Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Martinez Family!

Veteran's Day 2008

Veteran's Day

In honor of all a Veteran's and especially our Grandfather.

My Grandfather carried a camera throughout World War II, these are some of the pictures he took that are in our possession.

My Grandfather Cpl. Roman Martinez (left) and a good friend. 

Martinez was too long a name, so all my grandpa's friends called him Marty. 

In the Barracks 

One of Grandpa's Friends

(Robert Hill?)

Another Friend

During most of the war my Grandfather was stationed in N. Ireland

We were very excited to find these pictures! This is a twelfth of July parade! The Irish celebrating the defeat of James II while fighting the tyranny of Hitler. 

Bag pipers

An Irish Country road

A castle in ruins from a previous war many years before

A very sobering picture of Belfast, North Ireland 1943.

On the back of this picture is the inscription "Bombed out" 

A good friend of Grandpa's

Col. Fred Deyo in front his plane the Frisco Trudy, that my Grandpa flew in as a tail gunner. My grandpa never mentions Col. Deyo without the utmost respect and affection. He told me once that because he was so young when he enlisted, Col. Deyo looked out for him and treated like his own son.

Lt. Hill, Lt. Bergui, & 1st Sgt. Lipan

England 1944

My Grandfather flew in at least three different planes during World War II, the Frisco Trudy, the Capricorn, and the Virgin Vampire. 

Both B-17 and B-24

A mission over Germany

Towards the end of the war I believe my Grandfather was stationed in both Belgium and Germany.

"Pop and the Old Man"

 "To my pal Marty,  Harry (Pop) Claiborn, Chief Inspector, 325th"

 "Fred A. Deyo   Lt Col. A.E"

"Pop" was the oldest man in the crew, and everyone ever only called him Pop or Old Doc. 

                     

                   

Hg. Sq. 325th Air Service Group

(the Pioneer Group)

Grandpa is in the front eighth from left

Brass hats 325th Air Service Group

1944 Germany

(left to right)

Sgt. Robert Longstreet, Sgt. Old Doc (Harry Claiborn), 

Sgt.Cantansereetti.

(kneeling left to right) Cpl. Roman Martinez, Lt. Robert Hill

By the end of the war Grandpa had been in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Belgium, and Germany and was more then ready to come home.

The Hannah Overton Case

Hannah Overton is a sweet godly Christian mother who was unjustly accused of capital murder by omission to act in the death of her son Andrew and sentenced to life in prison without parole. She is a native to Corpus Christi, T.X and though our family does not know her personally, we know several people who do, and we are very grieved to see justice so disgustingly perverted in our city and feel deeply for the whole Overton family. I hope any of you who have time will take some of it and listen to her story that was aired on ABC last Friday. Please keep Hannah, Larry, and their children in your prayers!

The Old Orange Flute

Continuing on the note of William III, (also know as William Prince of Orange to the Dutch) here is the lyrics to a favorite humorous little song of ours. The followers of King William were called Orange Blades.

The Old Orange Flute

In the county Tyrone, in the town of Dungannon 

Where many a ruckus meself had a hand in 

Bob Williamson lived there, a weaver by trade 

And all of us thought him a stout-hearted blade. 

On the twelfth of July as it yearly did come 

Bob played on the flute to the sound of the drum 

You can talk of your fiddles, your harp or your lute 

But there's nothing could sound like the Old Orange Flute.

But the treacherous scoundrel, he took us all in 

For he married a Papish named Bridget McGinn 

Turned Papish himself and forsook the Old Cause 

That gave us our freedom, religion and laws. 

And the boys in the county made such a stir on it 

They forced Bob to flee to the province of Connaught; 

Took with him his wife and his fixins, to boot, 

And along with the rest went the Old Orange Flute.

Each Sunday at mass, to atone for past deeds, 

Bob said Paters and Aves and counted his beads 

Till one Sunday morn, at the priest's own require 

Bob went for to play with the flutes in the choir. 

He went for to play with the flutes in the mass 

But the instrument quivered and cried."O Alas!" 

And blow as he would, though he made a great noise, 

The flute would play only "The Protestant Boys".

Bob jumped up and huffed, and was all in a flutter. 

He pitched the old flute in the best holy water; 

He thought that this charm would bring some other sound, 

When he tried it again, it played "Croppies Lie Down!" 

And for all he would finger and twiddle and blow 

For to play Papish music, the flute would not go; 

"Kick the Pope" to "Boyne Water" was all it would sound 

Not one Papish bleat in it could e'er be found.

At a council of priests that was held the next day 

They decided to banish the Old Flute away; 

They couldn't knock heresy out of its head 

So they bought Bob another to play in its stead. 

And the Old Flute was doomed, and its fate was pathetic 

'Twas fastened and burnt at the stake as heretic. 

As the flames rose around it, you could hear a strange noise 

'Twas the Old Flute still a-whistlin' "The Protestant Boys". 

Tagged again

Johanna has been tagged by Lauren!

Tag rules are to post the sixth picture from folder six of your computer.

I smudged a little bit on this one. The real sixth picture from the sixth folder was of my sister's horse's giant gaping bloody wound on her leg that she got this past June from some nasty barbed wire. I did not want to post that, so here is the sixth of the sixth from my Picasa album. : )

This is a picture of King William III, victor of the battle of the Boyne, and defeater of the tyrant James II! My brother and I pulled this picture off the internet for some invitations we were making for a 12th of July party. For those of you who don't know, July 12, 1690 (by the new calender) is when William and his Protestant army defeated James' French Catholic army by the banks of the Boyne river in Ireland. This battle  secured the English crown for King William III and Queen Mary II and freedom from James II for good.  This is one of our family's many favorite periods of history. Not only for the significance it had directly then for England, Ireland, Scotland, and all of Europe, but for the major significance it has had on our own country's war of independence,  forming of government, and the preserving of our religious freedom! Thank God for The Glorious Revolution of 1688!

His-story is so amazing!!!

I'm "It" again!

Johanna has been tagged by Robert.

Tag rules: List six things you learned in the past month.

1. I learned how to play part of Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" (Schirmer's edition) on the piano.

2. I learned that it was someone by the name of Palladius, who was invited by King Eugenius II to purge the Scottish church of the Pelagion heresy, who laid the first stone for Romish hierarchy to set foot in Scotland about the year 450.  Before then the church had held to a Presbyterian form of government.

3. I learned one little dead mouse can make a surprising amount of stink, and to be more careful sorting the laundry, because you might grab and sort a little dead stinky mouse.

4. I relearned that X-box is a "Vanity of Vanities" and "What advantage does a man have in all his work which he does under the sun?" Or "before the X-box" as it is in this case, NONE! To sum it all up X-box is a bad invention!

(as I am sure you already know,that was for you Robert:)

5. I learned that 'Philosophy' in the Greek means 'love of knowledge'

6. I learned that the movie "Fire Proof" is a very good movie!

Boy! Good thing there were only six questions, I might of run out and embarrassed myself! (just kidding of course)

I think I am a little too out of breath from being chased and tagged so offten to tag anyone else, so forgive for braking the rules! :)

The ScotsWorthies

"A cloud of witnesses lie here, 

Who, for Christ's interests, did appear;

For to restore true liberty,

O'erturned then by tyranny.

Theses heroes fought with great renown;

By falling got the martyr's crown!"

From the monument at Rullian Green 

                            

Johanna has been tagged by Rebecca.

Tag rules

Post the rules on your blog
Answer the six questions asked
Write six random things about yourself
Post a favorite picture
Tag around six people
Link to the person who tagged you
Leave comments on their blogs to let them know they've been tagged

What was the last movie you watched? "Drums along the Mohawk" 

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?  Scotland has always been been my fanciful dream place. I am happy where I am though, and will try to be content where ever God puts me. (That task will become harder the further north and closer to Yankee land that is however.)

Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility? Pride and Prejudice without a doubt! 

Skirts or Pants? I prefer wearing skirts, but I have nothing against pants. (especially when riding horses!)

Would you rather sing or play an instrument? I love doing both, but due to the quality of my voice, playing an instrument is probably the kinder deed to do for the sake of the rest of the world. (unless that instrument is something like my harmonica, with which I might very likely drive the rest of the world nuts!)

Love or hate roller coasters? I don't know, my one experience with a roller coaster was when I was six, and judging by the fact I got off of it in tears, I dear say I did not like it at the time! I very well might now however.

Six Random things about me....

I love to play the piano and been playing for over seven years.

I have loved horses almost my whole life.

One of my favorite of favorite psalms is Psalm 119:00.

I love to read, and I especially love reading history.

I think British comedies are one of the most embarrassing and stupidest creations of man (especially Monty Python)  "Jeeves and Wooster" is the only one I have found I can tolerate and even like.

My brother Robert's half birthday is my birthday and his birthday is my half birthday. (We were born eighteen months apart to the day.)

Here is one of my favorite pictures called, "God speed".

I tag Sydney and Stephanie! Sorry I can't make six, most everyone I know has been tagged already!

2007 California trip 4

I am going to take a quick step back into ancient history and publish this post I made forever ago, but never published for some reason. This is post 4 from our California Christmas 2007 series, you can click on Vacation in labels if you wish to read the preceding post.

An Unnatural occurrence!

The day after Christmas Grandpa and Grammie tried to take us to Big Trees, to see the giant Red Woods. On the way up the mountain it started snowing! As a matter of fact it started snowing hard enough that traffic control made us turn around because we did not have chains on our tires; but that did not matter to us Texans, it was snowing!!! You are more likely to see a Solar eclipse then snow in South Texas, so this was a big treat for us!

Texans in the snow!
On our way down the mountain we stopped for hamburgers, so we Texans got to get out and come in contact with this extraterrestrial substance. The first thing we did was start a snow fight (go figure). After our fingers were too frozen to pick up and throw anything anymore,

hostilities ceased enough to take this picture.

Moments before the cascarona snow ball was invented... hehehe. This picture was taken just a split second to early to document this

momentous occasion in human history.

Goofy girl

Snow cowboy

Go Texas!

This is our ugly little snowman. We used all the good clean snow in our war, so he got the left overs. This picture almost creates an optical allusion and makes him look big, in reality he was about ten inches tall.

Mommy in her element (snow) eating ice cream. The rest of us are not shown in this picture, but we are somewhere out of our element and drinking hot chocolate.

After a few more serious snow ball wars, the adults were able to pull us out of what little snow remained in the little restaurant's parking lot and we were back on our way down the mountain.

Next we went to Iron Stone Winery and Museum

One of the biggest gold nuggets in the world

A really nice saddle they had in the museum, that the girls really liked. It looks like it could have belonged to Trigger!

Cowboy Calvin and Sir Oliver of ...something.

The giant wine vats

The dining room with a very impressive organ.

Johanna next to a very nice grand piano on which she played some of Chopin's Fantasy Impromtu.

Robert honking a lions nose?

He looks like a real catch doesn't he? But let me tell you, in reality he turned out to be no more than a hard headed, iron fisted, cold hearted, shell!

Mum and Dad with twinkling Christmas lights.