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.

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.

Austin's Graduation Weedend

OK, so my 18 year old son who I told you a little about here finally graduated last Friday May 30th. It was the day that we had looked forward to for many years and honestly Donna and I were probably more excited than Austin was.

I really believe God blessed the day because the temperature was cooler than it had been all week. There was a slight breeze and it was just a day you knew God was touching. I took Austin to lunch that day and of course there was much anticipation.

Family was coming in. Donna's mom Mary is a little older and has a hard time getting around so we have to get seats in the stadium that are right at the end of the ramp..no up or down. We were also surprised to hear that Donna's cousin Marie and her Husband Anthony were coming as well. Anthony had recently had a construction accident and both ankles were broken so he was in a wheel chair.. again we had to have very specific seats. But we also wanted to be close enough to see.

I had planned all day to go up to the stadium early to get good seats. I then got word that Hannah and her friend Mariah Melvin were going to head to the stadium early and get seats. They were just going to run by Sonic first and get some food.

Later I took Austin to the school so he could get ready for graduation. I thought I'd just stay up at the stadium with the girls and wait with them for the rest of the family. I get in to the stadium around 6:45 and the place is a third full and all the seating around the entrance ramps are pretty much packed except for way down by the student section. I give Hannah a call to see where she is so I can join her and Mariah and find out she's not there yet. They didn't go to Sonic and pick up food, they stayed and visited and ate and chatted and oh had some traffic issues and got held up and stuff....

Anyway, I go claim some seats on the 22 yard line on the opposite end of the stadium from the stage. I'm a tad frustrated at this point but the packtron is fired up and I figure we'll be able to see what's happening.. They are playing music on the stadium sound system and the next song I hear is "National Emblem" performed by the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band.. cool.. I'm feeling better.

Time passes and finally the family begins to show up as we approach graduation time. We see the graduates at the entrance at the other end of the stadium and they start playing pomp and circumstance... and students attired in purple robes begin filing in.. hundreds of them.. it seems they will never stop coming in. Heck, I didn't think the honor grads were ever going to end much less those normal students that came in after them.

But we know Austin by his look and his walk when he enters the stadium.. we are pumped. He walks down our side of the stadium so I'm glad I didn't go to the other side of the stadium (I had considered this at one point when seating was so limited but I would have been in the sun with my bald head and would have been cooked by graduation). So, finally a good choice.. we scream at Austin when he comes to mid field and turns to the center of the field. Yeah.. we're pumped for our boy...

Intro, invocation, good speech, talking, OK speech, talking then they start calling out names... again.. hundreds of them. Even though Austin is an Anderson and at the front of the line so to speak there are a ton of honor grads..a few A's and then my boy Austin!! He has graduated!!! Awesome!!! then probably 250 to 300 more students after Austin. We stay to the end. I twittered a lot of that so no need to repeat all of it but finally they are all done, the benediction is spoken and graduation is through!!!

We take a few pics with Austin.


Austin with his Granny


Austin with his Mom and Dad


Austin with his aunt Mariellen and Uncle Pat


Austin with his 2nd and 3rd cousins or something like that
(Anthony, Marie and their boy Paul)

We depart the stadium, Austin is riding with a friend because his beemer is in the shop but he heads to project celebration.

Earlier in the year Austin was not very excited about going to project celebration as he does not like large crowds or a lot of commotion. We coach him to give it a try because he can win money or prizes...We go help with PC for a while until around 2:30 and finally go home. Austin stays the night..


He wins a 4 Gig iPod nano and has a pretty good time.

We got to sleep around 3 and thanks to a friend we spent the night in a really nice dark guest room and slept until 9:45.

Now there seems to be a little bit of a change in my boy...He has found a little bit more independence...spending the night at a friends house Saturday night, not calling until late, getting a ride from them the next morning and actually making it to 9:00 a.m. church without any intervention from his parents. Who knows, he may move out someday after all. Not betting on it but we can always hope!

We're so proud of our boy. Next step... A.C.