Let the FUN begin!

Here we are in the middle of road trip 2010, but I had to catch up at what was the beginning of our whirlwind adventure....a visit from Ty and Connie! Here are some of the Texas highlights:







More adventures to come!

An Adventure of the High Persuasion....

Being the good man that he is, C recently braved the extreme heat coupled with adolescence and took the Young Men to Big Bend National Park for a scouting High Adventure. He had a great time and if the young mens' facebook statuses are any indication they did as well!

Be Strong and of a Good Courage...

It undoubtedly sounds a bit like a cliche, but so be it....it was a PRIVILEGE to serve as a counselor at this year's youth conference last weekend. Seriously...I loved it. Devotionals, dances, workshops, games, a service project, phenomenal youth and an amazing testimony meeting - a wonderful weekend. The youth of the Kyle stake are so good.....so so good. I'm happy to report that the future is in good hands!

Geneaology...I am doing it....my la la la la la...

Remember how when something really cool/big happens I have a really hard time blogging about it? It seems so hard to do certain things justice, but I'll give it my short-and-sweet-loaded-with-pictures best. (PS by short I mean LONG.)

When C and I moved to Texas I had a fleeting thought - "Hey, my Grandma Ingoldsby was born in Texas." C and I put visiting her hometown on our list of things to do. When Clint and fam and Michelle followed the family migration to Texas the time for a Texas family history tour seemed to be approaching. When Michelle and I found a list of Texas cemeteries in an old family photo album things got SERIOUS. When we found out Aunt Pam and Uncle Dan would be in town over Memorial Day the family history tour became a NECESSITY.

Truth be told I enjoyed researching and organizing the trip almost as much as I enjoyed going on it. I love family history....and not just dates and pedigree charts....I want the details that bring the people and their stories to life - and this trip did just the trick. Honestly, after doing the research and visiting the places I think we all agreed that we felt truly connected to this line of the family. Michelle said it well when she said "I figure now they might really greet me on the other side and we'll have something to talk about!" I smiled to think of our ancestors knowing of our adventures. What a kick they must have gotten out of us traveling all around to learn more about them. I imagine it as a very validating feeling.

So Saturday morning we headed north to visit Kaufman, Van Zandt and Anderson counties. 5 cemeteries, 7 little "towns", 20+ family graves, 1 important river (and it's accompanying funny story), 1 face-to-face convo with a distant relative (a funny story we'll be able to pass on), lots of learning, pictures and family bonding, and 700+miles in the Bullet made for one AMAZING weekend. I mean really....seeing new places AND doing family history? I was in heaven.

Without giving you ALL the details, here are a handful of highlights:



It's hard to explain the anticipation and excitment we felt at our first stop (Rader Cemetery in Kaufman county). It was so exciting to find SO many family graves and take some time to sit and talk about what we knew about each person. (And just in case you were wondering....it was BLAZING hot.....worth every minute, but really...SO HOT.)


Cana Cemetery, like so many we visited, was out in the middle of the country and had a Baptist church next door that has been there since our family lived there.



Prairieville was a quick stop, but worth it. My great, great grandparents lived in Prairieville around 1900 and were farmers. There wasn't much to see aside from the country-side, but we were excited to find a grocery store that would have been there when they lived there as well.


We were all excited to visit Wills Point - where my grandma Ingoldsby was born. The downtown - including it's red brick Main Street - is full of the same buildings that were there in the 1920's when my grandma and her family would have come to Wills Point to "come into town." We also stopped by the Sabine river to imagine great grandpa Owen fishing.
We spent the night in Athens (no family history importance, but a good stopping point) which is apparently the birthplace of the hamburger. (True story...look it up.) So thus we HAd to go out for burgers....they were Texas-sized and delicious.


Montalba, TX and the Holly Springs Cemetery and church were some of my most anticipated stops because I discovered that my 5th great grandpa and grandma actually settled the area AND donated the land for the cemetery and church. When we couldn't find the cemetery a sweet older lady helpd us, talked to me about our ancestors (because everyone there knows everyone and is related to everyone) and sort of tried to convince us to move there. It was awesome. (She also gave us directions to an old Oldham family home where we met a distant relative. He was standoff-ish at first, but totally warmed up to us. It was hilarious...and great.....especially when he called us 'kin'.)
The cemetery was my personal fave, because it was so pretty and serene. The picture of me and Michelle is with the graves of our 5th great grandparents. 7 generations back! Amazing.



Our last stop was Tennessee Colony near Montalba. There isn't much left to Tennessee Colony except the cemetery, but it was beautiful and we found our family graves amazingly quick considering the size of the cemetery...and right before the rain hit!

We ended the weekend Sunday night back in Austin for a family dinner where we were joined by Scott and his family. The perfect ending to a perfect family weekend.