with a giggle, and it’s fun! We came home and fixed our lunch. Darrell had a nap. I did a 15 minute routine of pelvic exercises from Kim Vopni that have helped me sleep through the night! Yay! Win! Then I did a little watercolor painting while watching a youtube show to follow along. Now as I’m having chai and making some steel cut oats for dinner, I have decided to write about my lovely day! I’ve enjoyed reading a bunch today including my daily Bible reading that is kept track of online on Biblegateway.com. I did a small Portuguese language lesson on duolingo and I’ve read a book sample. 

Sunday. 9.

Our Family All Together!! Samuel (lives nearby in Madison), Andrea, Quinn and Jeremy (visiting from Brazil), Darrell and Me (we visit here a couple months each year), Esther, Erin, Eric and Owen (live near here), Wesley (lives in Huntsville)

Quinn and Owen, cousins having a great time together!

Eric's Family

Jeremy's Family

Samuel

Wesley

A Big House in Vicksburg, Mississippi!

Another Big House in Vicksburg, Mississippi! Our Airbnb is Above the Garage in the Back.

Phone Call with Owen and Esther.

Phone Call with Esther

Highest View of Waterways at Vicksburg, Miss. Battlefield

Darrell Walking in a Trench Dug Out During the Siege of Vicksburg in 1863!

These Trenches at the Vicksburg Battlefield are Common.

A View of Some of the Battlefield at Vicksburg, 

Monday. 10. Darrell’s 2nd shot into his right eye. He is scheduled to get a shot every 5 weeks indefinitely. Jeremy and Andrea arrive to our house for 3 nights. They have come from Brasilia Brazil, and this is a very long trip!

Tuesday. 11. In the evening we have family pictures taken by friend Rebecca. It was so lovely and enjoyable to have our whole family together. We fixed chili for everyone for dinner. Erin brought some homemade cookies.

Wednesday. 12.

Thursday. 13. Today we checked out of our airbnb in Athens, Alabama and drove to Vicksburg, Mississippi. 

Friday. 14. We woke up in our Vicksburg airbnb. We did our morning exercises and decided on a restaurant for breakfast. We walked about a mile to the downtown area and had a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast and coffee. We walked back to our house a different way and read historic plaques and looked at the architecture. Once we got back to our house I made a simple lunch for us to carry along to the battlefield park. We got to the park and went through the visitor center. We watched two movies there that briefly explained the civil war battle in 1863. We went to our truck and entered the driving tour of the battlefield. There were monuments and signs along the drive. We enjoyed stopping occasionally and getting out to walk and read the signs. At one place we were at the highest look out place over some of the river canals. From there we drove down the hill to a museum housing an iron clad river boat that was used by the Union. It was pulled from the river in 1964 and put together under a big tent with a nice museum with a lot of artifacts and the story of this unique vessel. We ate our picnic. Then we drove back around the park to complete the entire circuit that they had there. In late afternoon we were back at our apartment deciding about dinner. We went to an unremarkable and even disappointing gumbo restaurant. To be fair, it was never recommended by our host! Lol. We had some popcorn and watched some tv before bed.