2nd Annual Remembrance of Driscoll's Fallen Heroes

This has become such a special event in Driscoll.  My Brother, Jesse Aleman, has committed himself to bring Driscoll Families together to honor the Fallen Heroes of Driscoll.  Driscoll has two Fallen Heroes:

PFC Leonel Aleman who was (KIA) killed in action on September 11, 1950 during the Korean War and

SFC Ricardo Garcia who is (MIA) missing in action on March 19, 1971 during the Vietnam War

Today and everyday, we honor them and thank them for giving their lives so we may have a better country.

The Corpus Christi Veterans Band played at this event.  Jesse Aleman with his welcome remarks...

      

The posting of the Colors by the Corpus Christi Color Guard.

Rey Jasso gave the invocation and the Band Director welcomed everyone.

    

The Aleman Family....one of the Gold Star Family. (Esperanza, Tina and Homer Aleman)

The Garcia Family, Gold Star Family.  (Gilbert (third from left) and wife, Debbie Garcia (on right).

Special Guests:  Eric Thomas, Retired Navy   and   The Patriot Guard Riders of South Texas.

    

Keynote Speaker, Tom Criser, Vietnam Veteran with the 1st airmobile Cavalry.  He is also the Author of "The Ghost in the Orange Closet".

      

The Table of Remembrance...the man in black represents the POW/MIA

Laying of The Wreaths....presented to the Gold Star Families.

We paid tribute to all Veterans.  They had each branch of the military stand up and then gathered them in front of the U.S. Flag.

I took half of the group, as the group was so large.

The other half of the group. 

Taps by The Veterans Band of Corpus Christi....A Salute!

Memorial table....tribute to Veterans.

The cake...

Jesse and Berta Aleman....

They also served food for everyone....

The back of some of the jackets worn by the Patriot Guard Riders....

     

Manuel, Robert, Arnold and Olivia.

Attendance was great.

My Cousin, Homer, Manuel and Tina Aleman.

Isabella, Liza, Arnold and Olivia Esparza.

My sister, Alma and husband, Raul.

My Brother with two Holt buddies...

The Garcia & Gutierrez Family.

I am so proud of these two Men.  Love them.

The Driscoll Police stopped in to eat....wonder who is patrolling the town?!!

Thank you, Jesse and Berta for making this such a Special and Successful event once again.  Love you.

Already looking forward to next years event!!!  Hope you enjoy this...

Time With My Brother

Friday, we left early to Corpus Christi since we were attending the 2nd Annual Remembrance Honoring Driscoll's Fallen Heroes on Saturday.  We first visited in Driscoll with Manuel's oldest brother and his wife.  While there, his oldest sister came by.  We had a nice day in Driscoll.  We headed to Corpus Christi at about 3 p.m.  We arrived at Holt Company to visit with my Brother, Jesse.

We had a great visit.  My Brother has been with The Holt Company for 38 years and you can tell he truly enjoys his job.  

We asked him to arrange a meeting with Mark Martinez, a co-worker, as we wanted to thank him for all his thoughts and prayers all these (10) years that Manuel has  been fighting cancer.  We had always communicated via messages through my brother, but today we got to meet this thoughtful Man.  What a pleasure it is to know Mark.   

As you may expect, this was a very touching and emotional moment for us.  Again, we are so thankful to have friends like Mark Martinez.  Thank you, Mark and Jesse.

After about an hour of visiting, we left Holt and will get together later with my brother and his wife for dinner. 

We left Holt; went to visit Manuel's younger brother, Robert, but he was not home.  Again, his older sister was there and we visited some more.  Seems like we were following her.

At 6 pm, we drove with my brother to have dinner at the U & I Restaurant.  I took pictures as we drove on Ocean Drive.  Corpus is So beautiful!

Food was great and so was the company.  Thank you, Brother and Berta.  It was awesome...

While we were visiting, Manuel showed them the coin he had received from "A Grateful Citizen" and told them how this had really made his Christmas....

     

My Brother pulled out this coin that someone had given to him also.  My Brother is a member of the Patriot Guard Riders of South Texas and he is assigned to carry the POW-MIA Flag to  the functions honoring Veterans.  He, too, said that was a very touching gesture by that citizen.  He proudly serves this group.  Sorry I could not get a good clear picture.

     

Manuel and I have been researching my Father's Military background since he just never talked about his days serving during WWII.  We have found so many interesting things and we made a folder with all the info found.  We ordered records, medals and patches from the government but they said they could not get some  of them.  We visited several bases here in San Antonio and were able to find every medal and patch he received while serving in the Army Air Corp back in the 1940s.  This prompted us to make a shadow box and present it to my brother this weekend as he has been honoring our Driscoll Fallen Heroes for two years now.  Our Dad survived WWII but Manuel and I thought we would honor him with this special project.  Again, this was a very emotional moment for my brother and I.  He loved it and had no idea we were doing this.  We feel we learned so much from this research.

We got to meet the newest addition to The Family:  Jessica.  Such a beautiful little girl.

We had a great visit with my Brother and his family.  More to come!

Saturday At The Park & More

Saturday, we slept in and then had a good breakfast.  We got ready to go to the park since it is a beautiful sunny day.

We picked up lunch and just tailgated....they sure enjoyed it.  Like I say, it takes so little to make them happy!

After lunch, they head out to play and I follow with my camera....

Lari takes out picture....

There are a lot of people at the park today.   Many are BBQing....  These pecan trees have shed their pecans...

We took a short walk to the Medina River...

   

Heading down to the River.  They pose for me....    I Love these Girls!!

      

They are checking how cold the water is.....not too cold, they say.

 

This guy is really enjoying his fishing here.

Okay, we head back up the hill....hope I make it up!

Our drive thru the RV Park here at the Castroville Regional Park...mostly full timers here.

What a great outing this was.  Of course, we could not pass up the Dairy Queen before heading home.

Took the girls home but stopped to shop before getting to their house.  Just don't want to let go.

Until next time!

Busy All Week-Fun on Weekend!

We have been busy all week with doctor appointments and spring cleaning.  We made a trip to The Ronald McDonald House to make a donation of all the clothes we have gotten out of our closets.  It sure feels good to have all that space in our closets now.  I also put up all my Christmas decor and got the house back in order.  Come Friday afternoon, we headed out to pick up Larissa and Arianna.  They will spend Friday night with us and we always look forward to that as much as they do.

We made a dinner stop at Red Robin's and we all enjoyed our dinner, then headed to the house. 

We bought them a small two person tent as they just love to make their tents with blankets, etc.  They just loved the idea.  They are great little helpers to Grandpa. 

They pose for me as Grandpa struggles with the tent....

All done!  They set up the blankets and pillows and are ready to spend the night in the tent....

They both empty their overnight bags and are all set....They are so excited!

Then we headed out to finish off some roman candles we had left.  That was fun!

This has been a fun night.  More to come!