A little smile to share

I just had to share this video with you. I hope it makes your day like it makes mine.

Vicksburg

We took a day trip to Vicksburg Mississippi on Saturday. We had a great time, here are a few highlights from the trip.

The Vicksburg National Cemetery

Nearly 17,000 Union soldiers are buried here, making it the largest internment of Civil War dead in the nation. Since it was memorial day they had put a flag by each grave, it was quite a sight.

The U.S.S. Cairo

This is a gunboat from the civil war. It had thirteen cannons and was iron clad. This ship was sunk just outside of Vicksburg. It was the first ship in history to be sunk by an electronically detonated torpedo. In the 1970's they raised it from the bottom of the Mississippi and it as well as a museum of different artifacts are at the Vicksburg National Military Park.

Here the kids are 1)inspecting the cannons 2) in front of the Illinois Monument 3) in front of a tank

The Monuments

The Wisconsin Monument~ ~The Mississippi Monument

The Illinois Monument

There was a 16 mile driving tour that had stops to help understand how the battle and siege happened. Along the path were numerous monument. Some memorialized specific men or regiments. Each state also had a monument, which remembered those from their state who were part of the Vicksburg battles. The biggest was the Illinois monument which had names around the inside of the building. The words on the Wisconsin one are nice if you zoom in.

The Mighty Mississippi

Since, we live in Mississippi we figured we should probably see Old Man river himself, so we did. We drove across into Louisiana and back. As you have probably heard in the news it is way over its banks. We saw evidence of this, after we got off the "bridge" we still had water on both sides of the road for a mile or more. If you zoom in on the last picture you can see the evidence.

A few videos

Here are a couple of videos that I wanted all of you to have the joy of seeing.

The first is at Zachary's preschool program. He did a great job, the music teacher said that she was impressed with how quickly he picked up on songs they had been working on all year. He only attended 1 month. I love his sheepish look when his actions lag behind (this was the only time he was off during the song) I'm glad I caught the moment.

The second is Wendy talking, and Hyrum being cute. At the end she is talking about the "piggy" in Hyrum's barn pocket.

The third one is Eric riding his bike. He received the bike for Christmas, and did not have the opportunity to ride it until we got our stuff from storage a month ago. He has tried a few times, but always got frustrated with his feet sliding off the pedals. Finally, today he actually rode his bike. He was very proud of himself, and wanted to show Dad when he got home.

Smiles!!!

HYRUM'S SMILE

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Hyrum is smiling, and I love it. It is fun to see him recognize that he is looking at you, and then grin. It can be hard to catch on camera because it is often a very wide smile (like the first picture above), which in pictures often does not appear to be a smile. However, you can see it in his eyes.

Hyrum's blessing

Hyrum was blessed on Sunday. It was a beautiful blessing focusing on the spirit and service. Here are some pictures of handsome little Hyrum in his tux. Thanks to Grandma Janet for making it, all three of our boys have used it.