Wow..what a weekend..

well..it started with the fact that we now have one full time pastor on staff... then..
A long time member of our church had a heart attack and had surgery and got very sick.
Another long time member of our church passed away.
Another church family member was having surgery.

I talked the situation over with Kathy..our only full time pastor and we thought it might be a good idea for me to go to Dallas and pay a visit to our church family member that had the heart issues. Kathy was handling a funeral and going to visit our member having surgery.. First I was going to make a day of it..run up there and back...Since Donna was out of town and all I have is a hot, un-air conditioned pick-up truck I thought..hmm might be fun to go with my son and then we could take that new nissan cube.. with a/c. I also checked in with my daughter to see if she might like to have a lunch or brunch with me/us but she was busy going to Tyler and couldn't make it.. oh well..

Spoke to Austin but he had to work Saturday afternoon. I decided to get a hotel Friday night to make the trip less hard and we could bum around together a little along with making the visit to our church friend.

He made arrangements to get off work Saturday night and he thought he'd be through around 6:30 Friday and we could leave then.. sounds like a nice relaxing Saturday with my son..

A party shows up at the FUMC CLC that they thought had cancelled their party.. but I guess they didn't...so he had to stay late.. I went to FCC and moved some things around to make room for Jinx to play on Sunday morning.. I then went to FUMC to help my son move things around so he could leave..

and I didn't plan on this part...but that whole moving red padded chairs around in the gym became an amazing spiritual flashback moment for me that night... hundreds of times I moved those chairs around to set up for Upward Basketball on Saturday morning (we didn't have bleachers) and move them around again to set up for church (Center Court Service) in that same gym. A long time ago I said that gym smelled like Jesus...still does smell like Jesus to me!!

Anyway..the unplanned working late got us out of Lufkin around 9:30 and it was raining. Not fun to drive in. We stopped a couple of times to eat and to wake up etc.. of course I'm doing some twitter/fb posts along the way and my daughter calls me to see if we can have breakfast together Saturday morning since we're coming up Friday night. OK...

I finally get in bed around 2 a.m...

I'm up around 6:30 to try and find out if I had decent service at the Ex and to see if I need to be on a conf call.. and I'm groggy and not moving too fast but we finally get going and pick Hannah up around 10 and have a brunch..well really just an early lunch.. then we drop her off for a meeting she has to go to at 11 and we head back to Dallas...FYI.. DFW does not fully impart how far apart the D and the FW are.. especially in rain and slow traffic.

We go and have a great visit with our church family at Baylor... we then decide that we need to find puma shoes.. we drive around Dallas for a while and finally get to the Galleria... we eat there and the Genghis Grill and it was great. One bowl filled us up.. I know it's just a dollar more for the all you can eat but we had all we could eat.. we hang around go to a couple of stores and it looks like the puma shopping is going to be a zero.. I mean we were leaving the mall and I decided to google puma's and the finish line (which we had never heard of) has them.. we go find it and Austin gets these.

We finally head out of Dallas for L-town and drive in more rain. By the way the cube drives great..rides pretty nice and handled the crappy weather very well. We roll in to Lufkin about 9 and I find out our only full time pastor...Pastor Kathy...has the flu.. Sunday morning was not an issue..really except now I was going to have to get up earlier.. but I now had a funeral to do too. My first one ever..

Up early Sunday..wishing I was still in bed... church was great in both services. I went home and read over some notes.. put on my seldom worn suit and performed my first funeral.. it was a blessing to be there and I was glad I got to be a part of that family's celebration of life.

Then home..sat still for a few minutes then went and did music for the youth.. got done around 8:00 p.m....

and then...do you ever get so tiered and keyed up you can't go to sleep? I was up past midnight.

Ugh!!!! and when that alarm went off this morning I did NOT want to get out of bed...I drug my self out.. a little late and got to the Ex around 7.

I am looking so forward to a quiet restful evening tonight...maybe even a nap when I get home. It was a great weekend.. no doubt about it... but hope I don't have any more like it in a while. I do need a day off now and then.

Excuse me..but did you give me the right room??

Had to fly to Pittsburgh Pa for a meeting that folks at the Ex wanted me to attend..

I'm staying at the Crown Plaza..along with everyone else and it's where the meetings are being held..

After an evening with my nephew and his wife and kids catching up and visiting Jason dropped me off here..

They gave me my room key and my room #.. and I found this....


















You can imagine my surprise when I walked in.. I was wondering who really had the room and I was barging in.. but no.. it's my room.

Too bad my family is not here to enjoy it with me...

I guess some times it really pays off to be added to the meeting a few weeks late.. Only thing I can figure happened is that they had booked all the rooms but this one and then I got added to the meeting and this was all they had left..

I'll suffer through it I guess.

More pics from Hannah in Italy

Hannah at the church of St Francis of Assisi. The writer of my favorite hymn..



Hannah at Assisi with the Tuscan countryside behind her.



The Tuscan countryside..

A pic from Hannah

Hannah is traveling in Italy during spring break.. something I have not gotten to do.. She's loving it. Here is a pic she sent via text of the Vatican.

A little trip to Houston..

We didn't go on the church ski trip... Austin nor Donna wanted to ski.. Hannah was going to Italy so we didn't know what we would do for our little spring break jaunt.. Austin had a neat idea.. let's go to Houston and do like we do when we go to New York.. in other words.. let be tourists in Houston..

Having grown up in the Houston area and generally having a disdain for the city because it's hot, and humid, and un-zoned, and humid, and has never seemed to have the hiways it needed to move people around like it needs to I really wasn't fired up about that right off the bat but then I thought better of it.. so that's what we're doing..

I went to priceline.com and bid on some 5 star hotels in downtown Houston and got a nice deal on a room at The Inn at the Ballpark.

This morning we had church..and in the midst of church Hannah took off for Italy.. once church was over we headed to Livingston to have lunch at The Courthouse Whistlstop Cafe.



A very nice cafe with very good food and good sized portions. Service was excellent even though some of the Sunday specials had been eaten up by a large after church crowd. We had lunch with family there (Donna's mom, sister, brother-in-law, and our nephew John). After visiting and eating we headed on to Houston..











We had been toying with the idea of going to a hockey game.. it was looking like we weren't going to miss much of the afternoon game of the Houston Aeros so we went to the Toyota center and enjoyed the sport from the great white north.

The Aeros won and we had fun..minor league sports are a hoot because they do so much to keep you entertained.. same with minor league baseball.. anyway, we had a good time and then checked in at "The Inn".













Room is spacious and the bed is heaven...it's huge and comfy.. The lobby, bar and cafe all beautifully appointed with baseball memorabelia.. well so is the room.. even little baseball stickers on the toilet paper rolls... we really did get a nice deal now that I've seen it.













We go eat in "The Ballpark Cafe".. food is pricy but good. Donna had the ballpark burger..I had the ballpark hot dog (a foot long that was about 18" long..stuck out about 2 inches on each end of the bun)..and with ballpark dog I had to have a bock..Austin.. always one to watch cost of items on the menu had a $6 salad and the fried shrimp.. The bill was ... well alot for a burger, a dog and 5 shrimp but the place was nice and the waiter was fantastic.

Back at the room taking it easy.. contemplating going here tomorrow..

Catching you up...

I hope I don't make this too long but here's what's been up lately..

Friday Octoboer 17th.. drive to Conroe to do some work around my in-laws house.. almost hit a deer and scared the crap out of everyone.

Saturday October 18th.. Clean out my wife's aunt's house and get stuff for the 2nd "Send Hannah to Rome" garage sale (see pic of truck for our spoils).

Sunday October 19th.. Breif worship confessional..

Rain Down

To Every Nation

You Never Let Go

Communion-Come Ye Sinners

Went home, ate lunch, took a nap, drove to Fort Worth...Hannah did most of the driving on this trip..


, ate at Uncle Julio's with Donna, Hannah and Katie Anderson.. yeah. a table full of Andersons... but not all mine.

Monday October 20th.. Spent the morning hanging out with Katie on the TCU campus as she showed us around. Ate Lunch at Fuzzies and saw Nikolee Beyers (our super awesome student intern from last summer).

Saw Aaron Marez that morning too and he did our orientation meeting.. that was cool.

Hung out around the college of communications that afternoon and took a tour and saw Brittany Brookshire Adams.. she gave us all big hugs and we hugged her back and she introduced Hannah to her class.. that was cool. Also looked around the radio, TV, film department and that's where Hannah would like to study.. heck so would I.. looked pretty fun.

Drove back to Lufkin then drove (by myself) to Waco to do Fortune 100 transportation work.. hit a deer east of Marlin. No one hurt.. including the deer I think.. the PT Cruiser got a little damage though.

Tuesday Oct 21st.. Worked in Waco, age at Rudy's that night. Stopped at Sonic and got a sonic blast.. shot the last needed video I have to do to complete my half of the Todd and Artie eats video.. now if I could just get time to put it all on a CD and ship it to you.

Wednesday Oct 22nd.. worked in Waco that morning and drove back to rehearse for drug court entertainment.

Thursday Oct 23rd.. Worked that day then did entertainment for Judge White's drug court and drug court graduation at our Fellowship Hall. We did:

Unclouded Day

I'll Fly Away

Everything (Caraway, Anderson, et. al.)

The Road to Recovery (Muchow)

Friday Oct 24th Worked and went to the first half of the LP/University Park game (the half with no score).

Saturday Oct 25th Learned "Audience of One" by Big Daddy Weave and "Give me Your Eyes" by Brandon Heath. Cleaned House..moved all of Hannah's garage sale stuff out of the guest room in to the "media room" (that's a future name for what is now a junk room). Did laundry, practiced Audience of One with Shawn Reith. Hung out with Cory Glover and many of his friends who came in for his Ordination that occured Sunday night. Tell him he needs to blog. Went home early because I had to get up early for church..

Sunday Oct 26th.. video worship confessional and more..

Yes.. our wallpaper is coming off the wall in our bedroom... we'll be fixing that some day soon.

And that's a PBJ..yes I ate it right after shooting that vid.

Oh and by the way. We had myself on Acoustic Guitar and Amanda Hutchinson on bass..that was our whole band.. We had several singers and thank you Scott Skelton, Tara Watson, Bill Malnar and Tina Peavey for being there along with Amanda..

You can see the video of Cory's ordination here.

Monday Oct 27th..worked that day and vegged that night..watched some dvr'd shows and ate and skipped bible study.. I was too worn out. Forgive me.

Tuesday Oct 28th..worked at you know where that day and that night planned, scanned and e-mailed music for the next couple of weeks. I have even updated my sidebar here on my blog with the music that is planned for the next few weeks. I also went to the Goodiers to get more garage sale stuff for Hannah. I plan to head to the Tyson's Thursday and get their offerings to the Rome trip.

OK, my hands are cramping.. I think that's enough.

My Friday..

I got up this morning.. I drank a cup of Starbucks coffee... ate some frosted mini wheats and some biscuits and gravy.






I loaded my luggage and the luggage of several people that were with me on to our church bus. We then left the T bar m resort in New Braunfels TX and drove across Texas back to Lufkin. On the way I dropped my son and my wife off in Conroe so they could go to a baby shower tomorrow.. ewwhh.... not for me. Hannah came with me because she has to work tonight.

I'm now sorting damp clothes and washing them so they don't mildew.

If I get enough done I might go see The Dark Knight tonight.. if not oh well. I do get to sleep in my own bed tonight.

Austin's state bowling tournament in Arlington TX..Saturday.

Saturday we took a trip to Arlington TX for Austin to participate in the state Youth Bowling Tournament. This is just a little of what happened on Saturday.. also went to the Incredible Pizza Company in Euless TX.