Signs, Signs, Everywhere There`s Signs

We went on vacation last week and that is always the time we notice all the funny signs along the road. I also get fun pictures from our kids while they are out and about the world. So, I though I would share some of them with you.

Unfortunately the one I loved the most, I did not get a picture of. We were on highway 98 through the Panhandle of Florida and saw a billboard that had a bald Realtor`s picture on it. This pictures was close to the top of the board and right on top of the board was a huge bird`s nest.The nest sat right on top of the man's head and it looked like he was wearing a wig. I would have loved to have taken a picture, but that would have required my husband to stop and turn around. Since we were on a record pace to get to our vacation, that was not going to happen, lol.

Here are the warning labels on cigarettes. Which warning do you think is more effective?

We stopped to get gas here and Got it done!

These office supplies were in an office in Korea. Read all the labels.

King of the Brews?

Really? Does that 1/2 mph make a difference?

A Cafe for drinking Chefs?

R2 Decaf? Where is Tea 3PO?

How rich do you have to be to have a gold ATM?

Maybe because of poor grammar?

I am hoping something got lost in the translation.

Is this Shaq`s shoehorn?

I know everything is big in Texas, but so are the discounts on jeans (texans) in Spain.

Yes, this was outside the Vets office.

I guess in Egypt the P is silent in Psalt

I think it would be cheaper to just buy the dumplings.

One of these thing is not like the others!

Texas stop sign! This explains a lot.

I get these all the time from my kids, and I am sure I will have another blog full in the near future.

The Emerald Coast

A few weeks ago we went to stay in our condo on the Florida Panhandle. This was our 18 month old Grandson`s first trip to the beach, and he had a great time. This trip was unique in another respect in that we saw some really cool Florida wildlife, and some for the first time.

Every morning we walk on the beach shell hunting, and always see the seagulls, washed up sea-slugs, and jelly fish.This morning we were walking along the beach in the very shallow water, looking for shells, and my daughter and husband pointed out a stingray swimming in the shallow water.  The picture is not really clear due to the sand, and a lot of seaweed, but you can make out the shadow.

First time we have seen a stingray in the water.

Strange, but this is the first time I have seen a crab running along the beach. Maybe I just couldn`t see them because they really blend in with the sand.

It looks like sand with eyes.

There is a pier a short walk down the beach from our condo and you have to pay $2 per person to walk down to the end. Your $2 lasts for the whole day and you can stamp your hand if you want to come back. Best $2 we spent the whole vacation. First, we had a crane fly over and land on the pier. This bird was just walking along the pier among the people and our grandson thought it was the greatest thing ever.

This is a great picture of our friend the crane.

We got half way down the pier and saw three dolphins swimming and jumping out of the water. The day before we were at the beach and we could see two dolphins jumping out in the water by the pier. Not sure if they were the same dolphins, but if they were, we are glad they made another appearance. They were so close and just beautiful. This was of course the day we didn`t bring the camera, so out came everyone`s phones. My husband videoed and my daughter took the pictures. Our grandson was mesmerized. He loved watching the dolphins swimming and jumping.

This is why they call it the Emerald Coast.  White sand and emerald water.

All and all it was a very Animal Planet vacation.

Just had to throw in an evening picture of the Gulf and the pier.

Ford`s Theater

I miss Ford`s Theater. Since we left Virginia in June, the one place that I miss the most is Ford`s Theater. It may seem like an odd place to miss, but I truly do. When we first moved to Virginia we did all the DC tourist trips. We would go to all the monuments and museums, and one of the first places we visited was Ford`s Theater. My husband and I went to the museum in the basement, the tour of the theater, and across the street to the Petersen House, and the Center for Education and Leadership. The Petersen House is the boarding house where President Lincoln died. The history in those two buildings is amazing. No matter how many times I went, and there were many, I always saw or learned something new.

A rare photo of the outside of the Theater without people standing in front.

The first time we went to a play in the Theater we saw "Hello Dolly" and sat in the balcony seats right next to the box where Lincoln was shot. It was so strange to be that close to the spot of an event that was one of the lowest points in our country's history. It was even stranger to sit and laugh watching the play next to a place where such a solemn event occurred. Yet we did.

This is the box where Lincoln was shot.         

When you visit the Theater the first time it is amazing how small everything seems. The aisle in the theater, the door to the President's box, the stairwells, and even the stage. It is all very intimate. We have been very lucky to see several plays and musicals in the theater and have loved every one. The best was being able to take our Sons to see "A Christmas Carol" at Ford`s. We had front row center balcony seats, and they were awesome. If we had stayed in Virginia, I am sure that would have become a Christmas tradition.

Such an intimate theater. Our favorite seats were front row in the middle of the balcony.              

         

The Theater`s museum has several important items that you have read about in history books, like the derringer that Booth used to shoot the President. They have Booth`s diary, and the boot that Dr. Mudd cut off of him when he broke his leg jumping off the balcony to the stage of the Theater.  Some say he broke his leg falling off his horse, but I am sticking with the fall from the balcony.The museum also has the clothing and cloak that Lincoln wore to the Theater that tragic night.

Clothes President Lincoln was wearing when assassinated.

When Lincoln was shot he was attended to by a doctor that was also attending the play, Dr. Charles Leale, a 23 year old Union Army surgeon, who just graduated from medical school 6 weeks earlier. Dr. Leale recognized that President Lincoln`s wound was mortal and that he would not survive the carriage trip to the White House.

Dr. Charles Augustus Leale 

Dr. Leale had the dying President moved to a place out of the public view. They carried the President down the stairs and into the street. There was a boarding house across the street, the Petersen House, where a boarder saw the commotion and directed them into the house. They took the President into the house and to a back bedroom, where they had to put him on the bed diagonally because he was too tall, 6`4, to lay length wise. Dr. Leale then gave control of the President`s care to this Family physician, and he was tended to by him and another doctor until he passed the following morning. I cannot even imagine having such responsibility at the age of 23 and only 6 weeks on the job. You know how people say your name is Mudd if you are unpopular for an action, maybe we should say your name is Leale when you do something awesome! I could start a trend here.

The actual bed where Lincoln died is not in the Petersen House, 
but in the Chicago History Museum, Really?    

Next door, attached to the Petersen House, is the Center for Education and Leadership. This museum follows the aftermath of the President`s assassination.The museum covers the funeral, the manhunt and capture of Booth, and Lincoln`s legacy.  When you walk down the spiral staircase from the top floor of the museum to the ground floor gift shop, you will see a very unique display. This tower  that is several stories high is made of about 7000  of the over 15,000 books written about President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is second only to Jesus Christ with the number of books written about him.

Tower of books about Lincoln.

It is hard to believe that these are not really books, but bent aluminum pieces with book covers printed on them.  This is a close up picture and it is impossible tell that they are not real books.  I have seen them in person at least a half a dozen times, and I did not know they were not really books.

Do you now see why I miss this place so much?

College Livingroom Furniture Refresher

When our son went into his college apartment last year we refinished and refreshed our old basement furniture for him. Personally, I hated the couch and chairs we had in the basement, but he loved them for the comfort factor.

Sorry for the lighting, only picture I had in Texas

We bought this furniture from Value City in the 90's.  Two of the large cushions or pillows on the back of the couch had pineapples on them. We had the couch and chairs cleaned and I went to Jo Ann Fabric and bought some snazzy fabric to cover the back pillows. This was the some fabric I used to cover his bar stools I featured in a post on Aug 9, 2013.

Love this fabric, thanks Debbie for helping me pick it out

 Not a lot of work involved. A basic square the size of the pillows, sew three sides, pullover the pillow, fold in the raw edges and sew the last side shut.

Blurry, but you get the idea. I need my VA pictures. 

A few store bought red throw pillows, a red throw blanket, red curtains, a red/ black distressed metal end table, an old orange lamp that I spray painted black, an album I baked to make a remote holder, a Target floor lamp and done! The coffee table is another blog.

Not bad for a bunch of hand me downs.

I wanted to use our Son`s guitar as part of the decor. We bought it for him one Christmas many years ago. It is a wood electric guitar painted a beautiful red. I bought a guitar wall mount on Amazon, and it was pretty easy to install. He doesn`t play the guitar any more, but it looks good on the wall. I had some black and white pictures of the Beatles in storage that use to hang in our older Son`s room, so I thought they would go perfect with the guitar.

Very hard to take pictures of pictures that are in glass. Too much glare, I know.

OK, now we have a black and red color scheme with a little Beatles thrown in. I carried that theme into the dinning room. Stay tuned! Pun definitely intended.

The Raid

First, I am telling this story using the words of a woman from the 1700s. Some terms may not be Politically Correct (PC). This is not done to offend, but to be historically accurate. Sorry no pictures for this one.

As I was reading the "The Vogt Family History", the family book that I mentioned in my post titled "Will You Spell That for Me?", I found a story of an "Indian" raid that happened in 1778. My 4 times Great Grandparents, Michael and Elizabeth Vogt, were living in Pennsylvania at the time of the story. Michael was born in Union County, PA  in 1755 and died there in 1833 at the age of 78. He lived in the same area his whole life and was a hard working farmer like his father before him. Michael and Elizabeth had 18 surviving children. In the book it tells the story of an "Indian" raid in 1778 that happened while Elizabeth was working in the fields.

Here is Elizabeth's account of the raid:
Elizabeth was threshing flax on their place where the road through Chappell`s Hollow comes out into Dry Valley, when the Indians came upon them suddenly. Her baby was near her, and she picked it up and ran. Another child that could just run about, was back of their little barn. Elizabeth hears the child call "Oh Mother, take me along too," Elizabeth looked around and the Indians were close upon her. She ran the whole way, two miles, to Penn`s Creek, to a house where the neighbors had gathered. Elizabeth never heard of her child again; but there was no indication that the child was killed, and Elizabeth hoped for it`s return someday. At night in the quite hours of the day , the last words of her child, "Oh Mother, take me along too", rang in her ears long years after.

Elizabeth said that the house they took refuge in was surrounded by Indians. They suffered from thirst and a man named Peter said he would have water if he died for it. They allowed him to go out, and as he turned the corner of the house, a rifle cracked, and he fell dead. The next day the Indians withdrew, and they embarked in canoes and went down Penn`s Creek. On the Isle of Que, she said, she went into a house and found no one about. A baby set propped up in a cradle. On close inspection she found it was dead, and the marks of a tomahawk.

It was very hard to tell if the story was completely true, or had been changed a bit as centuries have gone by. What I have been able to uncover is that some tribes in the area of my ancestors fought on the side of the British in the Revolutionary War. These tribes raided many settlements and massacred the settlers and took some captive. The timing of Elizabeth's story matches the times of those raids.

There is another story in the book for this same family that tells of Michael and Elizabeth's daughter, Esther, who they say was the oldest child. Esther's birth year is 1777, which would have made her an infant at the time of the raid in Elizabeth`s story above. She could  have been the baby she ran with. They do not have a record of the child that was taken in the raid and they do not mention if the child was male or female. They also do not state the child`s age, just that it was able to walk about. You would think that the child would have had to of been at least 4 or 5 to be able to yell for their mother to take them along.

The second story in the book says that Esther was shot through the breast by Indians in 1784 while out in the barnyard milking the cows. She died immediately. She was aged seven years. The story states that the mother and one other daughter escaped the attack of the "savages," the father firing at them from the house and driving them away, in the twilight of the early evening, just as the sun was setting in the western horizon of the Autumn day.

This is where the story does not add up. If Esther is 7 in 1784, the only children born between 1777 and 1784 were all boys. The next girl, Barbara, was not born until 1789. This means the mother could not have escaped with a daughter, it would have had to of been a son.

It is so hard to tell if these stories are completely true or not. Esther is the only child of record that we do not have a birth or death, month and day, recorded, only years. The story of the 1778 raid is very detailed with names of places and people. I wonder if at sometime the two stories were one. Maybe the raid happened in 1784, Esther was milking the cows while Elizabeth was in the field. The Indians came, Esther yelled for her Mother before she was shot and Elizabeth ran away without Esther, carrying her son Jonas, who was born in 1784. Maybe it was just easier for her to handle Esther being captured instead of killed when she left her. That raid had to have haunted Elizabeth for the rest of her life. Unfortunately we may never know the whole tragic story.