Broken Bones

It seems to be the season of injuries and broken bones. We're just getting started with T's physical therapy for his dislocated shoulder and I get a call from school saying they believe A has broken his leg. The picture below is fuzzy, but it shows A's leg as we are waiting at the hospital for them to take the Xrays.

I didn't feel bad taking pictures because he was sitting there taking pictures on his phone and sending them to his friends. At the time he was in very little pain and claiming he didn't think it was broken. It's a whole different story now.

Oklahoma City Memorial

I'm spending this Thanksgiving in Oklahoma City getting familiar with the area I will be moving to next summer. While here, we took some time to visit the Oklahoma City Memorial. I couldn't believe what a moving experience it was. We didn't get to go into the museum this visit, but just standing where such a devastating event in our history took place, seeing the pictures of a couple of the children who died hung on the fence outside and the momentos left by loved ones and by complete strangers, I couldn't help but feel a small part of the sadness and anger that must have been felt by the people that were actually here experiencing this. And then, as I entered the memorial, the pool below was beautiful and just so peaceful despite the fact that the wind was blowing so hard that I had to have my husband stand behind me and hold me still so I could take a picture.

There was a wall made of tiles that had been made by children all over the country in memory of the victims. The wall stretches along the front of the museum and is covered on both sides by these tiles.
The tree below is known as the "Survivor Tree". This is the only tree that survived the blast and is absolutely beautiful. It stretches out in a beautiful canopy and they have built a deck beneath it that overlooks the pool.
These small memorials are probably the most moving. There is one for each victim with the children's being smaller, like the second one in the picture below. There is a name engraved on the front of the base of each.

The building that houses the museum has these words painted on the side. They were written by one of the rescue workers. Many people in the building were injured, some critically, when windows were blown out. Fortunately, no one was killed. I couldn't get the bottom line in the picture, so I'll end with them here.

"And God Demands it!"

Relandscaping

Well, the house is now officially on the market. And when I looked at the pictures the realtor had taken and put online, I couldn't believe how bad the front of the house looked. Here's what I saw.I kept telling my hubby that we needed to relandscape along the front of the house. I wanted to get rid of that big bush under the middle garage window because it dies off in the winter and turns to just sticks. It wasn't until the realtor told him we needed to do it that he was finally convinced. But I still had to do it! Below is the result of my efforts.

Not an elaborate landscape plan, but I got such a fantastic deal on the little pointed trees and I needed to keep everything else sized accordingly. They will grow to 10' tall x 3' wide and fill in the area between the windows. We now have some symmetry to the landscaping, plus there is something on both sides of the porch. I just wish I was going to be around to see it grow. Oh well, Oklahoma will just present new and interesting landscaping challanges. I keep picturing tumbleweeds and a cactus.

By the way...If you know of anyone who is looking for a house up this way, here's a link to look at ours on Realtor.com. Please feel free to pass it along! Thanks!
BEAUTIFUL HOUSE FOR SALE!

25 Years Ago...

...I graduated from Appalachian State University. Last weekend I went to my 25th year reunion and the homecoming football game with five ladies that I graduated with. Some of them I hadn't seen in 24 years, since the last reunion I went to. I wish I had some "Then" picture to post, but at least I can post a "Now" picture. Here is the crew (minus me since I was taking the picture).

Our lives have taken different paths, different professions. But it was amazing how we could get back together and I could almost imagine that we had only been home from college for the weekend. As long as I didn't look in a mirror, that is!

I must say, I don't remember the cheerleaders looking quite the same when I was up there. These were cute, but they weren't quite so hairy when I was there. But the football game was great. We won 51-21.

I spent Wednesday night with my sister and her family which includes my two nieces and one nephew. But it also includes my two four-legged nieces, Spunky and Ruby-doo, and my four-legged nephew, Max. This time, after having a small misadventure with them, I decided I would take some pictures of them. You see, after arriving while my sister and family were at church I let the dogs out of their crates and into the backyard. But, we got locked out of the house and in the back yard in the cold night air for a short time before I finally had to climb over the privacy fence (since the gates were padlocked), tearing my pants and breaking off a piece of the wooden fence in the process. I was able to get back in the unlocked front door and let a freezing little Ruby-doo and the other two very excited dogs back in the house. We were all comfortably settled in the chair when my sister and her crew walked in the door from church.

Latest Sunroof

Mr. Moon was fading away on one side of the sky this morning...

...as the clouds rolled in with the sun on the other side of the sky.
We've had some beautiful weather these past few days. Cool crisp mornings and warm afternoons. I have even seen a few leaves starting to change.

A Special Visitor

This past week, Paul Coleman, lead guitarist for the Newsboys (also with the Paul Coleman Trio) was performing at an event in Manassas, VA. Wherever he is, he always finds a church to worship with and this Sunday, because of a friendship with someone in our church, he came to ours and led the worship for both of our services. It was fantastic! Five of our youth, including my youngest son (in the red tshirt) got to play as his band. They even got to perform one of his latest songs, "The One Thing". And considering they only got meet and practice with him at 8 am that morning, they were awesome! Even he was impressed.

But what I was most impressed with was the way he interacted with the youth. A, my son, was not originally playing with them. But he needed another percussionist and A is the other percussionist for the youth praise band so he got the job on the bongos.

Apparantly, A made quite an impression on Paul. When we went to say goodbye to him, Paul's first comment to me when he found out I was A's mom was "Who did A get that unique personality from?" Before I could answer, A said "It's all me." Paul just laughed and responded with "That's the perfect answer from you, A. That fits your personality."
Paul led the musical worship for both services and then gave some interactive testimony with our minister that was so good it's hard to describe. I stayed in both services to listen to him and he gave different testimony in both. Both were fantastic.

After his testimony in the second service, all of the youth left to go to their own service and Paul went with them to spend the rest of the time talking with them and answering questions. I went to that and listened. Again, he was fantastic with the youth. We had a youth group of about 40-50 visiting from Maryland so there was quite a crowd and he kept their attention past the end of the regular service.

I took a video of them playing his song "The One Thing" but it took too long to download on this post. I'll try downloading it on another post tonight. If you ever have a chance to see Paul, I would highly recommend it. He's great!