Thanksgiving Trip - Part 3

Friday was a fun filled day for us. As previously posted Caron & I hit Walmarts for the 5:00 early sale and after getting home, we realized Uncle D had planned on going with us but we left before he was ready. He decided he wanted to check out Home Depot to see if they had any special Black Friday specials so off we go at about 6:00. We were blessed to see a beautiful sunrise but my picture doesn't do it justice: After we got back home & everyone else got up, Uncle D took some pictures of Manuel for his graduation in May:

After lunch and a much needed nap, we headed out for the boys to do a little indoor Go-Karting:

We ended our day with dinner at LoneStar Steakhouse with Caron, Mark, Mom, Dad, Uncle D and me:

Thanksgiving Trip - Part 2

After Wednesday evening winding down and Mexican food dinner with Uncle D's sister Caron and her husband Mark, and kids Manuel, Andrew and Ashley, we crashed for the evening. Thursday morning we were up early preparing for the Thanksgiving feast we would be blessed with later in the day:

Uncle D's mom & dad joined the family fun at little before noon:

We all ate to our hearts desire and shared the blessings of food, family, fellowship and fun.

Thanksgiving Trip - Part 1

Uncle D & I started our Thanksgiving trip west Tuesday evening after work. A blessing for which we were thankful started at home when we filled our tank with $1.59 a gallon gas. After about 3 1/2 hours traveling we landed in Childress, TX for the night. Wednesday morning, we headed on down 287 towards Amarillo, TX where we found:

We took a break and walked around Sams finding a few bargains and then on the road again. Finally we came across these two signs which made Uncle D happy:

He loves it when he can kick the speed up a little more legally. We arrived around 1:30 Wednesday afternoon at Uncle D's little sister's family's home.

Friday after Thanksgiving Favorites

Yes, I am one of the silly people who got up very early this morning and headed out to the stores to try to catch a bargain or two. Gotta love the bargins I saw at Walmart this a.m. I got a smaller digital camera that will stay in my purse so that I can always be prepared to catch those Kodak moments. My sister in law & I were back home by 5:30 a.m. I just love Black Friday shopping.

Thanksgiving Memories

Thanksgiving is usually a holiday that we spend with one of Uncle D's relatives but a couple of years ago, we spent it my family and here are a couple of pictures from that day:

Reggie's Family

Darwyn's Crew minus Kimberly(Daryl's wife)

I don't know why we didn't get a picture of Ronnie's family but here they are individually:

That last picture is Brody Eric who should make his appearance outside his mother's womb sometime the end of February. As you can see I have been blessed with a great family which I love very much.

Pumpkin Pie

My Thanksgiving greeting to you all: Pumpkin Pie .

Tuesday Thankfulness

We are so thankful that God has blessed us with jobs that have supplied our needs and most of the time we enjoy. But today we are more thankful with the fact that today is the end of our work week. Uncle D has a 5 day weekend and I am off for a week and a half. woohoo!!!

Monday Memories

As this Thanksgiving week begins, our thoughts and hearts turn towards our thankfullness for our families. Today, I wanted to share some of Uncle D's memories with some of his cousins:

Sunday Blessing

Today's Sunday blessing is the two hour nap I just woke from. I was exhausted after teaching pre-schoolers for two hours during Sunday School and Children's church this morning. It was a blessing to have 2 of my great nephews and their 2 cousins in SS for the first time. Since I usually only teach SS and not children's church, I had not had the opportunity to interact with them until today and today they got 2 full hours of me. What fun they were.

Out with the Old and In with the New

Today, Uncle D and I went shopping again (2 Saturdays in a row) but today I was on a mission. Most of the appliances in our house have had eternal life or so it seems (Uncle D has had to resurrect the washer a couple of times). Today we took the plunge and purchased a new washer and dryer. Our old ones are probably 15 years old.

I've been wanting a dryer with the steam cycle. Yeah, I found one at the price that I would pay. The added bonus is that I got one of the pedestals for free and am getting a rebate on the purchase of the other. They could be delivered tomorrow after church or maybe the week after Thanksgiving. So, today I'm washing clothes (hopefully for the last time) in the old washer & dryer in preparation for our Thanksgiving trip to NM.

Friday Favorites

I love this cold weather!!! That brings me to my favorite thing today and that is a semi-homemade soup that is so easy to do! The hardest thing about this soup is browning some ground turkey or beef whichever is your preference:

1 lb ground turkey or beef (browned)
2 cans Rotel
2 cans Ranch Style beans
3 cans Minestrone soup (I use Campbell's and add 3 cans of water)

Brown and drain your meat and throw the contents of the cans in a pot with your meat (I usually will add a couple of cans of other vegetables: corn, green beans, mixed vegetables, etc). Cook it until it is hot and serve with cornbread or one of my other Friday favorites Spicy Crackers, it makes a great hot and quick meal for a cold Friday night.

Aren't You Glad

Psalm 103
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;.............

8 The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
9 He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever.
10 He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.
14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.......

Thankful Tuesday

Uncle D and I are both thankful for the opportunity we will have in exactly 7 days, to travel to Albuquerque, NM to visit and celebrate Thanksgiving with his parents and younger sister and her family. We are extremely excited about the trip and are looking forward to the visit.

Monday Memories

These memories are from June 1992 when we celebrated Mamaw & Papaw's 50th wedding anniversary. When they were married in 1942, my grandpa married them about 10:30 p.m. in his living room so they did not have all the trappings of a wedding. When we celebrated in 1992, we tried to give them the reception they never had:

Cake and gifts

Pictures with the oldest grandkids.

There was clean up afterwards.

It was fun and memorable day for all and a great time to honor a love that mom and dad shared.

Sunday Blessing

This afternoon, our pastor preached on James: 1:13-18 about temptation. In one of his points he brought out that God does not tempt us because:

1.) God is Holy

2.) God is intrinsically Good

3.) God is Immutable (unchanging)

What a mighty God we serve.

Feast or Famine

I have found in our lives that our activities are either feast or famine. We have lots and lots to do or nothing at all. This past week was a feast of activities. As Uncle D posted Tuesday evening was our dreaded plumbing experience and an experience it was. We'll leave it at that.

Wednesday evening, Uncle D headed to church and I headed to dinner with some people that work out of our Albuquerque and Las Vegas offices. I work and talk with these people on a daily basis and finally got to put faces to the voices and names. It was a very enjoyable evening.

Thursday evening, I went with a group from our church to see Dr. David Jeremiah who brought a sermon on "What in the World is Going On?" about Bible prophecy. I gained a little insight on the rapture and how soon it could be. An added plus to going was the worship leader for this event was Steve Amerson who is one of the best tenors you could ever hear. I truly enjoyed the music.

Friday, I was dragging and after a day at work, I came home and crashed. Sleeping for 11 hours is usually not something I do but I did Friday which got me refreshed and ready for Saturday.

Uncle D dreads shopping as much as he dreads plumbing but Saturday morning, we headed out to one of our local malls to meet friends and shop for him a suit. Success! I finally agreed that I liked the first suit he tried on after he tried on two others. Bless his little heart. We were able to get some Christmas shopping done as well so I thought it a very productive trip. After lunching with our friends, and a little more shopping we headed home to rest for an hour or so and then off to keep some of our friend's children, 4 of their 5.

Today of course was a great day at church and now for our Sunday afternoon nap.

Friday Favorites

Click here to see my favorite funny story of the week. You just have to love kids.

Plumbing - The dreaded event!

As one of our favorite kids is always saying, "I did it".

I performed the dreaded plumbing event last night. As ice water coursed through my veins, I entered the darkened room to start the delicate and dangerous process. (Sounds Bourne like don't it)? We had a toilet that was stopped up and after endless plunging the decision was to pull the porcelain throne. What a great joy that was. And just like NASA, there were multiple processing units making intricate decisions to decide what needed to happen when and where. My brain was one of them and AuntJ's was the other and it was for sure neither one was coming from experienced training in this area. After donning gloves and draining the bowl, disconnecting the water line and emptying the tank it was time to do the deed. Off it came and low and behold I couldn't tell that I was any better off than before. It was finally decided that we would take it outside to try and backwash to see if anything came out. It did. That's as far as I will go in the description of that process. In the end, one of the most important seats is back in place and I can now say.

I HAVE PLUMBED!!!

And as of this morning when I left, it had not leaked.

The Loudness of Silence

First I must preface this with the fact that we sleep with two fans in our room, more for the noise than for the air. Early in the a.m. hours, we had some thunderstorms come through which woke both of us. First was the lighting and loud thunder and then the silence of no fans because we lost electricity. I got up and checked the time and realized I had the time to sleep for another hour so I got my kitchen timer and set it to go off in an hour. I then preceded to lay there for the entire hour listening to the silence. I commented to Uncle D that it was amazing that the silence was... and Uncle D completed my thought.. so loud. Thankfully the electricity came on just as I was lighting candles in the bathroom so that I could get ready for work in the semi-darkness.

Thankful Tuesday

Today on this Veterans Day, we want to extend our gratitude for all the men and women along with their families who have faithfully served in the Armed Services of the United States of America. They have all sacrificed to ensure our freedoms and protection. Some have even given the ultimate sacrifice.

May God bless each and every one of these men, women and families.

Monday Memories

In honor of Veterans Day tomorrow, I wanted to share some of our family members who have served our country proudly:


From left to right, Aunt J's Uncle Will, Uncle Carl, Uncle Herbert and Uncle Bill. The handsome fellow at the bottom is Uncle D's dad.

Sunday Blessings

Today, we were up and off to church for our ministry opportunities. Our visiting friends along with some of our church friends lunched at one of our visiting friends favorite places:

After lunch they headed back to the farm and are probably home by now.

My Sunday blessing is the day of rest we have so that we can gear up and survive the busy week ahead.

Saturday Fun

We started our weekend with our friends from the country Friday evening with another couple over for dinner and fellowship. After going to bed later than normal, we slept in until 7:00 (woohoo!) We started our day after a leisurely breakfast, touring Uncle D's work facility. He was a great tour guide, except he couldn't locate a scooter for us and we walked a lot. God has truly blessed him with a job that he enjoys. Next we're off to lunch and gave our friends a dining experience they have never had:

After lunch, B and Aunt J did a little shopping while the guys napped in the car. Then we were all off for a walk and view of a fall colors and a touch of nature:

I handed off the camera to Uncle D and these are a couple of the pictures he took:

We headed home to drop the guys off and eat a bite of supper and B & Aunt J were off shopping again. Great buys at Hobby Lobby and Bed Bath and Beyond. Finally home about 8:15 with Homemade Vanilla Blue Bell to go on top of the Dewberry Cobbler I had made for supper the night before. All in all it was a great day and we all slept good.

Friday Favorites

Today's favorite highlights a couple who have been Uncle D and Aunt J's friends since before we were married and that was a long time ago. They are in town visiting this weekend from the country. I want to share a couple pictures of our time with them last August at the farm:

They are the BEST and we love them loads.

The Verdict Is In

The Shark Steam Mop worked really well for me today in my Fall cleaning spree. I do not like doing floors, especially mopping: buckets of sloshing water, wringing the mop out, etc. I did not have to deal with any of that today and my floors are clean. As the box stated, the proof is on the pad or in my case pads. I am throwing the pads in the washing machine so that next time I'll start out with a clean pad and not a dirty mop. I declare the Shark Steam Mop a deal and would recommend it.

I'm turning into my niece

I have a niece who could be called the Queen of Gadgets. If it is on an infomercial, she either has it or wants it especially right now she wants the:

Pasta and More

Well last week, I fell into temptation and purchased my new gadget:

Shark Steam Mop

I'll be using the new gadget tomorrow in a fall cleaning spree so I'll let you know if it is a deal or a dud.

The President's Heart

I have purposely not watched any election coverage tonight. The only news I have gotten was from MSN.com while trying to get to blogspot. I just want to remind everyone that no matter who wins the 2008 Presidential election that we are told in Proverbs 21:1:

"The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will."

And whoever wins, we as Christians need to remember I Tim. 2:1-2:

"I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."

Thankful Tuesday

I'm so thankful that God put these two ladies in my life. I can honestly say they are two of my very best friends and have been used to by God to bless me in many ways:

Monday Memories

These kids who call us Uncle D and Aunt J have had a large chunk of our hearts over the last 24 years. This picture was taken sometime in 1993:

Here they are some 15 years later and we still love them loads:

Sunday Blessings

Our pastor is a man who loves the Lord and the people that God has given him to lead. He is one of the best preachers you will ever hear and he blesses all who hear him every Sunday: