Happy 6th Birthday to Lydia!

Dream & Visions

Dreams and Visions:  Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World?  By Tom Doyle with Greg Webster

I like stories (I loved my anthropology classes at A&M).  You might think I read a lot of fiction (and you would be right) but nothing, not even a vampire-werewolf-love triangle, can hold a candle to real life stories of faith, forgiveness and finding your way.  They are my favorite type of stories and Dreams and Visions by Tom Doyle is full of these types of stories.  I love that he begins but stating that these are NOT fairy tales, but that he himself or someone trusted close to him, know these people and know these stories are in fact true. 

The stories are grouped by location in the Muslim world:  Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Israel-Gaza-West Bank, Afghanistan and America.  A brief history or other important information about the country is given but the focus is on a person and how their lives were changed by a vision or dream by Jesus Christ.  I was surprised by how many Christian background people also received these and how the dreams also promoted them to fully surrender to Christ and live for him whatever that meant in their situation.  And that is a serious undertaking for these no matter their background; the only story I had previously know was of the Saudi martyr, Fatima, whose amazing poem I had read.  After the inspiring and encouraging stories, the book ends with a little ‘preaching’ or as I would call it, a call to action especially for American believers.

This is an excellent book, both entertaining and convicting and I highly recommend it to anyone, whether you already have Muslim friends or are in the group that is still a little nervous about them. 

I got this book free from BookSneeze, Thomas Nelson Publishing by agreeing to review it on my blog.  

Last stop

 Back in Salado Bill and family were already there.  On Thursday we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at Granddaddy's then played with rocket balloons in the backyard.  The kids enjoyed the wagon.  Caleb got another deer.  We watched Bernie-so funny, then headed off back of our respective 'states of Texas:  snobby Dallas and the People's Republic of Austin with women with leg hair.'

Beaumont!

 We arrived in Beaumont just before Christy and family from Georgia and realized we didn't pack enough warm weather clothes!  The weather was great and we spent lots of time at parks.  Heidi's kids were sick so we didn't see them on Monday.  Christy's family have been geocacheing and discovered there are tons of them in Beaumont parks (they have an app on their iphones) so we went on an adventure and discovered it (see the camo duct tapped container in Gloria's hand).

 Tuesday-we had a wonderful thanksgiving dinner and Nathaniel was a wonderful organizer of the kiddos, the did chalk on the driveway, played a charades type theater and enjoyed running around.    

 Wed (I was there, see I'm in this picture) Gloria wasn't feeling well but we went to a nice huge park where at first she just laid in the shade, after a while she got some energy to enjoy our chicken tender birthday lunch for Linda including decorating cupcakes.

 The park had a fun playground and also a stable and the kids LOVED seeing and trying to pet the four horses (and one donkey zebra mix!).

 It was time for us to go so after saying good bye and packing up we headed back to Salado!

Deer & a date

 We just returned from being gone for a week and a day for Thanksgiving break.  Lydia had Friday off for the F1 race (we missed the traffic and helicopters) and the whole week too.  Caleb took it off as well (yay for comp time) and we were on the road to celebrate Thanksgiving, hang out with family and lots of sick people.  First to Salado where we visited Granddaddy in rehab, Kathy was there too.  Saturday morning Caleb 'caught' a deer as Gloria says with his arrow (yay for local grass fed red meat).  Then the girls stayed with mom (while Kathy got to see Baylor beat #1 Kansas St) while Caleb and I drove off into the Hill Country for a former co-worker's wedding.  We ate in Burnet and enjoyed the winding country roads and arrived in Ingram.  Before going to the wedding we checked out an art gallery that has a 2/3 replica of Stonehenge (that you get to go inside) and an Easter Island head.  I walked around by the river and saw tons of butterflies on yellow flowers.  Caleb listened to the Aggie football game on the radio.

 Then we went to the wedding.  It was beautiful-outdoors (good thing I dressed warm, the sun was nice but once it was down it got pretty cold) with cypress tress and the sun setting on the river.  Several friends who formerly went to HP were there.  After the ceremony there were fajitas, cake and dancing.

We took the city way home to avoid deer in the dark and when we saw the lights of Austin, it felt like home. Back at my parents we stayed another day before heading to Beaumont.

SA Zoo & Julie

 Caleb was working on Saturday so we took a trip on Friday night to San Antonio to stay with Julie and family.  Gloria fell asleep in the car and I saw horrors flash through my eyes of what would come and they did but life goes on.....We got there and Asher enjoyed showing us his room and the fun stuff outside his house.  We had a yummy dinner and read stories then put the kids to bed, except Gloria who was wide awake.  The adults chatted and watched apple trailers (looks like lots of good movies coming up this holiday season!)  I went to sleep before Gloria and all were up at 6am.  We had a nice breakfast then headed to the zoo.  There was a marathon so tons of people trying to park, but we got to the doors right before opening.  Julie has season passes so they know the drill.  We walked quickly to the back to the petting zoo...

 besides the workers, goats and pigs we were the only ones there.  We brushed and petted the animals before heading into the rest, including tons of great animals, many of which normally only sleep that we got to see awake (it was early and cool)

 There is a kids play area, we saw pretty much everything and its a big zooo...

 and near the end, by the butterfly posing area, Gloria finally lost it because she was so tired, but as per Julie's smart plan we were near the front, and walked out to the cars.  Nice lunch at their house and then we were on the road to home.

this is outside Julie's home to show she was there since she wasn't in any of the zoo pictures!

Friendship

 Though numbers are low, we are still having a great year at Friendship International.  I had to say goodbye today to such a sweet lady returning to Brazil.  That's the way it goes, people come and go and we hope they are touched by Friendship!  This year the English 4 class is awesome.  They had a Halloween party and carved pumpkins and always invite me to be a part of their fun.  Again such neat ladies from all over the world and in Austin for various times and reasons.

 One of our programs was Fashion Show (the day after Halloween-why let the kids have all the fun?  So we got dressed up too)  Featuring dresses-a mother of groom 27 years ago, self made Chinese formal, Indian gifts, winter formal, 50th anniversary outfit, wedding reception Chinese dress and my dress from a wedding in Oman (still fits because its super loose)

 We had a Thanksgiving dinner with families (Caleb was out of town for work) and Judith did a short play about the first Thanksgiving for the children.

This is our third year to also do a UT Friendship program where we get matched with a family.  This year the lady I already knew from our church Friendship!  They are from Korea and they (as well as Imane and her son) came over for dinner this week and the kids had a great time running and playing.

Halloween

October is an awesome month, with its fabulous weather, costume fun, pumpkin activities and ending it all with too much candy.  This year Halloween fell on a Wednesday which is our Austin Library's story time.  We met Lucy, Sophia, Jackson and other friends (like the random kid in the picture) there.

There was a special guest-the Picky Little Witch or at least the illustrator of that book dressed up like her to read the story.  Gloria wore three costumes throughout the day-fairy to story time, Aurora to pick Lydia up from school and super hero in the evening, I just wore my Happy Halloween T-shirt all day.  

Lydia had a fun day at school, another girl wore the same shirt and she got black teeth.

Nana came and brought fried chicken and helped hand out candy!

We joined in with Summer and family (including her scary daddy who enjoyed standing still and scaring kids on our trick-or-treating trip.  As always we walked down to Heather's and back.  There seemed to be more people than other week days.  But lots of houses had their lights turned off-but we still got more candy that we could eat.

Both girls ate as they walked and Gloria would take one bite and then hand the rest to me!  Here we are sorting the loot (and I discovered I have gray hair!).  They got to take 3 pieces in their lunch the next day.  Even today 11-11 we still have some and they get a piece every now and then.

Corpus Christi

 Our family got to go to Corpus Christi, Texas for the BGCT meeting, as I worked a booth for Living Stones Tours!  We picked Don K up in San Antonio (and enjoyed the cell phone waiting lot's palm trees and rock area), then headed to CC.  We were in the Omani hotel on the 17th floor.  This was the girls first time (in memory) to stay in a hotel with a LOBBY, they thought it was really fancy and nice.  And we had a great view of the bay.

 That evening we walked along the sea wall to the flagship Wateraburger for dinner.

 On the walk back (with an amazing full moon over the water) a man had his pickup with windows down and Selena's music playing at her memorial.  He also offered to take our picture as a family.  The weather was perfect for fall.

 Day two-Don and I are in the booth all day.  Caleb and the girls go to Mustang Island state park to play in the water-cool!

 Gloria didn't get in past her knees.

 He catch a needle fish.  It was one of the first times Gloria didn't want to hold the wildlife-teeth!

 They played on the jetty...

 made markings in the sand and had a picnic.

 Driving back into town they posed with a huge shark and mermaid with witch fingers!

 Back at the hotel they swam a little and enjoyed the hot tub until Gloria's hair turned green (I got in that evening and there was sand on the seats!)  They got cleaned up and went to see Brave (I was jealous!)  before picking us up for a Tex-Mex dinner.

 Day three-at the Texas State Aquarium.  Caleb said it was almost empty at first (until two school groups came) so they got to play and see everything multiple times.  Gloria got to be part of a show with a diver.  And Lydia in another animal show.  Of course they loved the dolphins best.

That afternoon we packed up and back to San Antonio and home.  So glad Caleb was able and willing to take off to spend a fun time with the girls while I worked.

SS pumpkins

 As tradition our class meet at the pumpkin patch.  It was much later this year so fewer pumpkins (which is good the church sold a bunch) but we got a fun group photo.

 I was sorting old clothes and Gloria wanted to wear her 24 month pants-great thing for girls, they are now capris!

Our neighbors met us there and all had a great time playing.  No one was really in the mood to pose for pictures so there weren't many to pick from.

Turkey dinners

 Last night was Friendship's Thanksgiving dinner.  Imane and I went with our kids as Caleb is in CC and her husband works Thursday nights.  We dressed in Indian clothes, requested by L&G.  A great time was had by all.

Lydia's school had family Thanksgiving lunch and the weather is perfect so we sat outside.
We have another on Sunday-good thing I like turkey.
Happy Thanksgiving Month to you!