Texas Pride

The folks I'm staying with really love Texas.

Ft. Worth

View of downtown Ft. Worth from near where I am staying in Keller, TX.

Happiest Place on Earth?

I've always heard that Disneyland was the "Happiest Place on Earth", but I think they might be mistaken. I think it is Cabela's!

I had the morning 'off' today, so I drove the 3 miles to Cabela's Ft. Worth store. Yeehaa! What a great place.

Not bad after all

The wicked weather never really materialized here in Keller, which is a good thing. We did get about 2-3 inches of rain and LOTS of thunder, but nothing severe.

Today turned out to be one of the prettiest days I've seen in a long time.

Wicked Weather

Well, it is definitely spring time in North Texas! There have been severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado watches for the past two days. It has actually split and gone around Keller for now, but it looks like we are in for a big one in about 45 minutes. The TV is showing a huge squall line just to the west of here moving slowly to the east and building. They are starting to show rotation in the clouds.

In the past 5 minutes, it has started to rain and I can now hear thunder. Hopefully, it won't be severe.

Settling In

Well, we have now moved into "our" house, got the girls enrolled in school, unpacked, and I am now in Texas at a conference.

The house is wonderful. As I said, it is right next door to Mom and Dad. I went fishing with Dad Tuesday afternoon and caught a very nice crappie, along with two or three (too) little black bass. I was right happy to catch that crappie, let me tell you!

The girls absolutely love their new school. It is a rural K-8 about 4 miles north of us, out in the country. Get this: the school provides breakfast AND lunch FOR FREE!!! We had a nice tour of the facilities with the superintendent and was overwhelmed with everyone's friendliness. It was so refreshing. The girls both came home from school so excited and Emily even exclaimed, "I love my life". That was REALLY good to hear, for a change.

I drove down to Keller, TX, yesterday to attend a conference. It was a delightfully uneventful trip. At the same conference is a friend from Africa. It is great to see him again. I am staying with a very nice family. He is an FAA Safety Inspector and she is a school teacher. They have three kids, only one of which is still at home. She is 8. Despite their being so nice, they are Red Raiders. The whole house is Red Raiders. I am sleeping in the son's room, who is currently away at Texas Tech. His whole room is an unholy black and red. It's OK, because I am all prayed up. ;-)

Too much fun

We have been having too much fun this week to blog much about anything. We'll see what happens this next week.

Bye Larry "Bud" Melman

I loved to watch Larry "Bud" Melman on the Late Night with David Letterman Show back in the 80's when I was in college. I thought he was pretty funny. Rather stupid and silly, but funny nonetheless.

I had been wondering if the old guy was even still alive just last week. I guess the answer to that would be "no".

See ya, Larry Bud.

Last Crocus

This is probably the last crocus blooming in Vinita; possibly Oklahoma. I'm glad it stayed alive long enough for us to see it.

Firetruck

A Vinita Fire Truck stopped next door to check the fire alarm on the group home, next door to my in-laws. Audrey and I thought it was a good "photo op".

Springtime in Vinita

Here is the Bradford Pear next door to my in-laws' house in Vinita, OK. They are in bloom everywhere and are just beautiful!

Buy Wal-Mart Stock! Quick!

If our first trip to Wal-Mart is any indication of the kind of money we are going to be spending there, I would assume that the Wal-Mart's quarterly profits will rise. So, buy Wal-Mart stock, quick!

O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A!

Home in Oklahoma! After an exhausting 14 hour flight, a three hour layover in Chicago, plus another hour of "delay", then an 1 1/2 hour flight to Tulsa, we made it back to good ole OK!

My parents and sister met us at the airport. We drove to Muskogee to have dinner at El Chico's, then on to Ft. Gibson for the night. We were all up the next morning by 4 am. Yikes!

Dad fixed breakfast for us at my grandma's house, then we high-tailed it to Vinita to stay the week at my in-laws' home.

It is great to be "home".

Last Post from Hong Kong (for a while)

This is probably my last post from Hong Kong until next year. It has been a wild, fun, exciting year since we arrived. We have had a great place to live, made great new friends, been reacquainted with old friends, eaten lots of great food, and seen lots of incredible sights. We spent the morning packing our suitcases. All we have left is to finish off the carry on bags.

We are grateful to God for our time in HK. We look forward to our return in 2008.

We are grateful for this opportunity to return to Oklahoma and spend time with our family and friends there. We are looking forward to lots of fun and great times in God's country!

Stored Stuff

Here is our "stuff" in the storage facility. Note the A/C!

You know you're in Hong Kong if...

You know you're in Hong Kong if:

1. it's 50 degrees outside and all the air conditioners are on (in taxis, malls, offices, etc).
2. education is compulsory for two year old children.
3. you see Mercedes, BMW's, Porches, Jaguars, Rolls Royces and you haven't left your parking garage yet.
4. you go out to eat and a glass of Coke is $5 US dollars!
5. you are able to recognize at least 35 different languages while dining out in a single restaurant.
6. a gallon of milk costs more than a gallon of gasoline and a gallon of gas is $8.50!
7. you can get 127 varieties of seaweed, but only 3 varieties of Pop Tarts.
8. you can get immediate seating at a restaurant at 6 pm, but have a 2 hour wait at 7.
9. you can drink from the faucet, but are afraid to breathe the air.
10. you can't walk 20 feet in the tourist areas without being offered a "good tailor" or "copy Rolex".
11. most every woman between the ages of 20 and 50 are wearing mini-skirts or hot-pants and go-go boots with stiletto heals AND NONE OF THEM ARE PROSTITUTES!

I'll add more to these as time goes on. Please feel free to add ideas in the comment section and I might add them on right away.

Different Generation

We bought disposable cameras yesterday for our kids to take to school, since it was their last day in HK for a while. When we handed one to Emily, the younger, she asked if it was possible to hook it up to a printer so that she could have actual pictures in hand, instead of just on the viewer. We explained that it wasn't a digital camera and that it had real film to be developed and that she would indeed have printed copies of each picture she took. She thought that was a great idea and wondered why all cameras weren't like!

I still think the idea of a disposable camera is pretty cool. I guess I'm behind the times.

All Moved Out

The moving company came today and moved our boxes and stuff to a storage facility not too far away. I was immediately impressed with them, as the first thing they did was lay down a strip of protective fabric on the floor. I've never seen any other movers do that for us. Anyway, it went pretty well. The main moving guy was a Bangladeshi. He spoke Bangladeshi to his brother, Cantonese to the other movers, and English to me.

I think we ended up with 1o6 packed boxes, plus all of the furniture and other stuff. Tomorrow is the last day of school for the girls. I need to see about terminating internet and mobile phone contracts. I also need to get our e-tickets printed out so that we can use them on Friday!

A Great Day

Today was a really great day. I had the opportunity to preach at church. It was really cool how I saw God at work through the message. I could really feel God at work.

It was a really great day.

Into a "guest flat"

Normally, we would say "guest house", but since all we have here in HK is apartments, and since the British made HK people call apartments "flats", we are therefore in a "guest flat".

Let's just say we are 'cozy'. We are in a smallish guest flat, about the size of most "normal" apartments in HK. It would fit inside our old living/dining room. Well, almost.

Our luggage pretty well fills up the living room.

But, we are grateful for this blessing.

The Bags Are Packed

Tonight is our last night in our flat in Hong Kong. Tomorrow, we move to a guesthouse apartment. We packed our suitcases tonight and we are ready to move everything over. The guest apartment is not too far from our place, which is good, since the girls will still need to catch the school bus at our apartment.

We have enjoyed living here; it is a very nice place. I just found out recently that our 1550 sq ft apartment is actually worth $2.5 million US dollars! We can hardly believe it. Although, it is more credible when you see the parking lot below filled with Mercedes, Porches, Jaguars, BMW's, and even a Rolls Royce!

We ended up with 4 trunks, a guitar case, 1 suit case, and a "rice-bag". A rice bag is just a big square fabric bag that we put a bunch of clothes in. I hope my mom's car can hold us and the luggage, too!

Hakka Sally

Here's Sally at Sam Tung Uk Village wearing a traditional Hakka hat.

Sam Tung Uk Village

Since we only have 8 days left before leaving for OK, I took the opportunity today, while Sally was at the doctor's office getting a check up, to go out to the New Territories to Tsuen Wan to see the Sam Tung Uk village. It is a 200 year old Hakka walled village built by the Chan clan. It was completely restored in the 1980's and is now a historical monument in HK.

While I was out there, Sally called and said she was through at the doctor so, she decided to join me for lunch. We found a little place that sold Chinese dumplings and noodles and decided to try it. They only had soy milk to drink and no English menu. We did the best we could and ended up with a very nice lunch.

This is something that we said we were going to do each week before we came to HK, but as it turns out, we only did it once or twice. We'll have to get in the habit of exploration when we return to HK in January.

Hong Kong Harbor

Lots of Fun

Sally and I took a nice little day-date down at the harbor this morning for coffee/hot chocolate and pastries. (I know it's not on my diet, but tough!) Anyway, we had a great time. The harbor was very busy and it was a little foggy/misty, but I still managed to take some good pictures. One of them was of "Duk Ling", the HK Tourist Association's junk. It is the only junk with sails left in HK.




Another tourist couple (from Russia) took this picture of Sally and me.

Word 2007 & Blogger

This is really just a test post to see if I can really post to my blog from Word 2007.

Busy Woman

Sally has been a busy woman lately. Just today, for example, she baked and decorated a "pre" birthday cake for Audrey, packed up more boxes to get ready to go to the US, and had a dentist appointment!

We told Audrey that she could have a "pre" birthday party with her friends here in HK before we leave. Unfortunately, only one little girl could come. Audrey was still in good spirits, though, as this little girl will spend the night. We're having cake & ice cream, pizza, and a sleepover! What more could a girl want?