For some reason I didn't find a lot of pictures for the year 2006. Mostly just local type visits.

One of those trips was to San Antonio for a birthday party for Mathew. Just a quick drive to the park. Chuck, Mary and all their kids were in attendance. I believe it was his 3rd year birthday.

It was a pleasant day trip for us all.


Another short trip we made was to Amite Louisiana to attend to the wedding of another of our God Children, Robert Hattala. It was a little different from most weddings being outside at a farm type venue. It was a little muddy from the rains, but it was kind of nice too. We got to see Barb and Joe Hattala.


The other local trip I found pictures of is a trip to the minor Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan de Valle in San Juan Texas near McAllen Texas. We used to go here quite often, but lately have not. The excursions into Mexico are too dangerous these days. We used to do this a couple times a year. I would go for the cabrito.

The door to the Basilica has some interesting symbols. You can get a closer view of them with this Door Photo link . It uses Java Script, so make sure you have that enabled on your browser.

There is a quite interesting history to the founding of the church. Check out the link below to get the whole story.


I guess this trip doesn't really qualify as a local Texas trip, but we made a quick trip to Alabama so Remy could see the EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network)TV studios. She watches it all the time.

As long as we were in the Birmingham area, I revisited a few places I remembered from my US Steel days (1976-79). I took her to see the iron man statue (Vulcan) on the top of the hill. The lights that shined from him vary from green to red to indicate if there has been a traffic fatality that day. I'm not sure they still do that.


This also doesn't qualify as a local trip, but Leonardo Martinez sent us some pictures of his deployment in Iraq and I include some of them here.


Since I termed this section as Texas trips, I included some images of a balloon launch that Lou Carreon and I witnessed early one day in 2005. I believe it happened near NASA. I must have stayed with her after doing some company business.

Links:

EWTN Television
Iron Man Statue - Vulcan
Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle National Shrine
The Berry Barn Wedding Venue


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