Merry Texas, Christmas Ya'll

"Give and It Shall Be Given"

"Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." St. Luke 6:38. One of my favs in the Bible and I guess you can see why I title this blog as such. We've got so much to be thankful this year with Rhonda being transferred to another job, which she absolutely loves and also caters to her needs. God is great and greatly to be praised. I am so proud of my beautiful wife because she is such a great and giving person. She will give till there's no more and then she'll find a way. That's what I love about her most. She's so kind, gentle, humble and considerate of others' needs, it just amazes me the things she get accomplished. Last September of 2007, she started with the Student Achievement Iniative Program where she would mentor a student enrolled at WFISD. She easily connected to her mentee, Ashley and has absolutely loved every minute of it. She is really dedicated to the program and now she has three mentees and her other two are Erin and Kylie. Ashley attends McNiel Jr. High, while Erin and Kylie attend Kirby Jr. High. She was recently honored at a banquet where they bestowed upon her Outstanding Mentor with the Achievement Student Iniative Program, which is partnered with WFISD and SAFB. Hats off to Rhonda and the young people that she mentors. May God continue to bless and guide her as she relates to the young people in the school district.

With all the Christmas activities around, I couldn't pass the chance to show off some pics of Rhonda's office Christmas party. This year their party was held at the MSU's Clark Student Center. A great time was had by all and wow! the tables were so beautifully decorated. Each table was to represent a certain criteria of each department in the sqaudron where Rhonda works. Some of the tables represented their work, while others were just fabulous. We had a great time, with delicious food and laughter abound. As you can see where Rhonda was trying to draw a picture of a snowman on top of her head. (I'm so glad they didn't pick me) Oh, well, she lost; nevertheless, she had a great time performing for the gang. A lot of prizes were won and we really enjoyed the night. Capping off the night, we headed across the street to MSU Burns Fantasy of Lights. We hadn't had the opportunity to walk around the "Winter Wonderland" and since it was just a little nippy and we were already out in it, we decided to stroll through the fantasy land. The extravaganza has a lot more charisma up close. Afterwards, we headed to the house for some "Low-Fat Hot Chocolate." Yum Yum!

On Sunday, December 14, we attended "An Evening of Joy" performed by Life Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra. Wow! It was phenomenal with several different recitations, along with a variety of duets and quartets, joined by the choir throughout the night of performance. I especially enjoyed the men's quartet. Special Kudos to Life Tab and all of their choir members.

This last Sunday, we visited our home church in Vernon. I really enjoyed providing Christmas music to our church and seeing all of our old friends and meeting new ones. Our church still carries on the timeless tradition of passing out fruit bags to everyone on Sunday before Christmas. I can remember as a child sorting the fruit and candy and sacking it up. When I was a kid, we used paper bags; however, now we just use Glad Baggies, which makes it more convenient. That was a nice memory to relive. Afterwards, Dad and LaRue followed us back to Wichita where we ate at Cotton Patch Cafe. Dad and LaRue hadn't ate there yet and was so anxious to try it out. I think they really enjoyed and can't wait to come back and taste the Blackberry Cobblar. Delicious. Thanks, Dad and LaRue and all of the church folks in Vernon for such a good time.

To cap our weekend off, we celebrated Christmas with our dear friends, Jane and Loyd Austin at Cheddars and afterwards went back to our townhome and enjoyed coffee, Low-Fat Hot Chocolate and Baklava. If you haven't tried Baklava, you need to step out in faith and give it a whirl. It's a greek pastry that is just heavenly and I believe it's low-fat also. LOL.

Well, as you can see we've had a busy month with two days left till Christmas. I can't wait. Rhonda's got my presents wrapped and I'm trying to figure out what they are. The anticipation drives me crazy. Since Christmas is my favorite time of the year, I'll try to keep the activities as full as I can, because once it's over, I'll have to wait till next year. Rhonda's already told me after the 1st, the tree comes down. Oh, well, I'll enjoy the festivities while they last! LOL

On another note, I talked with John today and he's doing great. It makes me feel a little better whenever I talk with him, knowing that he's doing good.

The Last Brouhaha

This post is a little late; however, with me being enrolled at Wayland Baptist University, working @ the Post Office & Weight Watchers Intl., I just haven't had the time. I started taking pics of John and our time together since he got stationed at Tech School, SAFB. John and I really enjoyed each other, going to the movies together, visiting the "horse show" (LOL), going out to eat, our Six Flags trip, drinking Cappichinos, Chai Tea, etc, while I just stuck with the norm Low-Fat Hot Chocolate. I don't like to venture off of my comfort zone; nevertheless, he encouraged me to live a little. While driving with the top down in my convertible, he'd ask if we could put the top down and I would say, "Well, let's at least roll up the windows because I didn't want to mess up my hair", he would jokingly chide me saying, Hey, Uncle Dan, live a little. I'd say, okay, go ahead, put the windows down too. So here we are flying down Kell Freeway with my hair blowing in the breeze. Okay, I'm a little anal about my hair, but I think it runs in the family. LOL.

We enjoyed Tops in Blue Concert at Sheppard AFB with a picnic on the ground. Aunt Rhonda prepared us a picnic lunch and we copped a squat on the ground and enjoyed the show, along with our fried chicken and all the fixins. Aunt Rhonda always has good ideas when it comes to family time. While she was preparing our lunch, we saw the movie Chronicles of Narnia (2nd film), which by the way was outstanding. We enjoyed our time together at the water park and eating jalepeno peppers at Sonic Drive In. He joined our family at Matthew's birthday party at Johnny Carrino's and then headed over to Cheryl & Daniel's house for cake & ice cream. Yum! Yum! John enjoyed playing with their dog Cobblar, along with his friend Kevin Atkison, who also joined us and enjoyed being with our family. Kevin's a really good kid and I miss him also. He's now in Salt Lake City, UT stationed at an Air Force Base. (for the life of me, I can't think of the base's name)

I won free tickets to Gaither Homecoming; however, he didn't ante up since this really wasn't style of music. So, instead he met us at Cheddar's and enjoyed being with our family. All of us, except John went to Gaither Homecoming and had a wonderful time. We started attending Life Tabernacle later in September and I enjoyed going to Starbuck's before church and enjoyed listening to his goals and dreams he has in his life. John has lots of dreams and goals in life and I pray for his success in life wherever he goes. Our last day out was to Logan's Roadhouse where we enjoyed a wonderful steak of which he had to finish mine and didn't have a problem with it all. I don't know where he puts all the food at. LOL.

After his trip back to Luke AFB, I had a really hard time losing him. You see, even though he was stationed here, I knew he would be at our house on the weekends, or just pop in and out, where we could talk and hang out. I knew he was gonna be okay, because of his close proximity. He was hoping to get to prepare his recruiting time here at SAFB and spend Christmas with us; nevertheless, it just didn't work out. So, I had to give him up and not be able to spend Christmas with him. It just wasn't fair. I would cry and pray about it and finally God gave me a peace that everything was gonna be alright and I feel alot better now. I just spoke with him today after class and he's doing just fine. I teased him saying I had kept his phone message on my phone and when I get to missing him, I just play his voice mail. I know this blog was a little lengthly; however, it kinda helped me get through the process of John leaving SAFB and starting a new stage of his life.