Fx4 2012: Vicksburg

After our semi-eventful drive, we were glad to hang out in Vicksburg for a couple of days.  My Aunt Sandra and Uncle Bobby joined us for dinner on Saturday night.  Mom spoiled us with a big home-cooked meal: pot roast, rice and gravy, lima beans, field peas, rolls, and I think there was more.  I know there were brownies and banana pudding for dessert.

Uncle Mark!

So glad to see Grandma.

Sunday we saw the good folks of Gibson Memorial.  We stayed for potluck after the service.  Yum. 

Here we are before church:

Aloha shirts!

Corrie and blue blankie

The sun!  The sun!  Ben and I are squinty.

We split up for the afternoon.  Emmett and Mark took the big kids to the Vicksburg National Military Park to run around.  Evan loves to pretend he's a soldier, and he roped everyone into a big game of war.  Although I guess he got a little confused ... when Mark and Corrie attacked, Evan warned Emmett to "Watch out for the Germans!"  Wrong war, sweetie.  It was crazy hot that day, so Corrie mostly hung out in the air-conditioned car while the boys explored.

The one picture the guys took at the park.

Mom, Ben and I spent a couple of hours hanging out at Walmart, waiting to get the battery replaced.  One of the women who works at the WalMart Tire Center has a young daughter with Down syndrome, so we talked briefly.

For dinner, Rowdy's!  I had to get fried catfish (and batter fries) while we were in Mississippi. 

We usually play games when we're with my family.  After the kids went to bed, Mom and I took on Emmett and Mark in a Sequence tournament.  The guys won.  Shady business.

Another Evan story:  Mom likes to get books for Evan (The Magic Tree House series, Rikki Tikki Tavi, etc).  This time, she gave him Stone Fox.  She warned him that the ending was surprising.  Evan started reading that afternoon, and took it up to bed with him.  "Grandma, thanks for this book.  I really like it."  Mom and I got to talking about the book, and she said that when she read it to her 4th graders at school, she cried.  Why?  Spoiler alert:  it's about a sled race, and at the very end of the book, the boy's dog dies, and he has to carry the dead dog across the finish line to win the race. 

Note: A year or so ago, Mom gave us the movie Eight Below about stranded sled dogs at the South Pole.  She also recommended Old Yeller.  

Despite his affinity for weapons and war, Evan's kind of sensitive.  Sure enough, later in the evening, he came downstairs, holding the book, looking totally shell-shocked.  "It's the second saddest thing I've ever seen," he said, tears in his eyes.  What was the first?  "Eight Below."