Wednesday, August 19, 2009

We had a good sleep, got up and left the RV park at around 9am. We traveled all day, stopping in Hatch, New Mexico to get some peppers, stopped a couple of times for fuel but the price was above $2.80 so we got only a few gallons. We arrived in Tucson around 5pm and stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner. Very good.

We went over to Joe and Mishael's house (her Mom and Dad's home) and arrived around 6pm. It was so nice to see them. For those that don't know Joe and Mishael Newell.......we met them in 2001 on a mission's trip to Guatemala....was with them in 2002 in Honduras and kept in touch over the next few years. We were with them in Swaziland, Africa on another missions trip in 2005. In 2007, we traveled to South Africa to work with Joe and Mishael for 5 weeks. We also have visited with them several times in Tucson. They have become like family and we love them dearly.

Joe and Elijah

Joe and Mishael

We had a good evening catching up, seeing their new son, Elijah, seeing how much Josiah had grown and just talking. We were able to park our RV in the drive and that is where we slept.

Thursday

We had a good day of visiting with the family and finding out their plans in the future. Where ever they decide to go, we will go and visit and help them. We wish we could have seen Mishael's parents, Danny and Martha, with whom we have become close friends but they were up at their cabin in the mountains working. We enjoyed a good BBQ dinner that evening and talked and talked.

Friday

Josiah

Up early to leave for home but Mishael had fixed us a super breakfast (same dish as she had fixed for us in South Africa). We had breakfast, said goodbye to Josiah as he went to school, said farewells to Joe, Mishael and Elijah. We were sad to go but we know we will see them soon, hopefully in Southern California.

We left around 10am and arrived home at 5:oo pm. It is good to be home BUT it was good to see our close friends and/or family in Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona.W e are so lucky to have "family" in all these places. Thanks everyone for making our trip wonderful and joyful.

Well, this is the end of another successful trip so this will be the last entry until our next trip in October to Ghana, Africa......stay tuned.

Love and blessings

DAD and MOM
Papa and Mema
Jerry & Barbara

Sunday afternoon, August 16th, 2009

After our dinner of fish, hush puppies, etc....we went back to the house and watched a little TV and went to bed early.

Monday

We took off early and went into town and went to the wholesale house and picked up a few more things. While we were there, I talked to Tony and he decided to go to lunch with us. We went to Vans BBQ in Norman, OK. It was up to my standard for BBQ.....very good. Jo Ann, Johnny, Jeff, Tony, Barbara and I were there. We had a good time visiting. Barbara and all went to the house while Tony and me went back to his house. We had a good visit and talked a lot about the possibility of a kidney transplant for him at the Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans. His spirits were up and he was excited about the possibility.

After I said my goodbyes and love, I headed back to the house and stopped at Wal-Mart for a couple of things and then at the grocery store for some ice cream. Barbara was going to fix the apple and peach dessert recipe she got from her sister. She made it the other night and it went over big-time. I got back to the house and then decided to go to a football practice. I had heard on the TV and the OU Sooners was holding their last public practice before the first game. I went to the practice field. I had to line up and wait until all the players were on the field...while all the players arrived in cars and pickups, here come Bob Stoops jogging to the field...for the press, of course. There were about 400-500 fans from old to young.....no cameras allowed but I got one photo of Sam Bradford on the sly. While the players were doing the stretching exercises, there were playing a lot of the Michael Jackson hits. During the exercises, one of the players would jump up and do a little imitation of MJ dancing. Some of them were pretty good. Then they got serious and all the fans really liked what they saw. I was impressed with the kicking game......the field goal kicker was consistently hitting the uprights from 45+ yards. The punter had terrific hang time and put the ball down the field 40+ yards. The scrimmage was good and Sam looked good........Another Heisman? Another Championship game? We will see.

After the practice.....only one hour and then it was closed.....I went back to the house and Barbara had fixed three servings of the dessert.....peach and apples. It was so good. Amber and Candy came with Candy's grand kids. They all enjoyed the desserts. We even got a picture of Jo Ann, Candy, Amber and her two great grand kids. We enjoyed our time and, of course, most of the desserts was finished.

This was our last night in Oklahoma and we went to bed early so we could leave early.

Tuesday

At about 6:30am, the rains came. It started raining and it looked as if we may not get to leave today. However, the rains let up a little and I hooked up the car and we got out of there by a little after 9am. We stopped in Noble to put a little air in the tire we changed in New Orleans. Then we headed west. It rained off and on until we got out of Oklahoma and the sky was overcast most of the day. Before we got to Santa Rosa, we had some high winds.....this is the first time I have driven the RV in high winds. It was a little unnerving but we made it OK.

We arrived at a RV park south of Albuquerque, NM at around 7pm about 620 miles today. A good day of driving. We are here now and Barbara fixed a fantastic dinner and we relaxed with a little TV and headed to bed.

Love and Blessings,

DAD and MOM
Papa and Mema
Jerry and Barbara

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Up early today and heading to Oklahoma City area to visit my son, Tony, and my sister, Jo Ann and her family. After breakfast, devotions, hooking up and gassing up, we drove to Oklahoma City. We stopped and had a "Route 44 Diet Cherry Limeade" drink from Sonic Drive In.....our favorite. We arrived at my sister's house around 2pm, greeted everyone and backed into our spot and set up our RV. Jo Ann's grandson, wife and son is staying with her for a little while so they were there also. After we set up, Jo Ann made some Lasagna for our dinner and we relaxed. Jeff, our nephew, came over and we visited.

Thursday

Today, I will see my son, Tony. Barbara and I went in to Oklahoma City and I got a haircut and we met Jo Ann after her beauty appointment. We went to the wholesale house and bought a few stocking stuffers, and of course, OU memorabilia. We then headed to the Dialysis center and met Tony and Robert. Tony was still hooked up and we visited until he finished. He wasn't feeling too well but he need some protein so we headed to the Cattlemen's restaurant and chowed down. I only had an appetizer as we were going to eat at Jo Ann's later. We had a good visit and I learned a lot about dialysis and the treatment. We talked a little about transplant and decided to talk more later. Tony was a little weak so he and Robert headed home and we went back to Jo Ann's home. We had dinner and settled down and visited and relaxed.

Friday

Every day, Johnny, my brother-in-law, makes us breakfast. He comes out and knocks on the RV, the girls go wild and starts barking, and announces breakfast is ready. Today was scrambled eggs, sausage and croissants. Good stuff. After breakfast, I worked on the RV's front air conditioning.......it is still hot here. The AC is leaking water back into the coach. I called the tech support and they gave me a couple of solutions and it worked! After I finished, we headed to town so Barbara and Jo Ann could go to Hobby Lobby, Wal-Mart and Cracker Barrel. I got some another OU cap and Barbara got some things for the home. I also went to Panera's to check my email. Let me explain....My sister lives several miles outside of Noble, OK and she is in a "communication black hole"! So, I have to go into town to get online. So I don't update as often as I normally would.

It seems when we come back here, we come home with a load of "stuff"! Oh well, at least it is cheaper here and we always find some things we can't do without :-) After shopping, we headed back to Jo Ann's home but first stopped at a roadside stand and picked up some fresh tomato, okra and onions. Johnny had some hamburgers ready for us when we arrived. We had a good dinner and Wade, Jo Ann's youngest son, came over for a visit. Time for bed and we even had a little rain during the night.....relaxing.

Saturday

This morning, Johnny made some of his "famous" pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast, I worked on this blog, watched some western with Johnny and then I headed into Oklahoma City to meet my son at the dialysis center. On the way, I stopped and took a picture of a fence along the highway. It is quite unique.

I met Tony and Robert at the dialysis center and once he was finished, we went out and had some sushi....well, they had some and I had a couple of pieces of one roll....the reason? we are going to eat at a new Mexican restaurant with Jo and Johnny. The food was good and a lot of it. We brought most of our food home because of the chips, salsa, tortillas, both corn and flour. After eating, I went to a vintage movie shop and picked up a western with Jimmy Stewart..."Broken Arrow".

Then we went to back to the house and relaxed. We have been relaxing a lot since we left New Orleans. It is nice. Getting ready for our trip home.

Sunday

We got up and traveled one hour to go to church. The service was short but good. The choir number and the special number was great. The message was short and to the point.

After service, we went to the house, changed clothes and headed to Lee and Candy's house to have lunch. We had fried stripper bass, hush puppies, fried okra, creamed corn and coleslaw.....it was so good. I had forgotten how good the fresh fish tastes.....fried, of course. We are now sitting watching some pre-season NFL football.

It is now Sunday afternoon at 3pm.

Love and Blessings,

DAD and MOM
Papa and Mema
Jerry and Barbara

Monday, August 10, 2009 ******38th Anniversary*******

OK......my bad.....I put out the last update and didn't mention our anniversary. So sorry, Barbara. My only defense is we are going to celebrate it on Tuesday night, instead of tonight. And.....I had it all over FACEBOOK!!!!!!!

BARBARA, I LOVE YOU MORE THAN YESTERDAY, LESS THAN TOMORROW.

This evening, we went with Diana and Byrl to Cracker Barrel for dinner. It was a typical Cracker Barrel dinner, very basic and very good. And we really enjoyed our time together and visiting. After dinner, we went back to their home and continued our time together. Back to the RV and to bed. Good day.

Tuesday

Up early today so we could get some things done. First of all, I packed up all the albums so I could take them to the dealer. I delivered them and got my money while Barbara was washing the clothes. I returned to the RV and Barbara was finished with the laundry. We got ready to go to lunch. We are going to meet our nephew, Rodney, and his family.....Missy (wife) and Alexis (daughter) and Diana and Byrl was joining us. We went a little early and Barbara stopped by Dress Barn and she outfitted herself. We got a call from Diana and Byrl was not feeling well and they would not be coming. We got to our restaurant, McAlister, and waited for Rodney and his family. They arrived in a few minutes, we ordered and set down to eat. We had a great time with them. We are so happy to see them so happy. Rodney has a great testimony and it really encouraged us. Of course, Alexis entertained us with her smart talking and antics. She is so full of life and she did a little "posing" for us. Pictures:

Rodney shared his testimony with us and he told us how things have changed for the better in his life. Missy was so supportive and they are now a beautiful couple and are working together for the Lord! Missy is the Children Director of their church and Rodney works along side her as well as working with the prison ministry. We are so proud of them and can't wait to see what happens in their life. We left a little sad because we would not see them for awhile but knowing they are working on God's plan for their lives.

Rodney Norman Family

After we left the restaurant, we headed back to pick up our cleaning and then Barbara wanted to visit Doris and Lee. Doris is Barbara's Dad's widow and she married Lee Oliver after Barbara's Dad passed away. It has been a couple of years since we have seen them and we had a good visit catching up on the news of all the common friends. Lee is 88 and still plays a guitar and sings in a Western Swing Band and Doris calls herself a "groupie"! :-) Lee was inducted in the Western Swing Hall of Fame. It was quite an honor. It was good seeing them.

Lee and Doris

After our visit, we met Diana and Byrl at the Golden Corral and had a steak dinner. It was good food. After Dinner, we went back to Diana's house for our final visit. We will be praying for Byrl for his medical problems. Tonight, he was looking better and seemed to be feeling better. It was nice to be able to spend so much time with them.

Diana and Byrl (check out the hat!)

We left their house and headed back to the RV. Barbara relaxed and I worked on Barbara's exercise machine and got it fixed. Tonight, we are relaxing but tomorrow we will be leaving Tulsa and head to Oklahoma City for our visit with my son and my sister. For those that do not know, my son, Tony, lost his partial kidney and he is on dialysis three times a week. Keep him in your prayers.

Any way.......on to bed and then on to Oklahoma City!

Love and Blessings,

DAD and MOM
Papa and Mema
Jerry and Barbara

Saturday, August 9th, 2005

Today is a lazy day. We slept in and then we got ready to visit more family. Barbara's nieces were together here in Tulsa for the day, so we decided to go over and spend the day. Barbara's nieces are Cara and her kids - Byron, Geneva, Tatianna, Rheeanna, Sahvanna and Bryson AND Pam and her kids - Jacob and Joshua. We had a good time visiting and had a good lunch together. When you get 8 kids from almost 4 to 12......there is a lot of activity. It was nice to catch up on all the news of the two families. Here are some pictures of the kids.

All the kids - Byron, Josuha, Jacob, Geneva, Bryson, Sahvanna, Rheeanna and TatiannaByron, Geneva, Tatianna, Rheeanna, Sahvanna and BrysonJacob and Josuha

After our visit, we headed back to Diana's and went to dinner with them at a Thai restaurant. Surprise, Tammy, Barbara's niece, and her family (Rod, her husband, Kaylee, Josh and Jake). It has been a year since we have seen them. Kaylee was sporting new braces. We had good food and a good visit. It is great seeing family. Pictures:

KayleeJakeJoshTammy (Sorry Rod.....didn't get your picture)

After our meal, we went back to Diana's house and visited some more. Diana fixed us an apple dessert that was very good. After our visit, we headed back to the RV.

Sunday

A glorious day. We met Diana and Byrl at their church, Carbondale Assembly of God, for the morning service. Good service and good message. After service, we went to the Rib Crib and had some BBQ - some pulled pork....Yeah! After lunch, we went back to Diana's house and relaxed, read the paper, snoozed a little and then headed back to the church for the evening service. Again, the message and service was good. After service, we headed to the RV for the rest of the evening. You are probably wondering what our girls do while we are gone. Well, here is a picture to show how they relax:


Monday

Today is another HOT day. It has been hot almost every day since we left Corona. When I say hot, it has been in the high 90s every day and most days over 100 degrees. Today is no different, it is 103 outside and warm inside. I brought some old record albums, mostly gospel, to sell to a dealer here in Tulsa. Most of the albums were from my sister. We went to the dealer and picked up some boxes to transport them in and we returned to the RV and packed them.....all 197 of them. Tomorrow, we will take them to the dealer. After our packing, we headed over to Diana and Byrl home for more visiting.

OK....this catches you up to about 3pm on Monday......

Love and Blessings,

DAD and MOM
Papa and Mema
Jerry and Barbara

Sorry, it took so long to update our travels. I left you off on Tuesday, 5pm.

Tuesday PM....we had a good meal and retired early.

Wednesday, July 29th

Up early so Barbara could catch up with the wash....while I went into the church and continued with the website creation. After the wash, Barbara went into the Bookstore and continued setting things in order.Bookstore

Once the website is "live", I will post so you can check it out. We are having a great time here.....a GOOD day! Tonight, Pastor Randy continued his teaching on Kingdom Warfare and it is awesome. He teaches with such passion and brings out many "gems" while doing his teaching.

Thursday

Barbara continued working in the bookstore and starting getting things in order. She and her helpers went through the storage and itemized everything and make sure all is in the computer. I continued to work on the website. Adullam Christian Fellowship has a lot of ministries working here in the New Orleans area including the Skatepark, snowball stand, City of Hope, the church...just to name a few. Another good day. Tonight, Jill and Randy invited us to their home for dinner. We were able to see how the yard and flower garden looked (I had helped a little with those projects) They looked awesome. Even the decking still looks good. She fixed a crayfish dish with an Alfredo sauce.......it was so good that Barbara got the recipe and we shopped for the fixings on Sunday. Yummy! We stayed a little late though. We had a great visit.

Friday

We continued to work on the bookstore and the website. We are getting so much done. However, the website is going slowing because we are doing a lot of design effort on new pages. We had another good day. Tonight, we were invited to have dinner with Greg, Cheryl and Faith Renz. Faith's fiance, Mario, was there also. We went to the a restaurant that had a great sushi bar. We all had sushi. They had one that was very good......a salmon roll wrapped in thin slices of fillet Mignon......very good. It is the one in the middle. They also had a special where your order three rolls but only pay for two. It was a great meal and we really enjoyed our time with the Renz family. They are fine family and love the work of the Lord. Cheryl also runs the local Curves Studio. A great evening.

Saturday

Today, Randy, Jill, Colin and Nancy, Randy's sister, met us at the RV and, today, we are going to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and check out the destruction and see how the re-building efforts are going. It was amazing to see the amount of damage that Katrina did. The water surge took out the first couple of the blocks facing the gulf. Three blocks in, only wind damage. It was very sobering. However, there is a lot of activity of re-building but there is still a lot of empty lots not being worked on.Sign in front of a destroyed churchSome of the new homes are beautiful!

After we toured the gulf coast, we headed to the Biloxi area and took a tour of the Jefferson Davis' home, President of the Southern States. It has been restored since Katrina and it looks great. It was very interesting and educational.After the tour, we went to a Brazilian restaurant where you get all your can eat of different meats......yummy. I got my fill of meat.....chicken, lamb, beef, pork - all varieties. But one of the best things was a pineapple that had been brushed with brown sugar and sugar and Cinamon broiled over an open fire. The sugar caramelized and it was great - almost as good as the fillet Mignon. ----------------------

A monument to Hurricane Camille.

We had a good time and really enjoyed our time of fellowship. After our dinner, we rolled ourselves out of the restaurant and headed back to the house. A good day and night.

Sunday

Today was a great day of worshiping and praising God. The praise and worship was fantastic and the sermon matched it. Randy does a wonderful job of delivering the message where the youngest to the oldest gets what he is saying. As I have said, this is our second church family. After church, we went to eat at a new place, Italian. Good food. After out lunch, we went to the speciality grocery store and Barbara picked up her ingredients for the dish that Jill made. After the shopping spree, we went back to the RV, Jill and Melissa put together a party for us with all our church friends. The party was at Adam and Melissa's home, some of our dear friend here. We had a good time visiting, playing games (Yes, I played some games) and just visiting. Thanks to all our New Orleans friend for our evening. The food was good.....especially the Doberge cake...a 11 layer of chocolate, icing and cake......very rich and very good. A good evening.Monday

Today starts the last week here in New Orleans. Barbara continues to get the bookstore in order, taking inventory and fighting with the computer! The store computer does not work well and Barbara is getting frustrated.....very! We are still working on the website and I am having problem getting some video on the site. The ministries have several videos that needs to be uploaded......problem...problem..problem. We will get it done.......Crunch time. I talked to Tim, Shawn's partner, and found out that Shawn is in San Francisco working with Apple on some new projects. So, we will not be able to see Shawn on this trip.

Tonight, we went down to the French Quarter and had dinner at Landrys Seafood. It was one of our Mystery Shop assignments.........Long story short.......good food, too loud music and a great waitress. Then we went back to the office and filled out all of the forms online.

Tuesday, Barbara is getting more frustrated with the computer but getting the inventory done. She is doing an awesome job. The work continues on the website.....still no video but working on it. Still crunch time. Barbara did the wash again while I worked late trying to get some things working........some worked - some didn't.

Wednesday, our last full day here. Barbara got the inventory done and I got most of the design work of the website done......to a point that Jill can finish. I must say that Jill learned the system well and will be able to finish the website. We did some welcome videos to each of the major parts of the website. However, we still did not get the videos on the website.

Tonight, we went to Pastor Randy's teaching........great.....we really enjoy his teaching. We said goodbye to a lot of people tonight......a little sad.

Thursday

Today, we are leaving New Orleans.......sad to be going but excited to finish our trip, see the rest of the family. We filled up the RV and got ready to hook up the car and noticed one of the tires was low in air. I tried to air up the tire but it would not fill up. So, I decided to call our RV emergency service and have someone change the tire. We would have been gone at 10am...sure! Of course, it took an hour and a half for the service guy to get there. He changed the tire with the spare and then we took the tire to the shop and found a nail and a screw in the tire. The tire was plugged and we headed back to the church. We replaced the spare in the rack, hooked up the car and got ready to leave. Jill gave us some parting gifts (very nice) and we said our goodbyes and left..........at 12:30pm. We had good traveling weather and made it all the way to Canton, Texas....about 2 hours from Dallas/Ft. Worth area. We are sitting here tonight just relaxing. Tomorrow to Ft. Worth to visit some friends.

Friday

This morning, we got up, had breakfast and left for Ft. Worth. We arrived around 11am and met Steve Vanzant at his church. For those that do not know, Steve and Gaye were the youth pastors when we first started going to Lakewood Life Center. We became fairly close within the one year before they took another pastorate. It had been more than 18 years since we had seen them. But we picked up where we left off. Although we did spend some time catching up, it was just like we had been seeing each other every year. Great visit. We love them dearly. We went out to a Mexican restaurant and had a good lunch. After our goodbyes, we headed for Tulsa.....about a 5-hour drive. We made it around 6:30pm, got setup, had dinner and then went over to Diana and Bryl's house fora visit. It was nice seeing them again and to hear about a little improvement in Bryl's heart condition. We will keep praying for him.

On the way back to the RV, a quick trip to Wal-Mart and then to the RV. Time for bed. It is now 11:45pm and I am tired and sleepy.

Good night.......until later

DAD and MOM
Papa and Mema
Jerry and Barbara