nature center

Earlier this week, we decided to check out the San Angelo Nature Center. It was interesting to see what animals they had in this miniature zoo.

One room was full of snakes. Most were rattlesnakes, but there was a case of boa constrictors and one with this black python. This disgusting python was several inches in diameter. The Plexiglas separating us from him just didn't seem sufficient.

a dip in the pond

We met a Kansas family! James and Katie and their three girls are from Meriden. They arrived in San Angelo a month ago for a six-month training. What a bummer that they weren't here the whole time we were. Last Saturday, we went to their house for supper (and to watch KU lose). What a great family! The kids hit it off real well.

Yesterday, Katie and I decided to go to the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts where kids can do free crafts on Thursdays. We did our crafts and went out back to play near a fountain and a small tiered waterfall/lily pad pond.

Now if you read my title, you can already guess what happened. And you can also probably guess whom it happened to. Katie and I were talking and chasing after their 1-year-old daughter, leaving the four older kids "fishing" in the tiny minnow pond with grass poles a few paces back from us.

Our conversation was interrupted with screams from the little girls. Carly was frantic as she yelled, "ISAAC FELL IN!" Isaac has made mistakes like this before, so I didn't go temporarily insane like I did the first time two years ago. However, my parental instincts kicked in as I dropped everything I carried and was there to rescue him within a second. He had fallen in feet first, so the top of his head was still dry - but still, it was 3 feet deep. The rescue probably could've been done without me having to join him in the fish pond, but it was easier for me to just jump in too. This time, he didn't cry; he just came out with a puzzled look on his face and said, "I was kicking my feet! I was!" I guess he didn't understand why this wouldn't have helped him stay afloat.

When it was all said and done, Isaac and I both shlopped back to the car, leaving a drip trail everywhere we walked. The whole scenario was somewhat funny, but the more I think about it, the scarier it gets. Praise God for protection!!

getting out the tubs

We've been counting down for weeks, and the chain is down to 11 links. Time seems to be standing still, yet the weeks go by quickly. Now that doesn't make sense, but it's true.

Little by little, I've been clearing the walls, packing boxes, weeding out junk. I'm torn. We all want to go home so bad. Responsibilities await. But part of me is filled with guilt for leaving Jared down here alone for the 3 weeks following Thanksgiving. That's the biggest con of leaving now.

Over the past 3 weeks, I've gotten to know our neighbor girl who lives on the second floor across the sidewalk. Giovanna's a girl from Colombia who speaks very broken English. She just had a baby girl three months ago. What she said the other day made me realize the second biggest con of leaving. "We just find a gut neighbor, and here you will have to leave." Jared and I knew this would happen; we knew relationships would just be beginning as we had to leave.

And the one con that has us humbled the most is the fact that our San Angelo church people put time and effort into loving us and investing in us. At times I'm sure it seemed pointless for them. What would they get out of it? Eternal rewards. So it wasn't all for nothing.

Despite the cons, we ARE looking forward to:

• seeing you
• returning to "normal" life, whatever that is
• listening to Casey's sermons in person and being a physical part of our church, rather than just hearing the laughter, good times, and trains through an mp3 file
• chopping wood
• seeing Lucy, as annoying as she can be
• doing chores
• having the freedom to walk outside where there are endless possibilities of things to do. I guess there are endless possibilities outside our front door here too, but they're not the same.
• not having to listen to "I wanna go home!" several times a day now. (We've resorted to telling the kids to hop on their trikes and bikes and start out. We'll catch up with them in a few days.)

The list could go on, but I've got some things to put in the blue tubs.

pecan harvest

Well, not exactly. The kids and I drove around Goodfellow Air Force Base looking for pecan trees. And do you know what we found? Pecans! One tree kept us busy for an hour.

I'm not sure how to easily shell 2 gallons of pecans. We're taking Wikipedia's advice and soaking them in hot water for 5 hours before we start this nut-crackin' party.

Come join the fun!

sea world

We took a quick trip to San Antonio this weekend. One great advantage of being military is they let you in free at Sea World. We didn't spend a dime, except for parking and gas. And our hotel was free because of Jared's Marriott points he earned in May when he was back east. Now, THAT'S what I call a vacation...when you don't have to pay for anything. ;)

fountains in the hotel pool

one last dip before winter

images from Sea World:

Carly wanted to ride the scariest roller coaster, but she was four inches too short. She had to settle for this ride and a kiddie roller coaster. She LOVED it! I SO look forward to riding the Mamba with her! :)

shows from the day:

AMAZING show!

After we watched this show the second time, we saw a couple who had chosen to sit in the splash zone with their two kids. The kids were wailing because they were drenched. We just laughed and laughed because we knew that's exactly what would've happened to us, had we not run out when they started splashing. The couple was laughing too, wiping their poor kids down.

back again

So here we are again. Back to the Texas grind.

This trip south wasn't quite as hard as the first one; familiarity played a big part. We knew where we were headed and how long we'd stay. The further we drove, the higher the temperatures became. The dirt changed colors. South of Abilene, TX, we once again appreciated the kindness of fellow drivers. Did you know that on the 70-mph two-lanes, it's common courtesy (maybe the law) to pull off to the paved shoulder so faster traffic can pass? If only they could make that rule on the stretch from Sabetha to Holton.

I mustn't rub it in, but it was quite nice to wear shorts again today. Our temperatures reached a comfortable 85, while we pitied you Kansans with your cloudy 46-degree forecast. Oh, we'd love to freeze with you. Seriously. :)

What a blessed time it was at home. Isaac showed me a new trick here. In the up-side-down position, he stated, "I love to be at home!"

We are happy to be back in our beds, but we do so look forward to Thanksgiving.

weekend wandering, pt2

And so here we sat, wondering what to do next.

We decided to go fishing in Twin Butte Reservoir.

How good it feels to get out of the city. We found pretty rocks, shells, fish heads, trash treasures, and snake skins...

BIG snake skins. From the size of it, this had to have been from a 5-inch-diameter snake.

Trying to find beautiful in the ugly.

Here's a link to what I mean by ugly-beautiful.

After an hour of fishing, Carly exclaimed, "Hey, look at that pretty sunset!" I didn't think that kids even noticed the greatness of God. I guess I was wrong.

And here was our biggest (only) catch of the night!

Yeah. Even the kids were impressed.

weekend wandering, pt1

We woke up Saturday on a mission: to experience no boredom. We decided to take a road trip. We packed a sack lunch and started out around 10:00 a.m. As we started driving down the road, I asked Jared, "Okay, what direction are we going?" He said, "Oh, I don't know. How about south?" I said, "Okay." It was a pleasant day for driving. A few miles down the road, we heard a song request from the backseat. The kids wanted to hear "Man of Constant Sorrow." Miles later, you could hear yodeling from our car as we all sang the chorus of "In the Jailhouse Now" together while driving past skinny goats grazing on stubbles of grass in a Mesquite-filled "pasture."

After we passed the town of Christoval, I asked Jared, "Where are we going?" We looked at the atlas and realized that our road was leading to nowhere, so we turned around and went another way. I suggested we go to Mexico; it was only 2.5 hours away. An hour later, the kids told us, "We wanna go back to our apartment." We wondered where their sense of adventure was. We were exploring!!

We finally settled for the Caverns of Sonora 90 miles south of San Angelo. A quiet, hilly place it was, and we were excited to see some real caverns. At the visitor's center, Jared discovered that it cost $20/adult and $16/kid (age 4+) to see the caverns. Instead of paying $56 for a tour of these beautiful caverns, we decided to walk on a short trail and return home. What an excursion it was.

Back at the apartment the clock read 2:30 p.m. We sat on the couch and asked each other, "Now what are we going to do?" It was all in good humor.

the visit

We are SO grateful that we just got to spend 5 days with the grandparents. Instead of us serving them as our "company," they always end up serving us and helping us out more than we deserve. We were all delighted to see them when they arrived on Saturday; the kids, of course, saw them coming and, in their excitement, streaked through the apartment to hide in their rooms a bit before giving hugs and kisses.

They came bearing gifts: care-packages from dear family at home, a sweet, yummy watermelon and a box of juicy tomatoes from our garden, and neat little surprises for the kids, including fruit snacks. (The kids always raid Grandma Sally's desk drawer at the bank because they know she keeps fruit snacks in there.)

Monday morning, we visited Kingdom Park. After getting tired of chasing the kids around this massive park, we crossed the bridge to see the little waterfalls by the Visitor's Center. Here are some fun shots.

Grandpa Alan did a superb job at making the kids smile here. I won't tell you what he did. ;)

I hope Alan and Sally don't mind me putting their picture on here. It's such a good picture that I couldn't pass it up.

On Sunday evening, we spent $12.00 to enter the San Angelo State Park. We hiked one trail but turned around because the sun was setting and we didn't really know where we were going to end up. There were rock mounds on this trail. The kids added to them. There was also talk of rattlesnakes and how this park would be an excellent place for them to live. Following this conversation, I almost died of shock when a 4-foot snake slithered away right beside me. Thank goodness we only saw an armadillo, fireants, and some quail after that. I still listened for rattles, though.

We did a lot of relaxing while they were here. The kids enjoyed the extra attention. We loved the adult company. And our last bit of fun was going to the circus on Wednesday.

After they left this morning, the kids changed their magnetic faces for the day. And here's how they feel now:

We miss them already.

88 days remaining

Mom said it would make us feel better

if we just made a chain.

One link for every day left.

When finished, it measured

over four yards long.

Ugh.

Maybe a better way to look at it is this:

And that's just until Thanksgiving. :)

It's not really that bad here, but I wanted to show Mom that we're laughing at this chain today.

big.texas.

We noticed it when we crossed the border into Texas. There was a vibe of ego bouncing off the big Ford (or whatever) trucks passing us on the highway. I'm sure we saw a sign bragging about the size of Texas. Even Wikipedia states: "The physical size of the state and the bigger-than-life attitude of some of its inhabitants has led to the saying that 'Everything is bigger in Texas.'" Some of the trucks passing us.... No, hold on. I'm going to call them pick-ups. Where did that term go, anyway?! I'm assuming that term just wasn't tough enough. Back to what I was saying.... Some of the pick-ups passing us had a Texas flag sticker with the word "SECEDE" on it. Okay, I know. Maybe it's half joke. But the other half of it is not.

Yesterday afternoon we drove out of San Angelo city limits for the first time since we got here. Our church was having a picnic at Spring Creek. (The pastor and his dad owned a few acres around the crick.) The scenery on the 15-mile drive west was pretty in its own way with little buttes sticking out of the ground in the middle of nowhere. Most of the ground was "timber" if you want to call it that. Mostly small mesquite trees, cactus, and lots of brush from dead trees. Every now and then you'd see cows grazing on orange dirt, probably. No, I'm not sure what they ate, because there wasn't much grass. What seemed amazing to us were the fields and the fact that farmers try to farm it. We saw fields of shriveled up cotton and milo. The milo was mature at two feet tall. Jared said, "I'm not sure why they say that everything is bigger in Texas, because it's not. Milo would be six feet tall in Kansas."

Yes, we are biased, but we cannot come up with any reason for why Texas is any better than Kansas. No, we probably wouldn't drive around with a Kansas flag sticker boasting "SECEDE" on our little Mazda pick-up that has a dented bed and a drooping bumper. But we're thinking that Kansas is about the best place to be. ;) So to anyone who thinks that everything is bigger in Texas, I say, "Oh, hogwash."

images

A trip to Baskin & Robbins

She's typically neat and tidy...until she gets an ice cream cone in her hands.

Monkeys

The best snack in the world. We call it GCPB&CC. You have to dip it for 5 seconds to get the full effect.

At a church picnic beside Spring Creek

we are

It was my last day of school at Jardine in Wichita. The kids knew every teacher was killing time until 3:10. I gave a quiz, but this one was supposed to be fun. A 20-question true/false quiz about the teacher - Ms. Hartter, given orally. "True or false...I grew up on a farm." "True or false...My mother was born in Germany." "True or false...My great-great-great grandma was the daughter of a Belgian prince." The last question on the test was, "True or false...I go to church." A snicker came from Taylor Murphy's side of the room. He looked at me, laughed, and said, "Yeah, right!" Now, Taylor Murphy was a big, squirrely eighth grader who often got in trouble, but he taught me an unforgettable lesson. Even after spending at least 30 minutes each day with him for 10 1/2 months, he would've never guessed that I was a church-going person.

Who are we? We call ourselves Christians, but do we act like it? Do we even talk like it? At Jardine, I had apparently done neither. Pray for us - that we would walk as faithful believers. Pray for boldness to seize every opportunity to spread the Word. "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:7).

a train fanatic's dream field trip

We took a field trip to the KCM&O Depot museum on Saturday. There was a lot of history, and there were a lot of trains. The kids were pretty excited to see three different rooms with model trains. After we went through the museum, we climbed into an old engine and caboose. Here are some of the things we saw: