Southside Recreation Center

This is a great spot!  Open Gym is 1:00 - 5:00 p.m. and, obviously, from 1:00 - 3:00 you have the run of the place. ::grin::  There was a gym, a game room, a big room with couch and tables.....all free and all warm! LOL 

Big boys play ball!

Today we had fun with Lois and kids. Lois taught Arielle and Nolan piano while we lived here. Tricia and kids were there  as well as Deja and Kids. What fun! Moms visited, all the kids found things they enjoyed and we stayed WARM. 

This group enjoys Polly Pockets

These three explored the facility (before Ashley arrived)

A game room 

 

The whole group of kids.....

Could only maintain their poise for so long....

Thanks for arranging this, Lois. It was fun. 


We stopped by the mall afterwards. There wasn't a Gherkin in sight, but we finished our Christmas shopping. Sort of. They all need to buy for me (typical) and we need to buy for Michael. 


Choosing Joy!
©2011 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Single Focus - Simplicity

"The eye is the lamp of the body; so them if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in your is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters;...." Matt 6:22 - 24a 


Eyes - clear....unclear and your  vision is obscured by cataracts.....Hmmm....dig a bit deeper....


Clear - Strongs # 573 - haploos - single, healthy, singleness, single focus, simplicity

Jesus teaches here the importance of having an unobstructed, single-focused vision.  I want my gaze squarely on Him - in all of life.  If I live in simplicity (single-focused obedience) my entire life will be characterized by His light...and I'll clearly recognize His light in the midst of the darkness around me. I'll forsake a search for plan B and keep my gaze securely, simply, singly focused on Him in ALL of life's "circumstances".


Simplicity - single-focus because, "No one can serve two masters...." 

©2011 D.R.G.
Choosing Joy!
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

SNOW in TEXAS....

Not having done a traditional Christmas for quite some years, I found it unnerving to be out "Christmas Shopping" for 11 people today. We are going to have a family celebration while the kids are all here next week. 


I'm very glad we keep the budget per person VERY reasonable - cuts down the amount of shopping time required. We aren't done...but I really think I'm about done, regardless. 


It snowed today! Can you believe it? I come to San Angelo, TX - home of the 90 straight days of 100*+ weather - thrilled to get out of the Misawa Blizzard like conditions - and it gets COLD here and SNOWS...our winter jackets are in Japan. I brought FLIP FLOPS and CAPRI'S. ::snort:: 


This was an exciting discovery today.....check it out....colorful duct tape!  I'm sure it's Old News to YOU. 

I bought a high speed memory card to see if it will take care of the things I dislike about the new camera. I don't know that it has....

This is finals week for the boys and the rest of the family flies in on Dec 9th. 


Choosing Joy!
©2011 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Sunday in San Angelo

We love Japan. We love it so much we don't want to leave and have seriously wondered what we can do to remain in the country after retirement. 


However, being HERE has been strange for us.  This was a "different" assignment as it is a student base.  We find we still have many friends left in the community - produce co-op, united co-op, SACHSA (homeschooling), retirees and contract workers at base..... We've gone "back" to past assignments but usually the majority of friends are no longer there. Coming here has felt like coming "home"....in fact a chaplain new to us welcomed the kids and I home today when we went to chapel. It was a blessing to hear how this chapel had prayed for us after the Tsunami last year. 


Yesterday, Nolan and Zander went to birthday parties. I visited with Moms as they came and left and got to see Adrienne, Misty, Deja, and Regina's hubs (Derek, I think).  Great fun. We event felt a bit "christmasy" as it is the tradition of this family to have guests at parties bring gifts or donations for a charity or mission etc.  The kids and I had fun feeling a cart at Dollar General for a Mexico outreach. I've already blogged about the library. 


Today......we went to chapel at Goodfellow Air Force Base. We felt so loved and welcomed. What a joy to see so many dear faces and get to catch up. Goodfellow has a CONSTANT turnover as it's a student base...but the core of retirees remains...and it was great fun to meet new Air Force Chaplain families too. One has followed us to Anchorage, then Goodfellow and I told him he needs to try to get to Misawa. LOL  I didn't take photos.....forgot. Oops.  I did take this one....We pulled up and Zander said, "They still have the same nativity!" As a 4 - 5 yo he had moved these things all over the lot of the old chapel. Stacia was born weeks after we arrived at Goodfellow. 

This afternoon Nolan and I went to watch Josiah be abducted  inducted into the National Association of Leadership and Success.  I enjoyed listening to the director of the school at GAFB speak about leadership - great food for thought...and I loved being there to watch this. I didn't get a great photo - but I got one! 

Josiah is 3rd from left....

I dropped in to HEB and took food over to the boys' house for dinner and a quick visit. This upcoming week is finals for the boys! 

Choosing Joy!
©2011 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Ah! The Sheer Joy!

Dairy Queen, Wal-mart, Best Buy....none of them did it.... BUT yesterday the girls and I visited the NEW public library here in San Angelo.  For the first time, I had a twinge that felt a bit like, "Gee it may be nice to have a stateside assignment."  We MISS being able to check out books we can read from a library. We forget we miss it as we buy or get free so many electronic books....but wow.....this was heaven.  Visit it here for yourself....

They were working on this the whole time we lived here. We WERE a bit disappointed with the lack of technology (online reservations, online account management) when we were here. They said they were upgrading at the new library and wow have they ever! It's amazing. On top of that they have a cafe, a teen room, kids room, whole floor of fiction and another for non-fiction, cool nooks to sit and read, and a huge community room.

I LOVE the way they've merged old and new in restoring this old department building and turning it into an amazing place to enjoy. Here are a couple of photos I found on the web...if we get back down there (we can't check things out so we would go just soak it up because we're library geeks) I'll take more photos.

 Great colors, cool lighting throughout - look at the decorations hanging from the ceiling to the right of the photo (can't remember the proper name). LOL

Glass bricks from the original building were used here and there and the glow you see here is sunlight in the Teen room.  Ivey told us today they bring therapy dogs in for kids to read too...and I think this is a great idea, one I need to explore for our struggling reader. They read, the dog loves them and doesn't laugh....

Choosing Joy!
©2011 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Weekends in Hotels

Last weekend it was the Civil War (UofO and OSU)....this weekend...last night was terrible. Noise in the halls, thumping, folks going up and down stairs....I nearly called the front desk. The thing is, my family ALL seem to have this deep-seated fear I will, "make a scene". I didn't call.

This a.m. I woke up to  chainsaws. I swear it was terrifying....sawing and strange sounds I couldn't place.  We've had a fridge making noises since we moved in. On the way to breakfast (which they close 1/2 hour before the end as they need clean up time - we're on it now and plan to MAKE it tomorrow) I noted housekeeping doing the strange things in all the rooms except ours.  It was either winter cleaning - or ?????

Note furniture away from walls, sheets

I've asked for THREE days for extra towels. We are in a FAMILY SUITE which sleeps SIX and they gave me four towels. I was worried a bit as they have a sign saying if you stain a towel they will charge you for it - so I'm wondering if going to Walmart for some towels would be a good idea anyway.....

BUT after missing breakfast because they TOLD me it would be served until 10:00 a.m. and nothing was out when we went down at 9:45 a.m.  (and not making a scene), after being up so late due to noise and being awakened to strange noises (and not making  a scene), I was DETERMINED to get a TOWEL.

I asked if I could have enough towels for each of us to have our own towel (ewww).  She said she has to "inventory the towels each day" - she proceeded to count and check the towels and then logged  she gave us five today. ::snort:: I really find it funny to speculate on why they have such strict towel regs here.  This is the 3rd Comfort Suites we've stayed at on this trip and we've not run into this yet.

Since we now had such a fun relationship - I asked if they were replacing fridges on our floor or what? She apologized for the noise and told me they are installing wide screen tvs and discovered the entertainment centers are too short. They were cutting them apart, adding boards and putting them back together again. We are in here for a week and were the only room they couldn't rearrange...so....I DID hear thumping, loud voices, saws and strange thumping sounds (Industrial Staple Guns). It wasn't a jet lag nightmare. ::snort::

Afraid to get a shot of the men - but evidence of my story

Let it be on the record, through all this I not ONCE made a scene...though I came very close.  I miss the trailer.


Choosing Joy!
©2011 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...

Reconnected.....

This morning the kids and I went over to reconnect with dear San Angelo Friends. We drove into the driveway and Zander commented, "Wow - THEY'VE really grown!" ::snort:: There seems to be a lot of that going around. Four sets of our kids were friends when we lived here. Deja and I did a couple of co-ops together and homeschooled, shared the same OB...that sort of friendship. She even got Nolan involved in the Nutcracker one year. LOL Doug coached Jared's basketball team....and Jamin coached basketball WITH Doug for a year or so.  It was GOOD to reconnect and to meet the newest E. 

Zander and Everson 

Erik, Nolan, Arielle, Emma (back), Ellie and Stacia

Love Mr. E...what a jolly baby

 We raced off to meet the boys for lunch. We spent an hour visiting and then they needed to run some errands and work.

We went to Walmart! ACK - overstimulated! I left with a headache...my WORD all the choices are simply befuddling.  We found it funny to find some of the same clerks. I visited the ATM and Nolan visited the barber....not our best selection. It will grow back...for now I need to find some scissors and even it up. LOL

I was VERY tempted WILD and WARM on planes.....

Stacia was much more captivated with THIS - we bought

 Jamin came over for dinner. Josiah went to work. We went to Logans. Eating our way through San Angelo. LOL

Stacia is full of love hugs at dinner

Games back at the house

 On our way back to the hotel I ended up at our OLD HOME.....a strange mix of emotions...a couple of kids asking why we can't move back HERE...... Ah - memories. I realized we've not gone back to a lot of our previous assignments.

Our friends are still in the neighborhood

We LOVED to take December eve walks in this hood

It was a full day....a fun day...we are looking forward to the rest of the family joining us soon. We're also looking forward to catching up with other friends in the next few days and fitting as much time in with these friends as we can. LOL


Choosing Joy!
©2011 D.R.G.
~Coram Deo~
Living all of life before the face of God...