Tuesday, July 25, 2017

WHEN YOUR KIDS INVITE YOU SOMEWHERE...

WOW, How fun for the tables to turn and all of a sudden YOU are invited someplace by the kids!  It's started happening with Mother's Day at my daughter's house and now a weekend lake trip with my son and his sweet wife!  

We stayed at her parent's mobile home that had a gorgeous view of Lake Tenkiller.  It was a great time of reminiscing for us, especially since my parents owned a lake house and boat there for many years before my Dad's death in 2001.  At that time they sold it all and despite our best intentions, we've only visited a couple of times since then. 

Ready to check out the lake - including Tucker!











 Happy 26th birthday to our son!


Beautiful sunset from the deck of the cabin! We enjoyed this special time with our kids.  Kinda fun to not be in charge but just going along with what they had planned.  



Monday, July 17, 2017

SHREVEPORT VOLUNTEERING...

Like many volunteer works, you leave with a sense of fulfillment from some small task, and awareness of how much more work there is to do!  We participated in a type of mission work this past weekend in Shreveport, LA.  It was interesting and such a blessing to both me and The Hubs.

We first heard about this from a friend at church.  She participates in the Fuller Center for Housing Bicycle team.  The team does long rides across the country, spending nights in church gyms along the way, and participating in building works the Fuller Center does in different areas of the United States.  The ride she was on started in June in San Francisco, and is going across the entire country to Atlanta!  Can you imagine?

She asked us to join the team to encourage them as they stopped in Shreveport for a building project. We drove down and got there Friday at dinner time and were treated to dinner with the bicyclists at the Fuller Center.  In typical southern hospitality, we were served home-made Gumbo, rice, salad, chocolate cake, and sweet tea!  It was delicious!  We heard a presentation about the Fuller Center and were given some instruction about the work we would do the next day.  After the dinner they told us there was a balloon festival nearby on the LSU-Shreveport campus.  So all of us piled into two vans and our vehicle and went to check it out.  I had never been to a balloon festival before.  It was awesome! For King & Country was playing a concert there and also they had fireworks!

A table centerpiece at Friday night's dinner at Fuller Center NWLA


 Balloon festival

I had my first experience "glamping" with the team in the Fellowship Hall of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament church.  It was the right price - FREE.  We got up early and were on the job site at 8 a.m.  We split up and did jobs like installing hurricane clips, painting, caulking, framing a shed, cleaning up the job site, mowing, etc.  We also met the future homeowners and the wife was able to stay and work with us that day.  It was hot and humid and we worked hard until 2:30 p.m. Some of the group went to work in their store of donated building supplies also.  






After cleaning up and resting the Fuller Center took all of us to a restaurant renowned for it's "All You Can Eat Catfish."  It was a great time! One of the things I enjoyed most was finding out where the different members of the bicycle team were from and asking the older ones about how they trained.  Would you believe they have several 70+ on this 9 week bicycle tour? 

One of the craziest things was our sleeping quarters.  It was, well, vintage, to put it nicely.  As we returned from the restaurant and flipped on the lights, we saw something running across the floor. And then we saw 3 or 4 more of them.  The Hubs took care of them for us.  Let me just say Louisiana grows much bigger cockroaches than Oklahoma does!  After someone reassuring us that "at least roaches don't bite," I zipped myself up as much as I could in my sleeping bag.  I finally fell asleep!  



We went to church with our friend the next morning and went by the grocery store for her to pick up some things, then said our goodbyes.  We left with a sense of appreciation for the Fuller Center for Housing, and a sense of wonder in the way God works in the lives of people.   
























Tuesday, July 11, 2017

RED RIVER, NEW MEXICO...40 YEARS LATER

We had a family vacation way back in the 70's to Red River, New Mexico - hadn't been there since!  But for my Mother's 75th birthday my sister and I wanted to take her somewhere nice and cool for that special day.  We chose to visit Red River again after all these years.  The size hadn't changed much but there are many more small hotels and condos, along with restaurants and shops.  No big name hotel chains or big box stores.  It's really charming.  You can walk to everything!  We had lots of good times just chatting, laughing, eating out and challenging Mom with a few adventuresome activities!
 Lots of cute places for pictures downtown

At the restaurant at the top of the mountain

Riding up on the ski lift - a 30 minute ride




Mallette Park and cracking ourselves up over selfies!

Mountain tubing

Renting a 4wdrive for a few hours and going up to Greenie's Peak
Hike in Mallette Park


We did spend an afternoon in Taos, too!

At the Mexican Imports store and Taos Plaza

Bent St. Cafe for birthday lunch - so delicious!

Thankful.  






Tuesday, July 4, 2017

GARDEN PLAY...

Play is good for you no matter your age!  Way back in college I learned in early childhood education that play is essential for children.  It's how they learn.  A few days ago I decided it was time to play.  I took a much needed morning off from my phone, emails and other ministry related items.  
 I cleaned out my vegetable garden of these flowers that were taking over and have been enjoying this little arrangement from the "trash" of the garden.  I needed a heavy vase so the wind wouldn't tip it over so I repurposed a candle holder.
This door to nowhere has been here in the wild part of our yard and I wanted to embellish it so I added these English ivy vines I saved when we took down a large tree.  The vines were over 17 years old and had taken over.  They were kind of cool looking though, the way they had woven together, so I played around and at my daughter's suggestion, made these "blinds" for the window.

I put these in a pot for this little plant to climb up on. Upon?  Eh, not worrying about it.

What do you do in your playtime?