Church visit

Well, we tried another church today called First Baptist Euless. It is about a 30 minute drive from the seminary (north), but we've heard a lot about it so we thought we'd try it out. Moving down here I did not think we would find a church that we (I) liked, but I can see that the harder decision might be deciding from the many good churches here which one we should attend. We decided to visit First Euless because they have a great reputation from the students here. They have a heart for seminary students...free give aways (like good cars, furniture, etc.) and will do whatever they can to help students find work, connections, etc. So, we got their early (good thing) and found a parking spot in the guest parking. Right away a man welcomed us and pointed us to the right door. We were welcomed at the door again and introduced to a lady (I can't remember her name...) who escorted us to both the boys' classrooms, helped us register them and then helped us find our own class. The older preschool wing had a cinema type theme...I can't remember the phrase they used for it, but the Bible stories are acted out and then they have some singing time and then go through rotations (sort of like a VBS set up). Josiah loved it and went on and on about it. Ethan's age group met together for kid's worship first and then they broke into grade level courses. That's all I could get out of Ethan...he's not much into details sometimes. After Bible study, Casey and I found the worship center and it looked like a small stadium or arena. There was one song and then 10 baptisms! It was pretty amazing. Those being baptized made this confession, "my name is.... Jesus is my Savior and I am not ashamed," and then were baptized. More singing and then the pastor gave the message. After the message guests were invited to a guest reception area to meet some staff and the senior pastor. We went there and met a few more of the staff and the pastor went through the plan of salvation and shared a bit more with us about the church. After that we found our way back to find our kids and were invited to join one of the pastors (in charge of seminary connection) for lunch. We had a great lunch with him. Casey is hoping to connect with the music pastor (he is well-known in the worship music world) sometime soon. All in all a great visit at a church of 2500+ people.

Solo drive

Yesterday we were out of milk (among other things) so I really needed to get to the store. Casey was in class all day so I went out on my own (with the boys). And...I survived! I thought I'd try a "new" store...one that I hadn't been to before. It was called "Save A Lot"...sounded like a good choice. It is a smaller version of a grocery store, prices were good, but there isn't variety. If you need ketchup, there is one type of ketchup, milk, bread, etc. I was able to find most of what I needed so that was good. Check out started normal, I put my items on the conveyor and the checker added them up...but then she put them back into a cart (no bags). It wasn't a big deal, but it would have been good to know before hand. There was another station that had bags, so you could self bag your items. Again, not a big deal if you don't have two kids practicing karate on each other while you are trying to get it all done.
In other news, Casey has a lot of classes, lessons, ensembles, etc. One drawback to being a music student is that many classes are only 1 or 2 credits (some even .5). So, for Casey to be a full time music student (10 credits), he has to take a lot of classes. Casey received some good encouragement from his voice professor who said Casey could be singing professionally! There is an opera here in Fort Worth that does productions every spring, something for us to think about anyway....
After much prayer, Casey turned down the worship leader position I mentioned in the last post. It is hard to turn down a "job" when you need one, but we knew this wasn't the right fit for us. It was a smaller church and almost 45 minutes away. We will keep praying about a job and the church (Wedgwood Baptist Church) we are now attending (which I really like!).

I have a lot of trouble coming up with a title for the blog. I have come several times to write something and get too caught up in coming up with a title that I can't write anything!
The past few days have gone well. Casey has had all of his testing and auditions and will start classes Thursday of this week. He only has to take a music history leveling course and a piano proficiency course...so that's not too bad considering all of his undergrad courses were about 10 years ago. His auditions went really well...and I am so proud of him. He was accepted to sing with the Chamber Chorale, which is limited to only 12 students. It comes along with a scholarship too and opportunities for travel and touring during the summer. He auditioned with 3 pieces, one was English, one French and one in German...and boy, can he sing! He is taking a full load of courses and lessons and has a pretty full schedule.
Last Sunday we visited a church that we really liked. We are planning on going back this Sunday too and will try a Bible study class as well. The church runs about 1200 in attendance each Sunday...it's pretty big. The worship was amazing...not just the worship team and choirs, but the congregation singing...you could tell they truly had a heart for the Lord. Before we moved down here I read an article about how to find a good/healthy church. The author gave two things to look for...1) are the people singing - reflects their desire to worship and their spiritual growth...2) what happens at the end of the service, do people stick around and visit (especially with the pastor) or do people vacate as soon as possible - this reflects their relationships with one another and with the pastor. Using these two criteria I would say that Wedgewood Baptist is a healthy church. We were even impressed that that sr. pastor called us on Sunday afternoon and then came to visit us on Monday night.
The boys are making good friends. They have played outside (in 98+ degree weather!) everyday this week. Yesterday there were some boys dressed up as Spiderman and Batman. Josiah got so excited and opened the door and yelled, "Just a minute guys." He closed the door and started sputtering words to me and I just said told him to go get his costume. He came barreling down the stairs and out the door looking so proud and excited to show off his Bibleman costume. They played most of the rest of the afternoon together.
And, as promised, today we took the boys to Chuck E Cheese for a belated birthday celebration for Josiah. It was our first time to one of those, and I was pleasantly surprised by how courteous the staff was and how clean everything was. I was not looking forward to it, but we all had a really good time and it wasn't even too expensive with our coupons.
And, lastly, tonight we will be going for an interview at a church. Last week Casey was talking with one of the security guards (who is also a pastor/seminary student) and was encouraged to send in a resume for their worship leader position. They want to meet us as a family, so we will all be going to that tonight. They are really excited about Casey, but I'm not sure that it will be the right place for us...we will see though. After sending his resume and setting up an interview time the pastor sent the job description...it is part time (good), worship (all good) and youth (not so good) and occasional preaching (bad, real bad). I guess we will just see how it turns out tonight.
Well, I guess that should get everyone up to date with the week. I'll try to post more often and ignore the whole "title" thing so the posting aren't so long!

Settling In

We are doing our best to get settled into our apartment and life in Fort Worth. We started moving in Monday afternoon...and here we are Friday already! We've unpacked lots of boxes...but there are still lots more sitting around. Our apartment is 900 square feet on two floors. On the main floor is the kitchen/dining, living area, 1/2 bath and utility closet for the washer and dryer. One entire wall of the dining area is cupboards/shelving, so that makes for a nice big pantry and extra space to store things. Our stove is mini size (apt. size). I haven't used it yet though! The fridge is about 1/2 the size of the one we had too, so that is taking some getting used to. Upstairs we have two bedrooms and a full bathroom and a nice deep linen closet. The boys room has a nice big closet and is pretty spacious so far...but we haven't unpacked much of their stuff yet either. Our room is good size too with a sort of walk in closet.
In other news...Casey will take his written exams today to see if he needs to take any extra courses (not for credit) for the music program. We are hoping he does well. Monday he will have auditions for the various ensembles he is interested in performing in this semester.
It is a fantastic 77 degrees here in Fort Worth this morning!

We made it!

Well, we made it to Fort Worth yesterday. It is hot and humid...just like what we expected, however there has been a bit of a breeze both days. We are staying at the guest center (nice hotel-like accommodations) until Monday morning when we will sign the lease to our student housing.
Today (Sunday) we decided to visit a church. I'll call it SC. It is a big church with lots of people, big budget, a coffee stand, orchestra, choir and worship team. We arrived 15 minutes early to find parking and get seated. We walked in made our way to the auditorium where we were handed a bulletin and the lady said hello to us. She was the only one to say anything to us the whole time we were there...except at the end when we were looking for the restrooms and I finally had to ask someone and they gave us directions. So, back to the beginning, the orchestra and everyone on stage came out and the music started...wow, it was loud...but really good. The first song was Happy Day...so the boys were excited..."hey, we know this one..." (And Rhonda, even big churches with really slick presentations can have trouble with the words on the screen...as we saw today...so don't get too worried about it.) So, the next song is also one we know and it starts, "we stand and lift up our hands..." but they changed the words to "we stand and lift up our VOICE" anyway, small grievance that I could have overlooked had they not also changed other parts and added other stuff...anyway, still really not that big of deal. All the rest of the music was fantastic. Two ladies trios sang at different times and they were both really good. The second of the trios sang at the end of the service and also had fog and light effects. So, then the message, which was good, but left us thinking..."that's it?" Anyway, I was thinking at some point someone, somewhere might say something to us, but that didn't happen. Oh well. We know that SC is not the church for us. One down, 999 to go. :>)

Arches National Park!

We didn't update our blog last night due to tiredness and lack of motivation. But we are back today with some beautiful pictures of what we experienced at Arches. It was beautiful! Yesterday was the hottest day of our trip so far and was the first time we experienced any real heat since leaving Wenatchee. What a blessing. We hiked to see the "Double Arch" and then had to stay the rest of the trip in the truck to cool off and recover! Actually the boys all went to see the "Delicate Arch" from a distance while Cathy stayed in the truck to rest. Very hot, but very beautiful. After spending a couple hours at the park we decided to continue on South into Monticello, UT then southeast to end our day at a KOA in Cortez, CO. Very small towns all along the way, lots of farmland/ranchland.

This morning after breakfast at Denny's and stocking up on supplies at Wal-mart we turned due east and blazed past Mesa Verde National Park. We would have loved to stop and look, but I think we have grown weary of being "tourists" and are now getting more and more excited about arriving in Ft. Worth. So, we continued on through Durango, CO into Pagona Springs, CO where we turned south and crossed into New Mexico on our way to Santa Fe, where we are stopped for the night at a hotel here. We had some excellent Southwest Mexican food for dinner and vegged in our room afterwards. Everyone is resting/sleeping now as I type. In the morning, depending on how we're feeling we may see downtown Santa Fe, before continuing on or we may just "hit the road." Pray for Cathy as she seemed to experience some sort of sickness today. A little nausea and lightheadedness. She seems to be doing well now, though exhausted. Pray she rests well tonight. Thank you for coming along on this journey with us. We love sharing the sights we see with you, but are looking forward to getting to share with you as the Lord moves in our lives. -Casey
PS if you'd like to see more pictures checkout our facebook albums here, here, here, and here.

Another day on the road

Last night we camped overnight at a KOA in Manila, Utah, just near the Flaming Gorge area. This morning we packed up and hit the road again for a supposed 3 hour drive. We left the KOA around 11 am and began our drive down near the south end of the Gorge. We bypassed some of the more popular places for sake of time. Most of today was spent on Hwy 191. I think we travelled over 3 rather steep mountain passes. The pass leading out of the Flaming Gorge area was quite spectacular. It was of course, a slow go the whole way up.
We reached Vernal, Utah also known as Dinosaurland and found another neat dinosaur museum to take the boys to. Josiah can now spot a museum a mile away. He can't read yet, but somehow everytime we drive by one he notices and asks to stop. This museum had lots and lots of dinosaur bones. According to local signs, Vernal area is the graveyard of the dinosaurs. Anyway, we got back on the road in the afternoon to continue on our way to Price, UT. We travelled over yet another mountain pass (translate-very slow driving) to reach Price and found the RV site we were going to stay at to be less than desirable. So, after a quick bite at Taco Bell we did some looking and found a place just a few miles away in the next town. It is always nice when the sites have swimming pools. We spent the rest of the evening swimming and having fun in the pool - all to ourselves even. Tomorrow we head towards Moab and Arches National Park. We will try to stay there two nights if we find something good.

Yellowstone and more!

We've had a few full days in a row so today we drove a short distance and are staying in Jackson, WY (Bestwestern style!). I really need a full night sleep that is not in a crowded trailer. Every time we stop for the night we have to move boxes and other stuff around so that we can get to the beds. It still beats U-haul, but this will be a nice break.
Yesterday we spent most of the day in West Yellowstone and the South west part of the park. It is FABULOUSLY Beautiful!!! My pictures barely do it any justice at all. We started the day with a stop at the Grizzly bear and wolf habitat. Ethan was #30 of 30 kids that got to go in and hide food for the bears...a special treat for him. After that we headed into Yellowstone and saw all kids of spectacular creations. Old Faithful was a special treat, but my favorite spot was one of the Geyser basins; they are just amazing.
On our way Friday we stopped in at Bozeman to visit the Museum of the Rockies and Dinosaur exhibit. The boys loved the dinosaur part.
I would update more, but in some of these remote areas there is no service for phones or anything. So, we do what we can. Tomorrow will be another long travel day. We are planning to drive to Flaming Gorge in Wyoming/Utah area. Google says 5 hours, so we might make it in 7...