Friday, February 23, 2007

Free school

Last night I received my award letter from the financial aid office at College of DuPage. It basically showed that I had received a Pell grant that will cover my tuition for the classes I will be taking this summer. This was exciting! I can't wait to register for classes, which, I'm told, should begin next month.

AJ was supposed to be flying up this evening to visit for the weekend. However, he was unable to leave the family this weekend. He will be trying again next weekend after the 1st of the month, which will probably be better, financially, for both of us.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

A Trip to Texas

It was exactly one month ago today that I wrote my last post for this blog. I have since flown to Houston with my son, who had some minor surgery. The visit went well and, for the most part, peaceful, as Aden & Ashton weren't there screaming or crying or demanding to be fed in the middle of the night. I missed them while we were there though.

Hudson and I stayed with both Dayna's parents and my mother. It was made much easier by the car that I had rented, which was a Chevy Cobalt. The weather was much different, though, from that in Chicagoland. Dayna reported single-digit temperatures here while Houston remained suspended in the 60s and 70s during the day.

We were also able to go out on what I was hoping would be a more productive "Family History Excursion" in Tyler County. A trip to the Tyler County Heritage Village in Woodville, Texas, which was stocked with a small library of family and other historical information, was interesting, but one would need at least a day to rummage through the information available, and with no children.

After the Heritage Village we visited my Great-uncle Lee Roy Ard, who was in the Tyler County Hospital. He is very old now and, sadly, cannot be expected to be around much longer. Although I had hoped to be able to interview him regarding our family history and perhaps hear stories of the "good ol' days", but, nonetheless, I was very glad I was able to see him during my visit.

Our last stop on that day was the icing on the cake. We visited Franks Branch Cemetery in Fred, Texas, where many of my recent ancestors are buried. I had been to the cemetery before several times as my grandparents are buried there, but I had not been there since I started studying my genealogy.

Overall, it was a great day.