Beginning Again?

It's time to begin again, sharing our family with you on our family blog. It's been a long time. No particular reason. We anticipate that 2011 could well be a year of change and challenge and excitement. My hope is to share it with you, the thoughts, the photos and so much more.

The first challenge for me will be to get started again. And now I have done it.

Have a blessed year. And please come back soon.

Pictures from the Birthday Party

Here are more pictures from my birthday party on Saturday, May 8.

I did not know that my Sweet Bride Debbie had been at work with Jamie preparing a surprise birthday party for my 65th birthday! I knew that JD and Kendra were wanting to go shopping at Costco and so were coming down to Texas and had said ok to joining us for my birthday lunch. I really was an easy target on this one.

My first surprise when I got to Rudy's was to see Jamie there with Allie. We had previously made plans for us to go to Edmond to see her on Mother's Day since she was not able to come south, she said. OK, she got me with this surprise! What a blessing the day was.

This photo is of Karen Mah Krinzer and her sister Deborah Mah Wood. Both live here in the DFW area, but this was the first time I had seen Debbie since leaving Enid over 25 years ago!! She is expecting her first little baby boy, due in August. I had seen Karen a couple of times here, including one evening when we saw her at McAlister's in Southlake.

My big day started with plans to have lunch with JD and Kendra, pictured here with David. Wow, what a day!

Travis and Sandra were there with their two young ones, Andrew and baby girl Mikayla!

It was an exciting time for me when Derek came walking in with David where both of them had been waiting for me in the car.

What a Great Birthday

I think I just had the best birthday celebration of my life last Saturday!! My "plans" had been -- attend Men's Bible Study at Denton Bible Church 8 am to noon, then lunch with Debbie, JD, Kendra and their boys, then out shopping. It started off as planned, but changed quickly when we went to lunch.

JD went to the Bible Study with me, which I thought was really great! When we headed home to meet Debbie, Kendra and the boys, I was surprised to learn they were already at Rudy's BBQ waiting for us. So we headed that way.

Arriving at Rudy's, Debbie met me out front and led me to the back room where a lot of precious people were waiting: In addition to JD, Kendra and the boys, I saw Travis, Sandra, Andrew and Mikayla. Then I saw Jamie and Alli. Next to them were two precious ladies from our days at Liberty in Enid OK -- Karen Mah Krinzer and her sister Debbie, both of whom now live in the DFW area. I hadn't seen Debbie in over 25 years!

Then I looked up and saw David and Derek coming in! I had believed all of David's Facebook stories about their plans for the weekend and thought they were having a great weekend in Bogota -- but there he was. He and Derek had been waiting outside.

When it was time for me to blow out the candles on my birthday cake, Grandson Ryan was right there ready to help Grandpa get the fire out.

WOW!! What a great day! No one has ever pulled off a real SURPRISE party for me. Until today. And it really worked this time.

I am so blessed!!

National Day of Prayer

Today, May 6, is the National Day of Prayer. I hope you are participating in some way -- whether by participating in a local prayer event or in prayer on your own, wherever you are.

If you want more prayer time or more prayer support, there is an online prayer event now in progress and I encourage you to check it out.

http://zyxterprayer.com/

Contrary to reports of some protesters on secular news stations, I DO BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF PRAYER!!

Need ideas of things to pray for? Well, here are some starters for you:
* We have people from all over the US who are directly involved in wars in 2 countries who need our prayer.
* We have hundreds of thousands of people out of work across our country, most of whom really do want to work. Many are discouraged, many are struggling just to provide basics for their families.
* The Dad of a good friend in our home group is hospitalized today after suffering a major heart attack earlier this week. Latest report is that he has had surgery and is beginning to show signs of progress.
* My brother-in-law, Mike Goers, just moved to a skilled care facility in St. Peters Missouri after many days in the hospital -- hoping to begin physical therapy.
* Churches all over the place see the great need of active ministry to people in need.
* Jesus told us to pray for those in leadership in our country. This isn't politics. This is the greatest need for our leaders, whether we agree with their politics or not.

OK, that's a good start. I bet you can take it from there. I might add more as the day progresses. You can add prayer requests, if you wish, by adding comments to this post.

God bless you today! No matter who you are, where you are, where you've been, where you're going right now, what you've done or haven't done -- God loves you and cares about you.

Let's make this a great day of prayer!!

Catching Up

So what's been happening this year during my absence from blogging:

In January I spent a week working in the Philadelphia/Paulsboro NJ area conducting training in the use of our parts management system. That's not an area I have spent much time in, so it was interesting getting to be there. Unfortunately there was no time for site-seeing -- all the sites I got to see were in our Paulsboro office or my hotel.

In February Debbie and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary! 17 years of joy, getting to share life with such a wonderful bride!! The great part is that after 17 years, Debbie still likes me, and I love her more than ever!! What a blessing to be married to your best friend, especially when we know that God brought us together and not only gave His blessing to our marriage, I believe God even called me to be Debbie's husband! Wonderful!

And now it's March. While many school kids are preparing for spring break this next week, all I'll be doing is preparing for our first quarter physical inventory. Ah what joy. Just as the physical inventory count is reaching its final day, we'll be in Tupelo Mississippi for the wedding of Tyler and Emily. This is our first of many grandkids to get married. Life is fun and full of blessings, even when there is little contact with many of our grandkids.

I did it again...

Oh my, here it is the middle of March -- Daylight Savings Time returned today -- and this is my first blog of the year, the first since Christmas. Oh my! I've been reading comments by a lot of people on Facebook talking about the extra hour in the day. I hadn't heard it quite like that, but if it were true, I suppose I can try to use that extra hour to post some news on the blog.

Well, I'll try anyway.

That must be true. Here is it, 7:05 Sunday evening, the sun is still shining bright, and here I am, posting a blog. Here's hope for the year!!

David and Mila Ready for Christmas

I received some great photographs from David and Mila this evening and wanted to share them with you here in case you can't see them on Facebook.

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This first photo to the left shows Mila in their home, modeling her new scarf that David took home to her the last time he was here for a visit.

We love these pictures and are happy to share them with you.

These two photographs with the Flying Horse are new, taken during the Christmas summer in Bogota.

We're very proud of the Colombian part of our family!!

David & Mila Take a Ride

Check out David and Mila taking a ride on Patricia the Elephant!!

Colombian Sausage

When Debbie and I were in Colombia for the wedding of David and Mila, we went out to a big show at the local exhibition center. It was a home-type show and all sorts of good stuff. David and Mila sort of worried about me at times.

As we would walk through the various areas of the food court, some of them had "samples" available and I was always willing to try them, much to the chagrin of David and Mila. A couple of problems always accompanied this excitement for me: First, in the crowded areas and since all were speaking Spanish, I usually didn't know what I was trying. And second, most of the items couldn't be identified by visual appearance. But I tried a lot anyway.

One of the "meats" looked familiar and I heard the main part of what they called it -- a type of sausage. David just sent me this picture of the delicacy - not exactly in the same appearance that I tried. David did tell me the name -- AFTER I had tried it.

"Blood Sausage". (I didn't hear the 'blood' part when they offered it to me). So I took a bite of the sample -- and immediately moved as fast as I could to find anyplace where is was possible for me to remove it from the confines of my body. That was absolutely the most filthy thing I had ever tasted. I was ready to swear off the sampling -- but I had to find one more sample to get that terrible taste from my mouth.

OK, I learned. For that trip.

Small Town Shopper

A couple of weeks ago I was in Oklahoma to visit Jame and Derek. On my way home I stopped for fuel around Davis. I picked a copy of the "I-35 Sooner Shopper". For good entertainment there's just nothing like a rural shopper paper. Check out these ads, quoted directly from the paper. (Bolding is mine, just for the fun of it).

1. E-Z Go Gas Golf Cart, ALMOST RUNS, $275.

2. Chest deep freeze (not working) would make a good worm bed, $25.

3. Go Kart, perfect for Christmas, runs great when you can get it started. $600.


I hope you enjoyed those as much as I did. I'll be watching for another Sooner Shopper next time I am northbound into Oklahoma.

Update on Angie O

The day of Debbie's Angieogram has come and gone. I'm happy to report that though we still don't know what is causing Debbie's chest pain, we do know it is not her heart or circulatory system.

I can't imagine what she saw, but Debbie said that when she was seeing the pictures of the workings of her heart on the monitor during the angieogram, she saw one part that looked just like me. While I can't imagine what she saw, that would stand to reason -- I am definitely a full-time occupant of her heart!! If she is successful in getting a print of the picture, I'll post it here for you.

Thanks for all your prayers for Debbie this week.

Angie O'Who?????

We're having another "First" today. We're at the Denton Regional Medical Center where in just a little while Debbie will be having an angiogram. They're checking to see what has been causing the chest pains she's been having recently.

They finally got intense enough that it was time to get her checked. We brought her to Denton Regional Tuesday night for a check up -- we wound up staying. She was admitted last night and now she is preparing for her angiogram at 8:00 this morning.

I'll update here as soon as I have anything to update. In the meantime we watch and pray and wait.

You have a blessed day today and keep on praying for my Sweet Angel Debbie! We sure do appreciate it.

Happy Birthday, Becky!!

Wednesday, November 25 -- Happy Birthday, Becky! Becky has blessed us with 10 fantastic grandchildren and a super son-in-law! She has blessed us with a sweet, loving spirit, with a Godly spirit of joy, forgiveness. And though she is a beautiful lady in every sense of the word, she is also one who radiates that best beauty from her hear as the Apostle Paul shared.

Happy Birthday, Becky! We hope you have a wonderful day!!

And now, Becky, I'm happy to report that my blog is current again!!!

:o)

Keep It Current

Just a reminder to all of you who have your own blog. Better keep it current. It appears that my sister's blog was deleted and we assume it was because it was inactive for quite a while. It's always good to stay up to date.

Same thing applies to your personal faith, your relationship with Christ. Keep it current. No, inactive faith doesn't go away, but if you find yourself needing it during a crisis, that's a tough time to try to reactivate.

Keep it current!!

FPU Impact

I wanted to tell you about a couple of encounters with Financial Peace University. Last Saturday we went to Kay's Jewelers in the Denton Mall to get Debbie's rings resized. Michael is the very nice man who has waited on us several times there. We started telling him about FPU and the desired outcome. He got very interested and asked many questions. By the time we left he was preparing to go online and get more information for himself.

One of the young college girls in our FPU group works in a bank as a teller. She told us last week of a fellow who came through the drive-through -- she complimented his new pickup. He told her it was his "Dave Ramsey Pickup". She asked what he meant -- he told her he had gone through FPU, got completely debt-free and had paid cash for the pickup. She said he had the biggest smile!!

Yes, we're working on getting the Buick paid off well ahead of schedule. Our day is coming!

Financial Peace University continues this week

We have completed our first two classes in our Financial Peace University, with week #3 coming this Thursday. Though there is nothing really "new" in this, just the refresher and the communication with others really helps the individual thinking.

Are we progressing in the right direction? You bet! Have we arrived? After 2 weeks, are you kidding? But we're on the right trip headed in the right direction. I'll give a better update next time.

The Next Step...

Today is Thursday, October 8. We took the next step on an adventure that we started early in the spring this year. I believe it was in March when we attended the "Financial Money Makeover", live with Dave Ramsey at the Potter's House Church with about 10,000 others. It was a great day for us! We got started on our trek and made very good progress.

Now, after a summer of much, much travel -- a rare occasion when we stayed home. They were trips of choice, ones that were necessary for us -- desiring to visit all of our kids, grandkids and a few other family members. And of course, we're still on schedule for a few more trips this year.

In the course of all of this we didn't stick with the plan 100% that we started in the spring. And now the day has come -- we're back on board. Several folks in our church have started weekly meetings together to go through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. We have a desired target and this is our big step to get back on track.

If you're interested, check back occasionally -- I'll try to blog our way through this and share what is happening.

Have a blessed weekend!!