Texas Style Barbeque...

We finished off our weekend with a get together Sunday evening at a beautiful ranch north of San Antonio with some good friends from church. The first picture is of (Spurs player) Tim Duncan's home which overlooked the ranch we were visiting. In addition to a great barbeque, we were treated to a tour of the ranch where I enjoyed getting to know the goats!

Fall Is In the Air...Texas Style!

We finally gave up our responsibilities for a weekend and took some time to have fun, starting out Friday evening when we went to see Kirk Cameron's new movie, "Fireproof". It was an awesome movie with a great message that is definately worth seeing!

On Saturday, we got up and took off on the motorcycle for the hill country. We stopped for breakfast in a little town north of us and then headed for Fredricksburg. We enjoyed exploring new sights and found lots of places we can take family and friends when they visit.
The weather has been cooler than usual, so it made for a great day on the bike. We even found pumpkins and fall decor up north...it still doesn't begin to compare with fall in the midwest, but at least it helped with some of the "homesickness" I've been experiencing!

All Work and (Very Little) Play...

I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up on my blog, but compared to this summer, there really isn't much to write about. For one thing, it seems like all I do is work...I don't mind at all, in fact I enjoy what I do, it's just that it doesn't leave much time for anything else. I've been busy implementing our new Art curriculum and rewriting it to make it "mine"! As always, I love what I do because I enjoy the kids so much.

Teaching at Oak Hills also has been keeping me busy as our numbers keep going up and up...a good thing, but along with growth comes growing pains. Our main Bible Story presenter was the previous Children's Ministry director, but with the numbers being what they are, we had to split the group, so I took on a new role. I love it because it gives me a chance to use the gifts God has blessed me with, but it's just another added responsibility. I started this last weekend and it went really well.

We also had a dinner party at our house Sunday evening and invited the Richters, our new missionary family. It was a lot of work, but fun to get to know everyone a little better. Their youngest daughter, who is three, loved playing with all Lydia's toys that I still keep out (just in case...) Her eight year old sister is into American Girl dolls and I couldn't help think how much of a culture change it's going to be for them when they go to Africa in November!

Meeting the Authors...

Our church kicked off "The Story" last weekend and it was a great success! Each of the four services were packed, in fact Larry was working the parking lot and he said every spot was filled. We attended all the services because we had different responsibilities at each. In between each service, there were people dressed in Bible costumes throughout the church telling their stories...they were also autographing their own "page" in each childs copy of "The Story". I was amazed at how each character told their story as if it really happened to them, in fact the kids were encouraged to ask them questions. These were just a few of the characters...Solomon with the mother of the baby in his story about the two women fighting over the child, and Sarah when she was pregnant with Isaak (she's actually a friend of mine from the children's library...and please ignore my hair as we rode the bike to church and it gets all plastered down that way... :< )

Back to School...and Other Things!

It was really good to have a three day weekend already...the first week of school went well, but was so exhausting! It was really nice NOT to be new this year like I was last year and it was fun to see how much the kids had grown and see their excitement about the first day of school.

On Saturday, we went to a surprise 50th birthday party for my friend and neighbor, Cindy. She was the first person I met when I moved here a year ago...she was walking her dog the day we moved in and we started talking. It turned out she was a Christian and the friendship took off from there. Her husband and daughters planned the whole party at La Hacienda and it was very impressive. He's a pilot and he had rented a plane and flown in friends from all the places they've lived. She was SO surprised and very touched. It was a total success!

Last night we had a special Life Group barbeque and invited the Richters...a new missionary family that we will be supporting. They are heading to Africa to minister to the Dagara people. The dad has been a pastor of a small church in another part of Texas, and he and his wife and 4 children felt called to go into missions. They are such a special family and it is going to be a joy to get to know them better before they head to Africa in November. I had the priviledge of putting together a gift basket to welcome them to Oak Hills Church and San Antonio...and we all know how much I LOVE to do gift baskets!