A Bit of Thanksgiving...Finally

Our Thanksgiving trip began on Sunday morning after church. We drove to a little town in Arkansas and stayed at a hotel which claimed to be The Luxury Inn. We did not find it to live up to that title per se, but it was a nice break before embarking on the last leg of our journey. We headed on toward Texas after our complimentary "continental" breakfast of powdered donuts and coffee. After a quick stop in Plano to spend the night with John Mark's brother and his wife, Paul and Christi, we headed to Austin to be with my mom's side of the family.

Aunt Lela and Wesley being crazy in his chinese outfit she brought home for him

Wesley with his Mimi

We spent one night there and then headed back to Plano for time with John Mark's family. This was the most restful since it was two nights in a row in one place! I did not do a good job of getting many good still pictures at either of our first two stops, unfortunately. This is where we spent actual Thanksgiving Day and we had Christmas since we wouldn't be able to get together again during the holidays. Wesley had fun opening gifts, but he still doesn't really get it. Wesley and Sadie, his only first cousin so far!

From Plano we headed to Abilene to spend the night to help break up the drive toward Lubbock to see my dad's side of the family. We got to my Uncle John and Aunt Marla's house just in time to see my cousin Matt before he had to leave for work, and Daniel got to hang out with us just a little while before he headed back home. We didn't think about getting the camera out before Matt left, of course.

We then headed to Grandma's and had some good time just relaxing and spending time with her. She's obviously extremely weak and bruising very easily from her lymphoma, but she still has her amazing spirit and wit about her. It was such a blessing to be with her. She and Wesley got to enjoy each other, too. This was the only part of the trip where Wesley had a meltdown and couldn't get to sleep. He did very well considering our crazy schedule!

After our night there, we drove on to Wichita Falls, beginning our slow journey back home! We spent the night at John Mark's parents' house and Wesley got to help Granddad get some work done before we headed homeward.

Our next and last stop was in Missouri to see my cousin, Erin, and her family. We barely missed having all of the cousins together in Whitharral. Erin had to leave early in the morning the same day we made it there. It was sad to miss even a few minutes all together, but I'm glad we got to spend some good time with them at their house. Erin and Nate's daughter, Libby, was very helpful in guiding Wesley around by the hand, and little Gus took all of the activity in with a smile. Libby was just about to turn 3 here and Gus was 9 months.

I thought this was a cute picture of the dads with their boys.



Second Cousins Clan

Our next post will be a little change of scenery. We're heading to Hawaii with my parents, sister and Mimi at the end of this week. Wesley will be staying home with John Mark's parents. We'll be gone all together about 6 days...a long first time away from our little man!!

Jesus' Radical Teaching

In my Sunday morning sermons, I'm building up to Jesus' most famous summary of how he wants his followers to live - the "Sermon on the Mount." It is quite a radical summary of how he wants to re-make people. I picked up a handful of resources to help me see the teaching in Matthew's context but also through different eyes than just my mental grid.

Besides a couple of excellent commentaries (R.T. France & D.A. Carson), a non-technical exposition (John Stott), a study of the use of the OT, a Puritan's meditations on Matthew 5:3-12, and some G. E. Ladd material on New Testament theology, I have decided to look into Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy, some of N. T. Wright's stuff, and Brian McLaren's The Secret Message of Jesus. McLaren's "Acknowledgement" page near the back actually credits Willard and Wright for much of his own understanding of Jesus' message.

A few reasons I'm pleased to be reading this book by McLaren:
1. He reminds me that Jesus' teaching had Old Testament roots.
2. He reminds me that Jesus' teaching should be set against the historical backdrop of his day (which was not so uniform as we once thought).
3. He reminds me that Jesus' message was meant to change everything as soon as possible. Or, as McLaren likes to call it - it was revolutionary.
4. He challenges the way I think with what if...type questions and straightforward assertions (that he seems to have thought about pretty carefully).
5. I had written him off after reading his famous book A New Kind of Christian.

I really am hoping to post some Thanksgiving pictures soon, but I thought I would link to my sister Lela's blog since she took some really cute pictures of Wesley over Christmas. If it weren't for her, we wouldn't have such good memories along the way. I can get pretty lazy about not getting the camera out.

We did make it to Texas for Thanksgiving this year. It was CRAZY how much we traveled and how many people we saw in a week, but it was still very enjoyable. My family came up here for Christmas since I had to work a little more than usual. It was really nice to stay in one spot and get to hang out with family.