It's been a long time since I've written anything but I've been extremely busy lately. I am involved with a group which is called "Remain Faithful" and am on the Board of Directors. We are a group of orthodox Episcopalians who believe the Bible to be the revealed Word of God which contains all things necessary for salvation as well as wisdom for Godly living. We are comprised of and led by lay Episcopalians. We are committed to speak the truth in love, communicating clearly the position of faithful orthodox Episcopalians upholding the authority of Holy Scripture. We stand firm with the vast majority in the worldwide Anglican Communion in our commitment to serve our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, to support orthodox Christian ideals and beliefs, and to spread the Good News of Jesus' gift of salvation to all.
Since there is a lot of turmoil in the Church at the present time, we are standing together to try to answer any questions that people within the Anglican Communion might have about what we believe and what we do not.
Many of us have been working very hard putting together a position paper and putting in many hours trying to inform our parishioners about the necessity of staying together and learning the truths. I am the co-chairman of the recruiting phase of this and it has taken up most off my time.
Before I became involved with this project, I painted a small painting for my oldest grandson, Nicholas. He is also the biggest of the boys as you can see in this photograph!
He has been helping us with a lot of things around our house, so I decided to paint him this little painting of sushi since it is one of his favorite foods. I'm going to do a series of small paintings for his kitchen in the style of an artist I admire that is featured in one of the on line Daily Painters groups.
In the midst of my church work, we took a break and went to Austin and San Antonio for a few days. As a child, I spent time each summer with my cousin, Lucien Hunter Collins, in San Antonio. In turn, he would come to Fort Worth and visit with my family. Since we were both only children, it was wonderful to have someone to spend special time with. He was my hero and we spent many wonderful hours together.
He taught me to play Mumbly Peg, blow glass, appreciate spiders and snakes (I didn't say LIKE them, I said appreciate them) and how to be very patriotic. He was the big brother that I never had and I was his little sister. We had many wonderful times together and shared a very special relationship.
We went to Austin first. Having never spent any time there, we thought it was time we visited our wonderful state's capitol. We've been to Australia, Amsterdam, Antarctica and Argentina, but never to Austin, so this was one of the "A" places that we definitely needed to visit. We were not disappointed! You can see from the following slide show some of the places we visited. We arrived a the perfect time of day and we never had to wait and the tours we took had minimum people in them. On Sunday morning we went to a young friend's home in the Barton Creek area and had a wonderful brunch and visit with her and her family.
Their daughter had graduated from high school the night before so it was a time of celebration. Their home is lovely and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Her Mother and I have been friends for many years and we attended her wedding in Chicago many years ago so it was like a reunion.
When we left Austin, we drove to San Antonio to a wonderful resort and spa. The bottom line is that we had 5 days of R&R, were pampered, well fed and left that area as happy campers.
The first time Frank visited San Antonio with me, he was very surprised to find that the Alamo is in the middle of town. He'd watched too many John Wayne movies and expected it to be out in the middle of nowhere. All of the history is still there, but the building is now surrounded be high rises.
After the siege, the building was nearly in ruins. Little attempt was made to restore it, and on January 13, 1841, the Republic of Texas passed an act returning the sanctuary of the Alamo to the Roman Catholic Church. After the annexation of Texas, the United States claimed the ruined building, which was used for quartermaster purposes by the Army until the Civil War. During the Civil War the Confederacy used the building, but after the war, the United States government reclaimed the building and used it until 1876.
The ownership of the building was in dispute for much of the later half of the 19th century. In April 23, 1883, the State of Texas officially purchased the church building from the Catholic Church and gave it to the city of San Antonio with the provision that the city should pay for the care of the building. From the 1890s through 1905 two women made themselves responsible for the preservation of the site: historian and teacher Adina De Zavala, and philanthropist Clara Driscoll, who acquired the site with her own personal funds. The two women later clashed over the treatment of the convent. Driscoll wanted some of the internal walls removed, while De Zavala wanted them to remain intact.
On January 25, 1905, the Texas Legislature passed a resolution purchasing a part of the mission occupied by a business concern, with the further instruction that the purchased property and the church building be put in the custody of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, who currently maintain the building. De Zavala barricaded herself in the building for three days in a successful attempt to prevent commercial exploitation. The building has been restored on several occasions, most notably for the Texas Centennial in 1936. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 19, 1960. That's your Texas history lesson for the day ;-) In fact, I think it might be time for a cocktail since I've put your brain on overload!
We had dinner our last night at a very exclusive restaurant on the resort premises called The Antlers Lodge and enjoyed one of the nicest meals that we have had in a long time. I had a trio of lamb, scampi and tenderloin and Frank had pheasant.
The presentation was lovely and the food was unbelievably delicious. It was the perfect way to end the trip.
People think I'm crazy when I take photographs of the food when I'm in a restaurant, but if anyone ever says anything, I'll just tell them that I'm a food critic. Who knows ... maybe someday I'll have a meal comped!
The next morning we got up very early so we could make the drive back to Fort Worth and attend a board meeting of Remain Faithful that afternoon. It was a long day and we were very happy to finally get back home.
I'll be very busy with church work the next few weeks and it's almost time for our summer trek to Santa Fe. We will leave in a couple of weeks and will be in New Mexico until the end of July. I'm taking both my laptop and my paints, so I will be busy there doing things that I love to do such as eating enchiladas, having a martini or two, going to movies and the opera and visiting with friends. I'll definitely be blogging from there, so stay tuned and travel with us!
XOXO, Pcasso
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