Ailing loved ones plus a time to learn and a time to celebrate

Last week was very full!  Brother Jim had a scare on Monday.  The circulation to his foot was cut off, so they had to go back in to strip the clots from his arteries in his lower leg.  Mary called that evening telling us about it and said that they feared they might have to take off his lower leg.  Anita and I rushed over to be with her during the surgery.  Thank the Lord, the surgeon was able to get all of the clots out and save his leg!  He still is having a rough time...not eating well, very weak, and still unable to put weight on his leg due to swelling and pain.  Please keep him and Mary in your prayers!

Pam H. had her knee replacement surgery on Tuesday.  The surgery went well and she went home on Friday evening, but she is in a LOT of pain.  Please continue to remember her as well.

Thursday, I went to Frisco for the annual Texas CASA conference.  It took almost 2 hours to get there, so I arranged to have my first session at 2:00 to avoid morning traffic.  My first workshop was about creating security for stressed out children in the foster care system.  It lasted 2 1/2 hours and was very insightful!  Afterwards, I got checked in, settled in my room, and ordered up pizza to be delivered.  They had scheduled a "meet and greet" which I went down to check out, but it wasn't my sort of thing, so I just grabbed some fruit and hightailed it back up to my room.  Sheila arrived around 9:00 and we watched a little tv before turning in for the night.


Our hotel suite

The view out of our door on the 10th floor

Friday was a busy day!  Our keynote speaker was Dave Peltzer, the author of "A Child Called It" (and 6 other books).  He was a very entertaining speaker...not at all what I expected.  It is so nice to see someone who has suffered SO much cruelty, at such a young age, but maintains a positive and hopeful attitude.  He was really funny!

After his session, we attended a workshop on hope & healing for drug endangered children.  After lunch was a panel of former foster kids who are currently going to college at UNT. These young adults have been through so much, but they are overcoming and plan to use their experiences to help others. They really opened my eyes to how wonderfully blessed we are, and how difficult it is for those who "age out" of the system. Even if they make it to college (foster kids receive vouchers for college when they age out), the obstacles they face are enormous! One girl had received $100,000 in scholarships for her first year, but still had to drop out after a couple of months. (She joined the navy for 6 years and then went back to school on her GI bill.) Scholarships only covered certain items and they have no resources for the myriad of other essentials. What if their mealplans doesn't cover weekends? Where do they go during the holidays? What do they do if they get sick or have a car wreck? They have NO ONE to call or to help. A teacher at UNT recognized their plight and created a student organization (PUSH) for a support system for these youth. Very inspiring stories!. After that we attended a session on advocating for foster children's health needs.  Friday evening, Sheila and I skipped the banquet and awards ceremony and went out for some Mexican food.  Saturday morning, we had two more workshops (one on the educational rights of foster children and the other, an informative look at the new permanency roundtables being implemented by TDFPS) and then headed toward home around noon.  So much information to process!  My brain is on overload!

Saturday, I went straight from the conference to Brother Wayne's 90th birthday party.  So nice to see so many of his friends and family gather to celebrate this momentous occasion!  When Ricky arrived, he told me that he had seen a vendor on the side of 180 selling fresh shrimp.  Since Sheila had been out of pocket Friday night (when our young folks usually gather at the girls' house for a fire) they were getting together Saturday night instead.  So he wanted to have them all over to our house for shrimp quesadillas first.  He volunteered to cook them, if I would get everyone ready.  So I stopped and bought a few pounds of fresh JUMBO shrimp, went to Walmart for the rest of the stuff, and started peeling and heading shrimp.  Rick and Chris joined in with the cleaning.  Neither had peeled shrimp before, much less headed them, but they learned quickly.  Then Ricky cooked everything on the charcoal grill, while I made queso and guacamole.  The final product was AMAZING!

The birthday "boy"

Friends and family gather to celebrate

We had a houseful at Highway yesterday morning...Ricky counted 61 in attendance.  Layne gave a WONDERFUL lesson on living for God...truly an inspiring assembly!  Leanne and the girls were there (for the birthday party), and all of the Pettit clan were up to celebrate Debbie and James' 40th wedding anniversary.  Sharice was also in town (but she doesn't really qualify as a visitor).  So good to see everyone!  Then last night, Ron spoke on the 16th chapter of Exodus and entitled his lesson "Trust and Obey".  It tied in perfectly with Layne's lesson of the morning.  Ricky closed the assembly with a few well chosen words.  A perfect day!

2Ki 6:15 And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? 16 And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. 17 And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

Jer 17:7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.

A Normal Weekend ... (finally!)

Last week was fairly normal for a change...didn't have any big weekend plans.  Mary Fox called Friday and told me that Jim, her husband, was back in the hospital.  He had been in with pneumonia a couple of weeks ago.  This time he has a couple of bloodclots in his leg.  Saturday morning I went with her to the hospital to see him.  He was still in a lot of pain and the circulation to his foot still wasn't good.  His doctor was off for the weekend, so it will be today before they know anything new.  They had gone in on Friday to break up the clots and had put him on Coumadin, so he SHOULD be improving.  I would really appreciate your prayers on their behalf.  They are getting up in years and are both pretty fragile.

Yesterday morning, Brother Wayne D. spoke for us at Highway.  Such a treat to hear a lesson from this wonderful 90 (next Monday) year old man!  He did an excellent job.  I'm sure we were all benefited from his lesson.

It was just the five of us for lunch yesterday.  The girls headed home after helping with the dishes, so we could all rest up.  The kids had all gone to Six Flags on Saturday, after being up late around the fire pit Friday night, so they were pretty tired.

Ricky starts his "new" job this morning!  He is going back to work at Titan Bank, where he worked before moving back to Arkansas.  Right now it is just temporary, helping out while Alan is out and while another teller is out on maternity leave.  He's looking forward to being back at his old job.

This week will be pretty full.  Pam H. is having knee replacement surgery tomorrow morning.  She has had 2 other surgeries on her knee this year, which both failed.  We hope and pray that this will take care of her problem and she can recover the full use of her leg.  She has been hobbling around on a cane and being in pain for many months!  Please pray for a successful surgery and quick recovery for her!

Thursday, I head to Frisco for the Texas CASA conference.  Sheila will come over after work that evening.  I'm really excited about the workshops and presentations that are on the agenda.  Now that I have a little experience under my belt, I ought to understand and process the information better than I did during our training.  One of our speakers will be the author of the book A Child Called "It".  Another one of the presentations I'll be attending will be a panel of former CPS kids.  Both should be very enlightening!

I hope all of you have a wonderful week!

From Brother Wayne's lesson:  Ps 119:33  Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end. 34 Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. 35  Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight.

Two Birthdays and a Wedding

Had a very busy week last week!  Chelsey's wedding was coming up on Saturday, and I was doing the wedding cake.  Then Rick told me he was planning a "surprise" party for Chris' birthday on Friday night and asked if I could do a cake for that.  Had CASA duties for most of the day on Wednesday, then started "caking" on Thursday.  Chris figured out the surprise party, and Rick was determined to surprise him anyway.  So he called Josh and Trey Thursday night to see if they could come down for the weekend.  THAT was the best gift of all!  The party was at the girls' house.  We built a fire in the backyard firepit, sat around and visited and sang.  At one point we heard a voice from the neighbor's backyard:  "Can you hear me?..."  "Yes."  "Your singing sounds beautiful!"  (We were worried...at first... that we might be disturbing them!)  Great night!

 



Ricky had planned to go with me to the wedding, but the last minute weekend company changed his mind.  James was planning to go by himself, so we decided to carpool.  I picked him up about 11:00 and we headed northeast.  We were having such a good time visiting that I almost forgot to stop to eat lunch!  We made it to the wedding site an hour early, which was perfect.  We got the cake unloaded and set up, and I had time to go around snapping pictures of all the pretty decorations.  The wedding was absolutely gorgeous...as was the bride!

Believe it or not, this was the wedding cake!  Hope everyone loved chocolate!

Nicole did a SUPER job on the groom's cake!
 

Stephen escorted Kit down the aisle.
 

Here comes the bride!
 

Mr. and Mrs. James Speed
 

The Bride's Shoes...pure Chelsey!
 

HAPPY PARENTS!
 

I was so thankful to have James with me, driving, on the way home.  We drove through heavy storms almost all the way...had to pull over and stop once, it was so hard.  We travelled along with the girls to make sure they made it all right.  Finally got home safely a little after midnight!

Sunday was Dennis' 60th birthday!  Because of all the hoopla over the weekend, we played it pretty low key.  Josh was our speaker Sunday morning and gave a GREAT lesson on "Proud or Broken"...the best I've ever heard him do!  We had a full house with several visitors, including Donnie and Tammie.  Afterwards we went out to eat at our favorite Chinese buffet in Weatherford.  Josh and Trey had to leave right after lunch to get home to their wives.  We really enjoyed having them for the weekend.  After they left, all of us came home and napped away the afternoon.  We had a smaller, but good crowd at services last night.  I think everyone was too tired for going out together, so we just stopped at Subway on the way home and rested up for the remainder of the evening.  It was a very festive and joyful weekend!

Mt 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, 5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

5th Annual Mother/Daughter Weekend

It is hard to come back to reality after our special girls' weekend.  We had a great time, as usual!  Sheila, Paula and I left Friday around 4:30.  Jessica had to stay for a 5K that she was doing with her leadership class on Sat. morning.  She joined us Saturday afternoon.  Here is a quick overview of our weekend:

We arrived Friday night around 9:00 and got settled in.  The house that we rented was pretty quirky, to say the least.  I seem to have a knack at finding unusual accomodations!  The decorations in the house were very eclectic and just plain strange.  There were these crazy little cartoon pictures hanging throughout the house that made no sense whatsoever. Each bedroom was themed, but not with much consistency.  Paula had the French room; I had the wildlife room; and Sheila had the Japanese room.  But the house was very clean and we had plenty of room to stretch out and relax. There was even a really cool keyboard in my room!

Saturday morn, we toured the capital building and the Bob Bullock Historical Museum...including watching "To The Arctic" at the IMAX.  It was a UT home game day and the museum was only a block from the stadium, so we had to wade through all the tailgaters and revelers.  I had been warned, but since the game didn't start until 6:00 p.m. we thought we'd be ok until late afternoon.  WRONG!  Evidently the tailgaters start setting up on Friday, as soon as business hours at the capital are over.  They were EVERYWHERE!  We finally made it out of the downtown area around 3:00 and were ready to get out of Austin for the remainder of the day.

Bob Bullock Museum and IMAX

Inside the Capital



By the time we got back to the house, Jessica had arrived.  After a short rest, we headed down to San Marcos to ride the glass bottom boats...we thought.  They closed about 20 minutes before we got there.  So we did a little shopping at the Outlet Mall instead, and then ate supper at Carino's...SO yummy!  Afterwards we took in a movie and then headed home.

Sunday morning, we worshipped with the church on Bouldin Street.  We heard a very good lesson from Dean Howard on loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  We enjoyed visiting with him and Sheree, as well as the Johns family.  After saying our goodbyes, we had lunch at the Swedish Hill Bakery on 6th St.  We decided to do a little shopping on 6th Street before dark, when the partiers take over...found a very neat store that kept us busy for quite some time with its eclectic home furnishings and gift items.  Then we headed over to the Highball for some "vintage bowling."  By time we finished up there, we were ready to head back to the house to rest up and watch a movie.  Then we had a FABULOUS dinner of Cuban cuisine at Habana's...topped off by a shared dish of Cuban flan and latte and/or cappucino. 

Bowling at the Highball

Monday morn, we gathered our belongings together, had breakfast at Annie's Cafe, and then toured the Zilker Gardens.  I think this was our favorite spot of the whole weekend!  It was like a hike through the woods with beautiful flowers, both cultivated and "wild".  The weather was glorious!  It was a perfect way to wrap up a great weekend!

I love turtles!



Song of Sol. 2:12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

 



"Blest be the tie that binds...

our hearts in Christian love...The fellowship of kindred minds, is like to that above."

That pretty well sums up our weekend!  Another amazing meeting with inspiring lessons, absolutely gorgeous singing, and lots of good times with loved ones!  Thanks to our speakers who built us up and comforted us from the Word:  Greg Scott, who spoke on the importance of a strong faith; Richard Newhart, who comforted us with words of hope;  Craig Hays, who exhorted us to love as the scriptures teach; and (last but not least) Kyle Young who brought it all together by exhorting us to hold to sound doctrine!  You guys were great!

It was heartbreaking to watch everyone leave yesterday.  All of our long distance guests (from NM, Houston, Oklahoma and Arkansas) had to leave after lunch.  We were afraid that would leave so many empty seats as to be disheartening for the evening assembly.  But we still had a fairly full house last night thanks to our Jarvis Heights friends.  I fought tears throughout the whole assembly and finally lost it during the closing song and prayer.  Such an emotionally charged day!

Here are a few snapshots of our weekend:


Greg Scott Family
 

Richard Newhart Family
 



Craig Hays Family and Brandon
 

The guys prepared and served the Saturday meal...and did a GREAT job!


 

The food line

Cleanup crew

 

Tit 2:1  But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: