More New Braunfels fun

The boys really enjoyed panning for jewels. They actually had some good finds. We stopped off at Landa park before we headed back to Houston, and the boys had fun climbing in the trees and playing on their many playgrounds.

Little trip to New Braunfels

Hey! We just got back from our little mini-vacation to New Braunfels. It was very fun and relaxing. We also got to see many of our dear friends back at Mac Arthur Park in San Antonio, and that was great. We went and tubed the Comal River, and it was sooooo peaceful and relaxing. I didn't get any pix of that though, because I didn't want to risk getting my camera wet. There are some pix here of us at Natural bridge Caverns and panning for jewels at the mining co.

Wrapping up Summer with a Splash

As a last hurrah before school starts, we had a "family water fun day", with the young families at church. The kids had a blast on the big waterslide.

Brendan's a very gregarious guy, so he especially loved splashing the day away with all his buddies. You see him above with one of his best friends, Jonathan.

The kids invented a game, which you see Ryan playing here. The guy at the bottom of the slide throws the ball to the kid who's sliding down, and the kid has to catch it before he plunges into the pool.

A big bowl of Brendan's belly laughs

There's nothing Brendan enjoys as much as wrestling, Daddy Bronc riding, and a good ol' tickle fest on the living room floor with Daddy.

Today was pretty much a "dream day" for the guys. Ryan took Dad out for breakfast, then Brendan went and ate lunch with dad at work, then we all went out to dinner with Mee-Maw, Pa-pooh, uncle Shawn, and Maw-Maw, came home and played Skip-Bo, then topped it all off with a good romp on the floor. Ryan is also excited that he got his locker, class schedule and books today. He already has his combination memorized and is raring to go to intermediate school.

Divorce Care for Kids

This is the second year I've been blessed to facilitate the DC4K program at the church of Christ in Champions. It is a wonderful, fun program to help children heal and work through the divorce of their parents. I am grateful that I can use my experience as a "child of divorce" for God's glory and to help the precious children I work with to learn skills that will help them in their new family situations and throughout their lives, as well as to realize the great things God can do in their lives. Some of the things we work on are learning positive, healthy ways to deal with anger, sadness and loneliness. We also learn about developing new relationships, money smarts, positive and powerful communication skills, forgiveness and more. We use Music and movement, Bible stories, DVD dramas, crafts, games, object lessons, journaling, workbooks and snacks to teach and reinforce the concepts.

If you have or know a family dealing with divorce, I encourage you to find a Divorce care and Divorce Care for Kids group in your area. There is a link at the bottom of this page to the website.

A fun day

Today was a great day. We got to get together and play with our new friends, Jackson and Deacon, who recently moved here from Ohio.
Then we got to spend some time with Maw-Maw, who lives in Abilene. We entertained her with a rousing game of Mouse Trap. We sure are going to miss all the time we get to play together when school starts back up.

Other Cathedrals in Prague

These are photos from St. Thomas and St. Nicholas on lesser town cathedrals. Each of the cathedrals has it's own completely different style. St. Nicholas has a tremendous amount of guilding. They covered pretty much everything in gold, including the face of the body you see there in the glass case. I don't remember his name, but that is the actual remains of one of their important people. Some of the cathedrals had just 1 or a few people buried or preserved there, and some had many, many. I don't get it, but that's what we saw. I also didn't understand the incredibly violent sculptures, but we sure saw a lot of them.

St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague

The cathedrals in Prague were like nothing I've ever seen, especially this one, St. Vitus, which is actually in the center of the Castle complex. Here is a small sampling of the grand architecture and artistry we saw, both inside and outside. Here is just one of about 30 or more enormous stained glass windows along the sides of the cathedral. Each one beautifully depicts a different part of the story of Christ. You also see the magnificent organ, which took up the entire back of the building. There are also many, many sculptures, which I won't show you now. You'll just have to go see for yourself.

The scoop on Heather and Buddy

My sister, Heather, rescued a puppy a few months ago. His name is Buddy. He seems to be predominantly beagle, but he's huge now (50 lbs) and still growing, and we think he probably has some boxer and possibly lab??? He's a sweet boy and loves people and other dogs.

A night with the Astros

Even thought the Astros haven't been doing so great this year, we had a good time at the game, and they actually won the game we went to.

Pretty Petrin Hill

As I mentioned before, the hike up Petrin Hill is lovely, as is the rose garden at the top. hopefully I'm not boring you all to death. I will get to more family pix and updates, and I won't show you all of my Prague pictures, but I had so many favorite things and places. Feel free to skip over the ones you're not interested in.

fantastic flowers in Prague

There's not a whole lot of grass in Prague, but there are a lot of planters and flower gardens just around, some in the squares, along walkways, and many people had window boxes.

More trees

I told you, I love trees. There's just no better artist or architect than God himself. These are in the Royal Garden, and along the trail hiking up Petrin Hill. there were all kinds of fruit trees, apple, pear, cherry... along the streets and especially on Petrin Hill. It's a lovely hike up to the "Hungry Wall", tower and rose garden. It is rather steep, thus you see Heather taking a peaceful break.

terrific trees and in Prague

Most of you know that I love nature, so I was particularly impressed with the beautiful, old trees in Prague. Even with the spectacular, guilded cathedrals, the trees were most beautiful to me.