Cowboy Boots, Giant Tubs and The Gaylord Texan!

Again, way too long since our last post. Here is a little catch up with our lives recently...

These boots officially have nothing to do with anything, but we saw them while walking around at a market and I had to take a quick photo since Texans love boots and they like to make a statement with them. Thought all my California friends would like these.

We were able to go to National Youth Workers Conference (NYWC) in Hot Springs, AR at Bro. Capaci's place this past month. The Theme was "Are You Thirsty?" It was a great meeting with Bro. Reno Likins, Bro. Jack Schaap and of course Bro. Eric Capaci.

It was great to have some time to play with the Fredericks. Their kids have really grown up since they left North Valley. It was incredibly fun to be with their family for the couple of days and see how they work together. My personal favorite was to wake up early and go to their family devotions after breakfast. Bro. Fred is a piece of work, but the thoughts he pulled from Scripture were amazing.

We had a little free time one of the mornings so Steph and I decided to visit some of the "hot springs" here in the area. While we didn't go in the tubs/springs, we went in an old museum type bath house, much like a modern day spa. Here is a picture of the shower systems in one of the rooms.

Here is one of the tubs they would fill with water from the springs...

And yes, this is a picture of the large nogin of Tommy.... I was in one of Bro. Fred's classes on youth work and he came and sat down in front of me. I was shocked to see him as I forgot he was attending school here... He hasn't changed at all.

Steph and I also shared our anniversary of our first date this past week. We decided to go out to BJ's Pizzeria and get a Pizzookie (pictured below) just like we did on our first date.

Manna!!!

The last portion of our recent happenings is when Austin, a young man in our church took us to his work... THE GAYLORD TEXAN! He is a sous chief for the pastry kitchen. He took us on the behind the scenes tour of the hotel, kitchens, dining areas, and so much more. This place is awesome. It is so big, I had to take a few pictures of the quantities they had (everything's bigger in Texas)

Here is a small section of their plates...

other "small" sections of items...

And, my post would not be complete until I found an item that is customized for the great state of Texas.... These people sure enjoy their state. This was my personal favorite part of the tour... the behind the scenes golf cart that they fabricated for this hotel.

Orchestra, Food and Fun

So, I feel like I need post today being that it is 09-09-09 and I want to remember this joyous date. Here is what we have been up to recently. Enjoy.

We were able to go to the Dallas Symphony recently (Thank you Groupon.com - greatest thing to happen since sliced bread, visit it if you live in a major city) for a discounted price. We had excellent seats and for only a fraction of the price. Here is the view we had...After we finished listening to the wonderful songs by the orchestra, we just weren't quite ready for bed, so we had to stop at Yogi-licious in Dallas (The second greatest thing since sliced bread) and got some frozen yogurt.
A week or so later, I had to get a little "guy time" in so I went fishing with my dad and Warren Whittall (International Baptist Missions Director) on Lake Ray Hubbard. Here is my trophy catfish, well, at least the biggest I've ever caught.
Finally, one night not long ago, we decided that we weren't going to order pizza, but wanted to have a little more fun than that, so we made our own pizza. What a time we had. My wife is literally the best pizza maker on the planet. This was the best flavor I have ever experienced. (She is also the best omelet cooker in the whole universe, but that is another day, another blog post.)
Our next post will be all about our fall decor, so don't miss it, there will be pictures of all the deals we have found and all the "cute" stuff we have purchased. It's going to be great.

Dallas Date Day 8/13

We had a great time last week on our Dallas Date Day. We visited some very interesting and different places. Here is a few photos of our travels throughout the day.
This is the First Baptist Church of Dallas. Actually this is a side entrance to the new building. This is the church that Criswell pastored so many years ago. It is huge now. They have two "Traditional" service and one "Contemporary" service. It was very interesting to see the changes over the years to people, buildings and philosophies of this place.
Here is a picture of Dr. Criswell that was pictured on the wall of pastors of the church over the years.
We also visited the Dallas Arboretum. They had all kinds of exotic flowers, waterfalls, trees, shrubs and etc. scattered throughout the property.
This was the long walkway that lead to the fountains. We abstained from this activity, but it was really beautiful.
We saw many pretty flowers and the best part was it was only $1 that week. (outside of parking... $5!) We had a great time together and are starting to love certain parts of Dallas.

Adult Status...

We had a rather exciting weekend that actually started a day early this past week. I was able to take friday off due to the excessive amount of hours that were put in during VBS (fbcomteens.blogspot.com for the story) so Steph and I decided to visit The Shops at Willowbend Mall (since Dallas has more shopping per capita than any other US city). We looked at Mac's... iMac's to be more specific at the Apple store, perused the Brooks Brothers and a multitude of other things. We then went home and enjoyed dinner. The next morning we spent out in our "Neck of the Woods" with a plethora of gift cards and exchanges. We bought the Whisper Close 3000 - best toilet seat in the world, towels, hung pictures (printed off pictures for the mass of frames with no pics in them) and had a time doing it.

So far this week, I have worked on my Jeep (differential gasket and changing oil), broke my lawn mower and now my Jeep wouldn't start this morning... All part of "being a grown-up... Who ever said that was fun - lied!

God is good and Steph and I were able to see one saved last night, 3 committed to Baptism and a family is going to join on Sunday. What a night out together.

Our life the past few weeks - Hectic!

My life has been so ridiculously crazy the past few weeks, that I didn't have time to blog, barely had time to breath, but now I am back on the "blogging bandwagon". Here are a few pictures describing what i've gone through...

I have been in so many states of this country just during the summer time. Let's recap, I started in Dallas, TX (where we live), then I went to Alicia Nijoka's Mann's wedding in Baton Rouge, LA. The day after the wedding, we decided to go visit New Orleans, LA (I know, same state, but about an hour away) and then back to Texas. The next week we flew from DFW to San Jose, CA. We had a wonderful time at Shawn and Aimee's wedding. It really was a beautiful wedding and gorgeous reception. We took our flight home, which had a layover in Orange County (John Wayne) airport in So. Cal... delayed. But finally returned home again. Somewhere in there I went to Bob Gray II's Youth Convention in Longview, TX (again, I know, still TX, but this is one large state). We were back for some time before heading off to youth camp in Arkansas (Triple S Ranch). Just before we were leaving for Camp I got news that my grandma, Virgina "Ginny" Elizabeth Bird Eskelsen passed away on July 3rd. So, I had to leave camp and fly from Little Rock, AR to Perry, UT. Delta had a funny way of taking me from Little Rock to Memphis, TN and then on to Salt Lake City. There are some pictures below from the wedding with a little info on who and what it is of. After a full day of flying (cancelled both flights, somehow still made it halfway through the viewing... after getting pulled over in Seary, AR in the church van... no ticket :) I then went from SLC to Atlanta, GA and on to Little Rock (The red eye... both flights delayed) I finally made it back to camp approx 48 hours after departure. It was one crazy week. We only had one flat tire on the way to camp and only two teens puke on the way back... all in all, it was a whirlwind month for us. Here are some pictures from all these stories:

Ok, so technically this isn't from any of my travels, just the Bass Pro Shop in Garland, TX. I wore this shirt last week and had 3 positive comments about it. Apparently Texans still agree!

We went to Winger's in Brigham, UT the night of the funeral for my grandma. My dad and my cousin, Andrew enjoyed "sticky fingers" and Asphalt Pie. I love this restaurant.

A sign at Wingers. It really is the best Chicken in the world.

A picture I took to show my wife the delicious food I was enjoying in Utah after the funeral while she was "suffering for Jesus" eating all that weird camp food. Come to think of it, I don't know if she ever saw it, she never said anything about it. Hope she looks at the blog and gets to see the good food I enjoyed...

Me, Dad, Andrew and Rick at The fancy Maddox restaurant... It has good food in "The Lodge"

Rick and I, me or whatever the proper english wording is there - Don't tell Mrs. Flint I still don't know... I don't think she'll be too happy to know I guessed my way through her English 103 final.

These are the mountains that I miss. They don't look that beautiful in this picture, but they really are incredible. I miss them.

Here we are at suffer, uh, I mean summer camp. It was great. We stopped at Subway on the way back home afterward for a much needed stop and hang out for a few minutes.

Here are the shirts that Mike Weithorn had made up for us. They look really sharp and it was really cool to be the only church wearing a special shirt the last day. I could always tell where my kids (teens, not actual kids yet) were by their bright shirt.

And here was the bus baking in the hot sun while we waited for the tire guy to come fix our flat tire. It was quite a trip and I am really glad that those few weeks of my life are finally over. It was hectic, tiring and great all at the same time. Now it's back to work, back to life and back to normal.