Texas, Cards, & Travel

So, once again, I am behind in my blogging.  Currently I am down in Texas with my family.  Prior to heading down here I, after much thought and prayer, too the step and got new tires for my car. I feel that God’s hand was over it all as I was able to get 5 new winter name-brand tires, plus installation, plus ridding of the old tires for under $350 USD.  Now that is one great deal!!! No I didn’t have the money, but I was able to take a loan for it from my dad.  I got my tires at Sams Club - it seems that it was good that I paid the $45 for a Sams Club membership that I haven’t used until now.  Having the membership saved me a lot more than $45 in tire expenses, so it was well worth it.

Last Thursday my dad flew me down there Austin Texas. It was actually a two part flight.  I flew from Bloomington Illinois to Atlanta Georgia.  Then from Atlanta to Austin.  My dad picked me up in Austin around 5pm Thursday evening.  My dads friend, an old friend from when we used to live in Texas 10 yeas ago, Mike Hardcastle, invited dad and I over for supper.    He made us vegetable spaghetti (spaghetti squash, cooked veggies, etc...) it was really good. After supper another one of their friends came over for some games.  Mike taught us a new card game called Five Crowns - it was a ton of fun!   Then we played Pictionary.  I stayed with my dad until Sunday afternoon.  During the weekend we had some really good chats, played some Rummy - it wasn’t my night for it (he creamed me), we watched Thor 2 and some other episodes from a tv show that Jonathan has gotten into. We also played a racing game that we really like on my dad Xbox.

On Saturday my dad and I drove up to Waco Texas and met Abi for brunch.  Then we went to a theater and we watched the new Star Wars. I would rate the it a 7, it was good and well done, but I wouldn’t say it was great.  I would like to go watch it again though.

Sunday I was hoping to go to the small home church that my dad goes to but the pastor was sick so we went to Austin Stone (the north campus).  The main campus of this church is where Chris Tomlin was the worship pastor before he started recording. It was a really good service. We had to leave abit early though as we hand planned to meet my mom in Waco (at least an hour away) by 2pm.  We hit some traffic and we’re late.  When we met up with my mom I went back to her house with her and dad went back to his house.  When mom and I got to her house we did a short partially “family” Christmas.  It wasn’t the same without dad.  After that we watched some Top Gear and another episode of Jonathan’s tv show.  We ate supper, went over all of our Johnson O’Conner results and then went through some old memories by looking through our school files from the last 15 years.

Then the four of us sat around the kitchen table and played Dutch Blitz and ERS (Egyptian Rat Slap - a really fun card game)