Longview and The Conference

We originally only planned a week long trip to Alabama to visit Jenny and her family, but a few days before we left, I got an e-mail about Bill Gothard's new book and it included information about his regional ATI conferences and an invitation to them. One of them was located in Big Sandy, Texas, where we would be passing by on the way home from Alabama and started just a day after we would be there. Somehow, both our schedules had cleared, and we decided that some spiritual renewal and christian fellowship would be a good investment of our time. This is the new book as well as the theme of the conference.

After every conference my husband visited the book table.

Big Sandy, Texas is 24 miles north of Longview and is the headquarters of ALERT Academy. The academy is a very interesting project of Mr. Gotherd's and you can goggle it if you would like to learn more about it. It is for young men over 17 and they teach search and rescue. The campus is ginormous (to quote my grandchildren) and it was a work-out for us to walk to the meetings and meals.

The famous East Texas azaleas were blooming on campus.

The pretty, but very long sidewalk to meals.

A better view of the library. This campus is the location of the former Ambassador College which closed in the 1990's. This is the library where some of the meetings were held....to be specific, the 7 am meetings with Mr. Gotherd for dads. Some advisers (who shall remain anonymous) told me the first morning that it would be OK for me to go with my qualified "dad". One of them even assured me that they had checked with "the people" in charge. There was no meeting for ladies at the time and it was a 30 minute drive to Big Sandy, so, I arrived late with "dad", got off the elevator in the middle of the room and was the only non dad in a room of about 250 men.

The first building you see when arriving on campus. I dug in the back of my closet and found some dresses to wear, but there was no hiding my short hair and lack of denim jumpers. The ATI families are a little strict about women and their appearance. (Which is fine, just saying)

The entrance and gate house. We enjoyed the conference and heard some great and inspiring messages and met some very interesting people. Jim Bob Duggard was there. He said Josie is back in the hospital with intestional problems after only being home 2 days.

We walked around the much advertised historic downtown Longview and took a few photos of some pretty buildings. I saw a lot of interesting churches on the trip, but didn't have time to stop so I got my church photo fix here.

The Methodist church has bells every 30 minutes.

This beautiful 100 year old house is now a lawyer's office.

And the courthouse.

There was a hiking trail near our hotel that we enjoyed. We felt like we were walking in a forest, but could hear the traffic to the left of the trail.Clover, all over the roadsides of East Texas, Arkansas and Alabama.
Honeysuckle was all over the places we visited, too.

The Great Smoky Mountain National Park

I just got my pictures from my camera and I'm excited to show some of them to you. Here are some of the highlights of our trip.
Being with Jenny and her family. We miss them. J and J came with us. They are fun to be with and made the trip very special to us. J was going to come, but we had a problem with Jenny's van and had to put it in the shop and take our car. Since there was only room for 5, J graciously agreed to stay at home. We wish he could have come. J had classes so we knew he would not be able to come and Mike had important meetings and stuff going on at work.

The first day we were in the park, we had rain almost all day....too much rain for hiking...even for Basil Frasure. So, we drove on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a little while. I am excited that I can add a page to my national parks album. It is a 469 mile National Scenic Highway and connects the Smoky Mountain Park to the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

You can see, it is very cold and raining and spring has not fully arrived at this altitude. It is about 6000 feet above sea level here. A few clouds were hanging low!


I have always wanted to see Dogwoods in bloom...this is a first for me!

They were all over the mountains and East Texas as well.

We all loved watching the bears. We watched this mama and her cub for a long time. We saw them two different days. J made a video....maybe I can show it to you later.

Clarkco State Park, Mississippi

The deer was just here!

Azealas in front of the manager’s home


Our cabin

The view near our cabin.

James

James and his grandfather in his work center.

The Bluebonnets are Here

The first sight of bluebonnets always makes me happy and what a special gift that they arrived with our celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord this year. The wisteria trees are blooming at the Art Museum

Rio Concho Park is all green and red and purple and pink.

I think the day the Lord created hope, He also created spring.

One Year

B had an unusual experience last night with his big brothers spending the night with Bemaw and 3 adults with black boxes in front of their faces focusing all their attention on him.

Some "Old Sayings" are True

Like,"You are only as old as you feel."
Here is my husband of 43 years rappelling at Enchanted Rock Saturday. This is the first time he had an opportunity to do this.

Here is the crew that facilitated his adventure. I'm not sure of their exact ages, but not a one looks over 35 years old.

And their fearless leader, our pastor

And he survived take a very nice photo.