Dallas Trip

On July 18, David, Lisa, and I drove to Dallas with our Sequoia loaded to the max, to visit James and Allison and see where they are living.  They are not actually in Dallas, but in Duncanville.   We had a fun, but short visit.  On Saturday we drove all around, showing them various things, including some of the places we used to live.  I took a picture of our old house in Arlington.  Boy!  That neighborhood has really gone down!  Our first apartment looked pretty much the same, so its been kept up much better.  We also visited the Water Gardens in downtown Ft. Worth.  I think James and Allison thought it was a neat place, but because of the heat we couldn’t stay anywhere outside very long.  On Sunday morning we visited our former church, First Baptist of Euless.  It was neat to go back there after more then 20 years.  We did see one couple who were very good friends from long ago, David and Terry Ingram.  After a quick lunch we headed back to Fayetteville.

If you click on the picture it will bring up an album of pictures that I took.

In case you haven’t checked out Katie’s blog recently, you need to take a look at it.  Earlier this week she posted about Fling-Up Friday.  She and Lisa go out and ride most mornings before Lisa goes to work, and they began working on mounting the horse without using a mounting block.  They decided to work on this every Friday, thus the name “Fling-Up Friday.”  Evidently it takes quite a lot of upper body strength and made them pretty sore at the beginning.  When she took the video they could neither one mount the horse, but now they can both get up.  It is really quite comical to watch the video, especially with the way Katie put it to music.  Anyway, this morning I got up early and went with them to the farm so that I could watch.  I also took video, so Katie should be posting some new video before long. 

I know I am behind in posting anything.  Later today I’ll try to write a post and include pictures from our trip to Dallas that we made a two weeks ago.

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We had a great time on the 4th with family.  We gathered in the afternoon to swim and visit, and then David grilled hamburgers.  As it began getting dark, John shot off fire works for us to enjoy.  You can tell from the photos that we all had lots of fun!

You can click on the picture above to see the rest of the photos.

Thursday evening we had the Hollingsworths and Harlans over for a swimming party and cookout, and we all had a great time!  It was the first time we have had our families together in a very long time.  Here are some pictures from the evening.

Kylie, holding Quinn with Kimber in the background.

 

Carter, Marvin with Quinn, and Lisa and Emily

 

Jacob Harlan

 

Landry Harlan

 

Kylie jumps in.

 

David and Rich did the grilling.

David’s trip to India went well, and he arrived back home on Saturday, June 14.  He seemed to have pretty much no porblem with jetlag.  He says that he just changed time zones in his head when he left India.  Maybe it is a sort of “Mind over matter” thing. 

Lisa arrived back from Germany on Friday, June 20.  Her plane flight was cancelled from Chicago to XNA, so they had to take a different flight and were much later getting to XNA than originally scheduled.  it is good to have her back home.  She seems to be back into the swing of things here and began her summer job on Wednesday at Budgetext.

 

 

 

I remember a long time ago, reading definitions in some kind of funny dictionary that belonged to my Dad.  We thought it was pretty funny that the definition for girls was “what women over 40 call each other.”   Now it all makes since, because that is what we call each other.  As young girls we always loved to have slumber parties, and I can tell you first hand that its still just as much fun, even at 50+ years of age.  Anyway, when David was gone to India, I had two friends over for an old fashioned slumber party.   Carol Harlan and Ronda Hollingsworth both arrived at my house late Friday afternoon, June 13.  We cooked dinner together and had lots of fun visiting and eating.  Later in the evening we watched several movies and ate some more.  True to younger people at slumber parties, there was not much sleeping that took place.  We didn’t go to bed until maybe 2:30 AM.  The next morning we had a breakfast casserole and blueberry muffins.  We had so much fun being together and talking and laughing.  Both of them have already mentioned that we have to plan to do this sort of thing again sometime soon.  I’m sorry that I didn’t take any pictures of this event, but maybe I’ll remember next time.

It sure seems like we have made a lot of trips to XNA lately.  First, it was to take (and pick up)  James and Allison when they went to Guatemala.  Next, Lisa left for Germany.  Well, this afternoon another family member left for the other side of the world.  David, John Mueller, and Larry Lloyd are going to New Delhi, India to spend a week there doing mission work.  David should be in flight right now from St. Louis to Chicago (weather permitting) and will leave Chicago enroute to India at 7:10 PM.  When he arrives in New Delhi, it will be Monday, June 9 at 8:30 PM.  (I think that will be 10:30 AM our time, but I’m not sure.)  Here is a picture taken of the travelers at XNA this afternoon.

 

 

We have heard a little from Lisa, and she seems to be having a good time.  I got this picture in an e-mail from the parent of another FHS student on the trip.  It was taken by the German family, the Franks, who hosted the party.  It looks like Lisa is enjoying being surrounded by all of those boys!

 

 

This afternoon we took Lisa to the airport for her trip to Germany.  She is going with her German teacher, Frau Stassen, and a group of students from FHS.  We have spent the past few days trying to make sure that she had everthing she needed for the trip and packing the suitcase, but by now she should be in the air, headed first to Chicago and then on to Germany!  Here is her itinerary:

May 29      Arrival in Chicago    6:58 PM

                   Leave Chicago        10:00 PM

May 30      Arrive Frankfurt      1:30 PM

                   Leave Frankfurt       3:25 PM

                   Arrive Berlin            4:30 PM

She will return to Fayetteville on June 20.  We will miss her, but are excited that she has this opportunity.  It should be a great experience for her. 

Here are a few of the pictures we took at the airport.

Checking in at the airport with Frau Stassen

 

Picture of travel group

 

Up the escalator

 

Telling Katie goodbye.

And she’s off!

I know it’s been a long time since I posted anything, and maybe you have all given up and quit looking for a new post from me.  Things have just been really busy lately, and even though I’ve been busy, it didn’t seem that I had much to write about.  We finished the flurry of May birthdays, and I have to admit, May is easier than it used to be back when I did three birthday parties and made three or more cakes.  This year in addition to May birthdays and Mother’s Day, we celebrated college graduation with James and Allison.  We are very proud of both of them and their accomplishments.  I hunted for a picture of James at his kindergarten graduation to post along with a picture from the University graduation, but I guess the only copy is in the school album that I made for him, and he must have the album.

Honor’s Graduation (James’ glasses broke.)

 

 James gets kisses from both sisters.

 

After graduation we had a big party to celebrate.

 

Last week I went to Kentucky with the Explorers Club from McNair, and we had a good time, but it also added more stress to my schedule.  Now I am trying to help Lisa prepare for her trip to Germany.  She leaves a week from today (May 29) for a three week trip to Germany with a group from Fayetteville High School.  We have a lot to do before she leaves.  I am also counting down the days left in this school year, and there are currently eight school days left but only seven for me to be at school since I am taking off May 29 to get Lisa off to Germany.