Neighbor Steve's Man Christmas

Christmas decorations at our house this year:

(click on picture - it helps)

Christmas at Neighbor Steve's House:

Neighbor Steve was serious about decorating for Christmas this year. Last Saturday his Christmas man dream came true. He backed this big, bad green monster into his driveway.

Steve's brother-in-law and niece prepare to put up lights:

Neighbor Steve (who is afraid of heights, but not heavy machinery) coaches from the ground:

Paige takes a turn on the lift:

A bird's eye view from the treetops:

After an entire day of ups and downs in his big green lift, Steve and his wife cooked a scrumptious pot of gumbo and had the neighbors over.

It's the beginning of a

Merry Christmas!

(We even got snow flurries in Houston today!)

Artist in Residence (or a few doors down)

This is Amy ~ my neighbor. She's an artist and her painting was chosen to be on the Wildflower Festival poster this year. The Wildflower Festival is an annual event in our community. She also has an Etsy shop with lots of pretty paintings in it too. Go check it out:

http://www.haveart.etsy.com/.

The Lion's Club copied her painting onto a poster and all the proceeds from today's sales went to charity.

It was a beautiful day in Texas. Hope you had a great weekend in your corner of the world.

OK. I just realized I'm wearing the same shirt in the last post too. I do have other clothes really. But this is one of those go-to shirts so comfortable and brown. Yes, brown I'm loving it right now. It goes with everything plus this is Texas and if the temperature drops below 80 degrees we just have to wear our long-sleeved shirts or shirt in my case.

September Memories

Last September we experienced our first major hurricane. It was quite an event for me even though I grew up on the west coast of Florida. Hurricane Ike came ashore in Texas and boy did things look different around here after he left. Thankfully, we were only without power four days at our house. A little cool front came and kept us cool. Each night we had 12-15 people at our house to eat. I had a generator keeping one of our refrigerators going so neighbors would bring me food from their freezers. We all ate really good.

This is how things normally look around here:

After Ike this is what we saw when we walked out side:

The park near our house looked like this:

Another Memory:

I know we all thought back to the day of September 11, 2001...where we were and what were were doing. I remember seeing something briefly on the TV about the World Trade Center being hit by the first plane. I turned off the TV so it wouldn't scare my daughter and we rushed on out the door to go to school. I drove across the street to pick up my neighbor's son who carpooled with us. She walked out and asked me if I saw the Pentagon had been hit by a plane. I told her "No, it was the WTC. Not the Pentagon." Sadly we were both right.

Speaking of Memory:

I received this from our Community Association Office last week.

They forwarded this man's picture. He has amnesia. He was found beaten up and left for dead in Richmond, Georgia. He has very little recollection of his past and no idea who he is. Linguist have determined from his accent that he could possibly be from Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana or Colorado. Someone out there has to be looking for him. I felt sad for him and decided to post him on my blog. You never know.

Here is the link for more information regarding him:

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1007umga.html

~~~

Lastly, I wanted to share with you about Dr. Margaret Nikol. Paige and I heard her speak today and share memories of her life growing up as a Christian in Communist Bulgaria. Her mother, father and brother were all martyred for their faith. I wish you could hear her story in person. She has speaking engagements all over the U.S. Check out her website http://www.intl-impact.org/. She will be in California, Oklahoma, Texas and Illinois between now and the end of the year. You have to see her if you can.

She still has such a burden and a heart for Bulgaria. She translated the entire Bible into the Bulgarian language and in 1993 took over the first copies of the Bible that those churches have had in years. She's has since provided Bulgarian believers with over 600,000 copies of the Bible in their language. One memory that she shared touched me so much. She told of her mother's death. The Communist had poisoned her and brought her home to die. As she lay dying, Margaret and her younger brother were with her and she told them that the prayers she had prayed for them would follow them their entire lives. They did. She prayed that Margaret would be a musician and she was. By the time she was four years old she was playing organ and piano in their church. She prayed her brother would be a Pastor and he was. He was martyred two weeks before the Berlin Wall crumbled. Both of his sons are still pastors in Bulgaria. The story is incredible. I wish she would write a book. I'm glad Paige could go with me to see this Hero of the Faith and hear her memories.

You Know It's Summer When...

The floor next to your back door looks like this:

Our neighborhood is blessed with lots of little girls. A majority of them happened to be at our house the other day.

You know how summer is. Life is more relaxed. Bedtimes and routines are non-existent at the moment. I'm also finding it hard to come up with ideas for dinner.

Last week I clicked over to Alice at her wonderful food blog to get some inspiration. I found this recipe for Coconut Chicken Tenders.
That sealed the deal. I knew what we were having for dinner that night. Alice was managing two blogs for a while and I got to know her thru her other blog. She has decided to focus on her Food Blog full time and I completely understand. She has great pictures and step-by-step instructions for the recipes. I would love to sit in her kitchen and talk with her and taste the wonderful dishes she prepares. She's lovely. She has a beautiful family and a heart for God. You'll love her. Go get inspired~

Peeps

On Friday I went to my daughter's school for a Volunteer Appreciation lunch. As I walked to the front door of the school, I could hear these tiny little chirps. It was coming from the flower container right next to the front door of the school. I took a look inside and found this little bird's nest. There were 4-5 little baby birds in there really calling for their momma. I have no idea what kind they are. They are dark colored with a little yellow patch on their throats.

The nest was hidden under one of the geraniums. The poor momma bird built this nest right next to the front door of the school. I never did see her, but hopefully she was coming back to bring them some lunch. It was a busy time of day at the school and she was probably scared off by all the people coming in and out.

Here are a few blooms I'm enjoying in my back yard right now:

Happy Spring,

Crawfish Anyone?

Saturday night we had a neighborhood crawfish boil. Neighbor Steve boiled the crawfish in a huge pot. (I didn't get a picture...sorry) After boiling the crawfish they are transferred into large coolers to sit and absorb all the spices. Neighbor Steve learned the fine art of crawfish preparation while living in Louisiana. Yes, the main spice you see is cayenne pepper. Like they say...Some like it hot!

After the crawfish have a sufficient amount of soaking time the liquid is drained off and then they are spread out on tables. There was about 100 pounds of crawfish consumed that night.

No, I don't eat crawfish, but I do like the corn on the cob and potatoes that are cooked along with them. The corn and potatoes hadn't made it to the table yet.

There was an egg hunt for the kids. A couple of hunters are shown below.

We have great neighbors and lots of good cooks in the bunch. The weather was perfect and a good time was had by all. Well, except for the boy who had to go to the emergency room after accidentally getting hit in the face by a hockey stick. Eight stitches later....he'll be fine.

Storybook Park

Today our country celebrated President's Day so there was no school and my husband even had the day off. So we went to lunch at Panera Bread then we hopped on the free trolley that rides thru the shopping and business district of our community. The driver mentioned Storybook Park. My girls and I did not know this park existed. Buster didn't really care. We got off at the next stop and walked around Market Street, got some ice cream at Coldstone, then we decided to go check out Storybook Park. It's a sweet little area in Town Green park that has this maze-like path that meanders down one side of the park. It has these huge storybooks to stop and read. Each one has a short story with a picture and a moral of the story at the end of each. They are very colorful and fun to read. I also saw this pretty flower blooming and snapped a quick picture. The weather was beautiful. I forgot my camera so I had to use my cell phone camera. There is also a Marine Corp. Memorial and a statue of the founder of our community George Mitchell at this particular park. I took a lot more pictures, but forgot to press "save" after each one and most didn't download to my phone. We had a great day together. Buster read about as many storybooks as he could stand and then took off for the driving range. I'm going to take some more pictures of our community and post some of the art work and parks. I feel I need to redeem it's reputation after the "Orange You Cute" post.

P.S. I'll be changing out the scripture verse soon. The next one will be 4th of 24. I'm suppose to do it on the 1st and 15th of the month. The scripture memorization challenge is great. If you want to join the fun go check out Be Still Beth.

Orange You Cute....Not Really

Last week I was reading Ronnica's blog and she was on a little rant about the color orange.

Really, it had nothing to do with the fact she was a OU fan and they were about to play that orange team down in FL.

Anyway I told her about this art that has been added to our community's landscape. We live in one of those... you know "Master-planned - Homeowner Association legislated - over regulated - deed restricted" (you get the idea) communities.

Over the years the town Fathers have selected and purchased for our viewing pleasure, art pieces for us to enjoy while driving on our 35 mph well maintained roads. I guess the art is suppose to make us feel more cultured around here.

Well, one of the latest additions had a lot of people stumped. Look at the picture and see what you think.

A number of letters were written to the local paper about the new construction sign placed in the grassy median. It didn't take long for it to sink into our little community deed restricted brains that our hard earned money in the form of homeowner dues paid for this fine artistic expression.