Roger's Day - November 22nd

Roger celebrated his 47th birthday in fine style. Who better then to start the day with then his mother who brought him into the world all those years ago and his first born, Nathaniel. Roger and Nathaniel had gone up to Ft. Worth to spend some time with Roger's mother on Friday. They began Roger's birthday with a trip to the Allen art gallery. Mama Dee, Roger's mother, was shown around by my Uncle J.C. to see the large collection and hear about the paintings that my aunt and uncle had collected through the years. Being an artist herself Mama Dee enjoyed seeing the collection.
Lunch time was at Red Lobster. AND Roger celebrated the occasion in grand style by eating oysters on the half shelf.

Roger finished the day with supper at home in Belton. I prepared salad, chicken cordon bleu, green bean casserole, cold asparagus with sour cream, sour dough bread, AND Roger's favorite cade, German chocolate cake.
Afterwards he opened gifts from my Mom and our family (Kelly, the guys, and me) - stapler, Lowe's gift card, measuring tape, and his favorite gift, a STUD finder.

The evening ended with phone calls from Kyle, Jordan, my mother, and Roger's sister, Ginger.

Autumn in Georgia

Living in Central Texas has shown us a different landscape than East Texas (where we lived before moving to Romania). We don't think of woods when we think of Central Texas. There are a lot of live oak trees (that don't lose their leaves as winter approaches). There are some trees that change colors but not many. So when we went to Georgia November 8th-12th we awed by the colors we saw. God did an amazing job when he created trees. The pictures below do not adequately show the brilliant color. As I said it was amazing! I kept saying "look at that tree!"

Sights to see while driving to South Texas

Texas is such a LARGE state. If you have never been here you will quickly learn when visiting that the scenery changes drastically when traveling across the state and you can see some very interesting sites. We were reminded of this when we traveled to Angleton on October 31st from Belton.

You will see some interesting city and town names - Egypt, Moscow, Italy, London, Geronimo, Nacogodoches (oldest town in Texas and where Nathaniel was born), Kyle, and even Rogers. So when we saw the name we had to stop to get a picture of Roger with it.

You will also see a lot of German names. German immigrants came to Texas in the mid-1800's.

Washington County is the birthplace of Texas (1836).

Washington County is also where Brenham, the home of Blue Bell Creameries (founded in 1907). YUM! We enjoyed some Moo-llennium Crunch ice cream when we stopped.

Of course Texas is known of it longhorn cattle.

A Texas restaurant is Whataburger. It began in Corpus Christi in 1950. It is known for it very large hamburgers.

A first for us to see, a Texas size limo pickup truck.

A definite eye catcher, a "bomb" shell in a pasture.

In Southern Texas along and near the coast you will see Spanish Moss growing on trees.

Northway Baptist International Mission Conference

November 1st-2nd we were in Angleton Texas to take part in a mission conference. Jim Putnam, the missions coordinator for Northway Baptist Church has made several trip to Romania (Constanta by the Black Sea) over the last several years.
We enjoyed the weekend meeting people and talking about Romania. Roger spoke at the Men's Prayer Breakfast on Saturday morning (Melinda spent the day with the women on an outing to Spring TX) and to the youth that evening. Sunday morning Roger spoke in both church services and again to the youth during Sunday School. Melinda spoke to the children during Sunday School.

We stayed with Cindy and Mike Palmer while we were in Angelton. We enjoyed getting to know them and learned that Roger and Mike are VERY MUCH ALIKE! The Palmers are a great couple!