A Unique Day

Wow, it has been a crazy day! It just rained, and rained, and rained, in Corpus Christi,(apparently a new record 7.09 inches in one day). On the way into church it was raining so hard and the clouds were so thick that all the street lights were on and we could not go much over 40, and even less in several places. Then after the morning service we looked outside to see if it had stopped; it hadn't. In fact it was flooding, especially where our van was parked, the rain was almost halfway up the front tire. Well, at this time it was just lightly raining so we decided to eat lunch and then see if the water would go down any. After lunch however it was the same depth if not a little bit deeper. So it was determined that the van needed to be moved.

Problems:
1. We were pulled up in the parking lot behind every one else, since all the actual parking places were taken; which would have been fine but so was one other vehicle which made it difficult to move our van out of the puddle/pond.

2. The just mentioned puddle/pond. For any of the guys to get to the van, they would have to wade through deep water and get their shoes and pants VERY wet. So those problems being stated what ended up happening is that I volunteered to take off my shoes and to go out to the car holding my skirt, so as not to get it soaked. My application was accepted and I started out into the puddle/pond. The water was so deep it came up to my knees! Anyway, I safely got to the van, it did still start, and I began to pull forward. However, do you remember that other car? yeah, well it was up high enough to be fine, but if I just pulled in front of it, the back of our van would still be in deep water. So I needed to pull between it and the parked vehicles, there was not much space however. I managed squeeze through the gap fairly well, until I came to a car that was sticking out farther then the rest, that made my gap very small. I had to pause for a bit to try to figure out the best way to maneuver the wheel so as to not hit either car, it was then that I realized I had become a circus act for all the men at church standing under the sheltered area in front of the church. Thankfully just then my brother Robert skirted the edge of the puddle/pond and came to help direct me safely through the gap. After that all was good and dandy for a while, until the owner of the car I pulled around needed to leave before second service, but that was easily handled by Rob moving the van to let him out. We then later had the same problem when everyone wanted to leave, and since at the time I was out close the van dad had me move it for people. Now this time I had to back it up instead of pulling forward but I managed and there was no real problem. After all that I thought we were through with all the adventures for the day...... I was wrong.

On our way back, (before we could get to the freeway) the road was so flooded that the people who lived on either side of the street were out in the rain holding orange cones on top of trash cans to keep people from going to the edge of the road where it was to deep for cars, which was very nice of them to do! Unfortunately the water was still deep enough to splash up into our cars engine area, cause a belt on the van to slip off, which caused the car to over heat a little further down the road. The end result was we ended up stranded in a parking lot. Now Robert was on call today so he'd brought in his work van, and most Sundays my mom takes our Saturn and picks up a lady, (who has been coming to church for a while now, but does not always have means of transportation), so we did have several vehicles in town and we just needed to call mom and Jo so they would know to come and get us. A few problems; dad had left his cell phone at home, and Calvin leaves his at home on Sundays, and I don't have one. Solution; dad had to take off his shoes, go across the street under the freeway to a gas station and find a pay phone. Once again, a problem; dad left his wallet in the car. So he had to come back get change then go use the pay phone. By this time Calvin and I had gone far from being anything anywhere close to serious and were just enjoying sitting back and watching all the idiots try to go through a spot that was even deeper then where we had trouble, in this spot there were already two vehicles stuck dead in the water, we saw a truck push a little car through and then another little car got stranded there. Eventually mom and Jojo come to our rescue! But there was another small problem; they could not get to the side of the road we were on, because it was too deep for their little car. So, Calvin and I, (now with no pride or self dignity), had to take off all shoes, lock up the car, roll up our pants/hold up our skirts, and go walking in front of everyone across the very flooded street. I don't remember just how deep it was but neither of us made it across without getting our cloths wet.

Thus ends my tell of our rather crazy Sunday.

Okay, I know I have a lot of things to post about but I don't feel like putting enough time into them right now to do them justice so instead I'm posting some pictures in celebration of Springs long awaited arrival.

Here are some pictures I took today of our Bluebonnets and other flowers.

I'm actually glad it was overcast today, I like the way it looks in these photos.

It was quite a pain trying to get these, I was trying not to fall in the ditch but get low enough to get the tree......and the wind did not help either, my camera was not wanting to focus on a swaying bluebonnet. :)

Hmm....I think I need to get this one again with a blue sky.

They might be weeds that we hate and try to kill in the summer....

....but they are really pretty in the Spring.

That's all for now I will try to get around to other post one of these days soon but don't count of it too much. :)

The Texan~

Okay so it has taken me a while to get this up but late is better then never. (most the time)

On Friday the 6th a Fed Ex truck caught on fire in our next door neighbors driveway fortunantly nobody was hurt but quite a few people lost there packeges.

These are the pictures that Jo and I took of the excitement.

Trip to Illinois!

Hey Y'all,

I am back and have been for a long time now. I had a great trip in Illinois with the Candlers it was so much fun spending time with them, meeting their friends, and just hanging out! :)

This was my first time to fly by myself and the first time I would be anywhere for an extended time without my family. So I was a little nerves at the outset of the 2 week and 5 day vacation I was embarking on, but by the end of it I was trying to figure out where "ALL" that time had gone.

The main event of the first week was the Pumpkin Festival, it was so much FUN! We went Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday! Each night there was a different group of the Candler's friends that we go to spend time with and of course go on the rides with. :) We had a very fun and crazy time. In the end the top three favorite rides were the Zipper, Rock-O-Plane, and the Hurricane, I don't know how many times went on them but it was a lot! :)

The main part of the second week was spent in baby sitting, the church rummage sale, and ping pong! :D Tuesday night one of the Candlers friends Emilee got to spend the night, so we watched Wives and Daughters together, and of course talked a lot! It was lots of fun! :)

Then Friday evening we went over to the Neisen's house. The first activity of the afternoon was saddling up the horses and heading out to ride. Their horses are very pretty and they have some of the cutest little ponies! I did not do to good when riding, in fact I did horrible and was limping afterwards, but the others did really good and it was fun watching them. :) The next big event was when we got on the X-Box and hooked up with my brothers for some Halo 3, YEEHA!!!! The first game was Calvin and Robert against Garrett, Sierra, Lenna, and I. Now I bet y'all are sitting there going "Oh that is so not fair!" Well to tell the truth I agree 100% and so did the others, so after that Calvin and Robert were FORBIDDEN to be on the same team so that we would not get CREAMED again. :P Later on, Robert, Garrett, and I become another banned team combination. :) Playing was so much fun! Then after about half a hour or more Cal and Rob had to go, so we set up Call of Duty World at War (is that the right version?) and that was tons of fun too! X-Box is always fun but when you're right there with your friends laughing and talking it is always so much better! Call of Duty was ended when Mr. Candler came in and said it was time to go....but to our surprise it was not the end of the fun. :D We got all our stuff together walked to the door and saw a very dense fog (which all of us kids just knew we could not even think about driving in) so once Mr. and Mrs. Neisen said that we could stay, we focused in on Mr. Candler and pleaded until he gave in so that we could stay the night! :D Once that was settled lights were set up in the front yard and a game of Ultimate Frisbee was started! It was hilarious, all the jokes and slipping in the wet grass, it was just too much fun! :) I don't know what time we were called inside to go to bed but I know it was late, the next morning we were all very tiered and after we got home Sierra, Lenna, and I had to crash for an hour to catch up on sleep! (but I would still do it all again!. :)

Monday was Sierra's birthday and us Girls spent the morning by going down to their creek and taking lots (and I mean lots) of pictures together. :) Then it was time to go shopping. Now most the time I find shopping very boring, but when your with Sierra and Lenna it is very hard to find anything boring! :P They had me laughing almost the whole time. The rest of the day was spent at home talking and watching a movie.

Thursday we went to the Kings place to make homemade apple cider. I don't know how many apples we cut but the end result was 14 gallons of amazing cider and a lot of good memories.

Then Friday we went over to the McDonald's house for dinner, which of course meant lots of talking, fun, and games! Oh, and some music was thrown in there too! :)

Then there was Saturday the day of my return home, but before I could go home there was a three hour drive in the car. :D Unfortunately Lenna was sick so she had to stay home but Sierra was able to come along so we talked in the car and then Mr. and Mrs Candler took us to Cracker Barrel for a very good lunch. We ended up getting to the air port two hours early to make sure I would not be late, encase it was busy. But since there was almost nobody else there we got to spend most that time together. Of course since it was our last moments together, we could not just sit and act normal the whole time, so Sierra and I decided we would go up and down the escalators! :) It was hilarious to see some of the looks people gave us as we just happily talked while going in circles! :P After a while Sierra started to get dizzy so we moved our conversation over to Star Bucks, which was a yummy improvement! :D After that it was time for us to say good bye, so we got our last picture together and then I headed off through security.

I shall now conclude my post. :)

The Texan~

P.S Sorry that I did not put up any pictures. I did not take many and the ones I did take did not come out too well, but Sierra has some up on her blog. :)

Bye for now

I am just real quickly saying good bye to y'all. I will be leaving tomorrow morning to see some of our good friends up in IL for two weeks and five days so do not expect to hear form me for a while. When I get back I shall make a post not only on my trip to IL but also of our our other good friends stay down here. Anyway, adios till some time in October.

The Texan~

Quiz

Well I was bored so I decided to make up a quiz thing to see how well y'all know me. Now if you end up wondering how I came up with some of the questions I shall tell you right now, my brothers and sister helped me come up with almost all of them. Hope y'all enjoy taking the test, even if it is kinda odd. :) I will post the answers to the quiz some other time.

Click here to take test

P.S Please leave your score in a comment.

My latest doings.

Howdy Y'all,

It has come to my attention that I have neglected this blog for some time now so I am going to give you a update on what has been going on. I will start at August 14, the first part of this day was spent in rushing around the house packing and making pizza, the next six hours were then spent in the car eating the pizza, then we arrived in Arlington where we were staying with some of our dear friends for the next few days. It was a lot of fun, we talked, played games, danced, and simply enjoyed every moment we had together.

Lauren and Savannah while teaching me and Jo to play Hand and Foot

Julia helped Johannah out and yes Lauren and Jo needed every bit of that help. :)

Savannah happy during the half time brake in our game, so far she and I were winning.

(and we did win)

Lauren and Johanna

Savannah and I

The whole East Tribe, well all but Mr. East he was already at work.

All the girls

and all of us kids together

We had a wonderful time, thank y'all so much for having us.

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We are now going to skip forward to last night.

Last night was a time of fun and sadness, fun because all our friends were over but sad because it was the going away party for our pastor who has been called to another work in Burlington N.C, which means that our mission work is being left without a pastor and might possibly be shut down and there is no other church that we could go to that is closer then two hours away. We are hoping that we will be able to set up a web connection between us and another church in our denomination so that we can have teaching and be able to stay together, please pray that this can be done, it will be very hard on us still but it is better then being cut off and left with no where to go, I don't know what my family and the other four families that go to our church will do if we lose our mission work. So please pray for our mission work, and our pastor as he and his family are moving, Pastor Otis has been down here four years and before that he had been coming down a few times each year since I was two years old, so we are very close to him which makes it even harder that we are losing him.

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Then today when Calvin, Jo and I were going over to help the Otis' pack up and clean their house and the car started over heating so we pulled off in to gas station and filled the radiator with water, went to start the car but since Calvin had left the A/C running the battery was dead and we had to wait till someone came along to help us get it jump started. Not much fun, I am starting to not like gas stations, out of about the last 10 times I have been to a gas station 3 of those times was because something was wrong with the car.

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Okay I am going on to a brighter topic, it turns out that our friends dad has some work to do down here so he is coming down the week after next and here is the really great part he will be bringing Lauren, Jay, and Savannah with him! We are really looking forward to it, I have been making plans for things that we can do together and practicing my guitar so that Savannah and I can play together. :)

I shall now end this post with that last little bit of happy news.

The Texan~

A Fun Day

Last Saturday was a very fun day! In the morning we got together with our friends from church for a beach party. We got there at about 11:00 I think (late as always) and after wadding out in the water and talking for a while we came back to shore and started volley ball, we played three games before we broke for lunch. After lunch we went out in the water to throw the Frisbee back and forth to each other, once we came back to shore some sand castles were built while we were waiting for my brother Robert to come so that we could play some Ultimate Frisbee. (Robert had been working earlier so he had missed out on the before activities) It did not take him long to come and we headed out to an open space of the sand and started the game, we ended up only playing for three points though because by the time that it is 1:45 PM the sand is very very very hot and it was a bit painful to run on it, and kinda hard to throw against the wind. After the Ultimate Frisbee it was time for us to pack up and head home but the fun was not over yet....

....After running about gathering up food and sound systems then driving about an hour we arrived in Rockport at some of our other friends house for a dance party! After saying hello to every one (including our friends we went to the beach with :D) there was dinner and a time of singing, then I and my siblings ran outside to quickly set up the music and once every one was gathered we started in on a long fun night of dancing. It was great because it was a huge group and just about everyone loved dancing and learned all the dances very quickly. My siblings and I taught the Virginia Reel, Gay Gorden, and Posties Jig, and we learned two Jewish dances which were a lot of fun. The dancing lasted form 8:00 to 11:45 and in the end Posties Jig was voted the favorite, we even got to do Posties Jig extreme a couple times. So Saturday was a wonderfully fun and active day, and there are already plans to do another dance in August. :)

Sorry that I did not get pictures I was a bit busy instructing and dancing to really even think about it.

I hope y'all have a great week!

The Texan~