The Windmill

The Holland's News Letter

August 2004 Internet Edition Welcome to the Windmill

Welcome to the Internet Windmill. Soon I will be adding some new features, if ya'll like this format.
Please e-mail me and tell me what you think of it. - Joe Blute

Western Vacation

By Deb and Becca Nixon (Oklahoma City)

Hi everyone! The Nixons headed out west on vacation in mid-July. First we went to Santa Fe, where we enjoyed walking around the beautiful city in the evening. The next day we attended Mass at the St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral and saw the miraculous staircase at the Loretto Chapel. Then we went on through Arizona to the Grand Canyon. We spent a day there, taking short hikes and driving along the rim a ways, to take in different views of the �big hole in the ground.�

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Visit to Cousin Ken Drummond

By Col (Ret) Rob Holland (Pearland, Texas)

During our recent visit to Seattle, I had the chance to become reacquainted with our cousin Ken Drummond, whom I hadn�t seen in more than thirty years. Ken�s mother Eva Mary was my grandfather Herbert Holland�s older sister, and I enjoyed talking to Ken about family genealogy and especially about my granddad, who died before I could know him, and his sisters and brothers. Carol also found Ken and his wife Pat very easy to get to know. Pat and Ken have a beautiful apartment high above the Seattle waterfront, with terrific views of the ferryboats, cruise ships, and freighters in the harbor, and the nightly bonus of the sun setting into the Pacific. Pat works as an enforcement attorney for the federal Labor Department, after an earlier career in civil litigation. Ken is retired now but was an executive for all kinds of scientific endeavors ranging from the Smithsonian to Texas Instruments to oceanography; he once worked with our Uncle Ray on a hydrographic project for the Navy. During WW II, Ken skippered Navy amphibious assault ships in the Pacific, and he and Pat have lived and traveled all over, so our conversations with both of them were lots of fun. We hope that they�ll be able to visit us here in Texas before too long, despite their busy schedule.

Trip To Washington State

y Col Rob Holland (Pearland, Texas)

Our trip to Washington in July was terrific; we went up by plane and returned by train. The Pacific coast on the Olympic peninsula has a much wilder appearance than any of the places I�d seen on our Atlantic or Gulf coasts, with high wooded bluffs, overlooking narrow, rocky or pebbled strips of beach. Most incredible of all were the tremendous piles of driftwood and even whole tree trunks that had been scoured clean by the cold Pacific waters and then tossed up on shore as if they were no more than straws.

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Bear Boy by Claire Blute.