We had a wonderful time in Texas!

Before time gets away, I want to post about our trip to Texas. It was really so nice to just be together for a week, and gave us lots of time to see how everyone is growing and what each one is thinking about and doing. Here's my photo album...

Before we had to board at LAX (we left on a Friday), we had plenty of time after clearing security so we found a nice fish restaurant inside the terminal, right by where we'd board our Virgin America flight. We killed time in there and had fish tacos. I like watching all the hubbub at the airport!

Saturday morning was special because the kid's ministry at their church, Glory of Zion, had made a movie to help present the upcoming Purim play, and all the participants got to come together and watch the results of their work, red carpet and all. The movie was darling and we're so glad we got to see it! Sam played three different parts!

The "Red Carpet" experience was in the "Servant's House," an area where people can go to fellowship, buy breakfast and watch the church services on the big screen TV.

We fooled around... David tried to "get" Sam by taking a picture of him, and we tried on Abby's wrap and made goofy faces.

Here're the girls, with Abby holding Lisa's daughter. Lisa is Heidi's boss, and they work together to do the children's ministry at Glory of Zion, Heidi doing infant to pre-K.

Here's a shot of the silent film, and this is Esther at the banquet. 

Later David and Sam played with the Wii at home.

Each kid got to pick a place that we'd take them out for a meal, so Sam chose Wendy's. Heidi and Will went our for dinner and a movie, so we had fun by ourselves. Later in the week Madeline chose Chick Filet.

We got to messing around with glasses and Sam realized that he could see almost perfectly with David's glasses!  He liked wearing them and will soon be going to the optometrist.

 Sunday morning we all went to the Servant's House for breakfast, watched most of first service there, then went into second service. Below we're having a little fun during the worship time, which is casual but really nice.

The person with blond hair flying around up on the stage is Abby, who does the flags on Sunday mornings during worship.

After church, William had a meeting to go to, but the rest of us went to Abby's choice, Pei Wei, a very nice Asian food place. The manager looked through a book with all the info about each dish and told us which things would or would not work with David's shellfish allergy. Very nice! Sam and Abby (and David) had lots of fun thinking of things to do with the chopsticks.

We tried to stay serious while someone else tried to make us laugh. It's impossible to stay solemn!

Getting home, William was ready to take Sam on the back of his motorcycle and go for a little spin, so it was fun to watch them! William is a very safe driver.

I got to do some cooking for you-know-what, and we REALLY enjoyed this great cole slaw, both with the stir-fried shrimp or chicken and cilantro sauce and later on top of fish filets in tacos. Oh yum.

Monday morning it just seemed right to go to IHOP, then head down to Fort Worth to see William's school and just look around. It was fun! Our waiter's name was Tyler and I heard him telling some people nearby that his two brothers were named Dallas and Austin. These Texas people...

At the park behind Will's school (you can see the school in the background), we had fun playing on this old merry-go-round! They don't allow these anymore in CA, "too dangerous," so it was fun to play on it! Sam did get his head conked, so maybe there's something to it...

Family portrait.

Next we went to a park William knew about, in the old and pretty part of Fort Worth and ate the picnic we'd brought. The weather was lovely!

Glory of Zion has bought an old Boeing plant in the nearby town of Corinth, and are making it over to be their new church building! Right now they're renting a lot of space in a strip mall. Many plans are afoot for the building's renovation, but one of the pastor's wives has a vision for turning part of the huge property into a beautiful prayer garden. She's divided it all up among the 12 tribes of Israel and assigned various groups in the church to "own" them and help maintain them. The children's section is the tribe of Benjamin. All the youth had a big work day at the new land and made lots of progress in pulling weeds, planting trees and flowers and generally beautifying their area. Here you see Madeline, who hauled several loads of water from that far building and is watering this fig tree. There is a sprinkler system in place, but it wasn't going quite yet.

Tuesday night bowling is always interesting!

Wednesday morning Heidi went to work and David & William went golfing, so the kids and I ruled the roost. We all wanted to play Monopoly and we had a long and rousing game. It was fun! Abby won and I came in second. After that we made cookies.

We took the dogs to the neighborhood park and Roosevelt really likes to go up the stairs and come down the slide! Dolce wants nothing to do with that business and refuses to do it!

Leaving their neighborhood you cross a train track and we were lucky enough to get stopped by one once, and I had my camera!

We spent quite a bit of time lined up on these couches, watching fun movies. Our contribution to the line-up was Blast from the Past and What About Bob (the kids hadn't seen them) and they made sure we saw Shrek and Unstoppable, a movie about a runaway train.

David and I went over to Bridlewood, in Erin and Jim's old neighborhood, and this is a picture of the road which is being widened, where you turn into Bridlewood. We're in the left turn lane, although it looks dangerous, what with people coming right at us! There's more about our visit to the old neighborhood in the previous blog.

We were delighted by a concert, both by Abigail on the baritone and Madeline on the violin. Abby doesn't plan to continue with orchestra... she's more interested in drama. But she had very good tone and could hold a note for 34 seconds - or was it 38 seconds?

Madeline has been playing violin for a few years now and has really developed! They got her a new violin this year and she takes great care of it. Madeline is very interested in music and has a natural ability there. She and I played around on the piano and she's trying to learn to read two lines at once.

Sam is 8 and is very dear. He's a real thinker and likes wild and crazy fun! His reading scores skyrocketed recently, shortly after Heidi decreed that he couldn't spend time doing computer games anymore. He's great with those games, though... he's back to doing them sometimes. He very nicely let us have his bedroom the whole week.

Look! Both feet off the ground!

Grandpa and I played the kids, but with more of a killer instinct this time, and we waxed them. Sorry, kids!

On Saturday, Heidi and William and the kids all had to be somewhere by 11:30, so they dropped us off at the airport, where we killed time until our flight boarded at about 4:30. We found a great restaurant and had Mexican food for lunch, rode the train that runs around the airport, found some super comfortable chairs and nestled in there, and before we knew it, it was time to go!

Here's David in the train, holding his coffee, and below, a peek out the window of the train. DFW airport is huge, so this was a nice little ride. You can see the track up ahead. 

It's always hard to leave and I can't help but cry when it's time to go, but I'm just glad we get to go see our dear family members as often as we do. That's a blessing.