14th Wedding Anniversary

Last Wednesday, March 7th, my husband and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. Since he's been working 6/12's that leaves us Sunday to celebrate! :)

Yesterday we headed out for the day and went to the Vicksburg National Military Park in Vicksburg, MS where we were able to visit the USS Cairo Gunboat and Museum, pictured to the right. Learn about it's history here.
This is not really what you'd consider an anniversary destination, but we want to learn and teach the children about historical places while we're over here. It was nice though because we were able to spend the day together. :)

The children were able to hear about some of the history of the civil war and which states were on the Union/Federal side of the war and which ones were on the side of the Confederacy.

When you enter the park, you drive along the path from marker, to plaque, to statue, to memorial, reading about men who fought on this battlefield. You see memorial after memorial from each state honoring those lost in battle. On the East side of the park were the Union memorials. Some of them were quite impressive. True monuments indeed! On the West side of the park, you ride along the Confederacy side and it was quite saddening to see the smaller memorials for those that paid the ultimate price in the war. This is Alabama's Memorial. They have the rest of the memorials on that same website if you're interested in looking around and learning more.

The most impressive parts of the park was the Cairo Gunboat, the Vicksburg National Cemetery, and the point overlooking the "once" Mississippi River. Since the war, the river changed course, and what was once the Mississippi River here, is now part of the Yazoo River.

Unfortunately, I had a dead camera when we went yesterday, so I have no personal pictures and my daughter's pictures aren't what I want to post. For the $8 vehicle admission into the park, you have a week access to the park, so I'm thinking of going back one day this week while hubby's working to get some to share with y'all! :)

After we left there, we decided to go out to eat. We choose Shoney's in Vicksburg because it's like the only AMERICAN buffet in the whole city. lol Even after a couple of guys at hubby's work said not to go there, we had to go see this "bad" service for ourselves. lol We went in and ordered the buffet. Hubby said the only thing decent to eat were the ribs. After filling up on ribs, than he says they weren't that good after all. lol I thought they were alright.. I tried their macaroni and it was COLD. Not just warm, but freezing cold, like it had never been cooked. The piece of fried chicken I got had blood in the middle. Can you believe that we actually paid the $50 bill? This was the cost of the meal plus a tip. I don't like to complain to the people. I just pay them back by NEVER entering their establishment again, and doing what I'm doing here, warning everyone not to go there! If it's good, I'll tell you, if it's bad, I'll tell you that too. This was very bad! I asked hubby if he thought ordering from the menu could have been better and he said, "If they couldn't get the buffet right, do you really think they can get a special order right?" After he said that, I saw a customer give a waitress a plate back telling them their steak was overcooked.. lol Well I guess he was right!

We than came home to relax and watched Shawshank Redemption that we have on DVD. All in all it was a good day. I look forward to what the next 14 years of marriage has in store for my husband and myself! :)

Update: I went today with the children and took pictures. Here is the link to my personal facebook album of Vicksburg National Military Park if you'd like to take a look. :)