Randy's Visit

Mike's first position outside of his home church was at Reform FBC as youth minister and while he was there, Randy Pate was pastor. He and Randy have continued to remain close friends throughout the years and spent many hours on the golf course together. I am very thankful and appreciative of the support and encouragement Randy has given Mike over the years. Randy is now serving in Little Rock, Arkansas, as the Outreach and Missions Pastor at Geyer Springs Baptist Church. He came in for a visit on Thursday and left out on Monday.

Before this picture was taken, they had been riding 4-wheelers up Middle Mt and were so dusty that Mike looked like he had make up on! Mike took Randy to Silverton/Ouray on Friday, then Saturday was filled with Mason's football (still 7-0!!) and Bama football. Randy preached at the church on Sunday and after watching some golf, they ventured up the mountain. Thank you Randy for coming out to see us and bring your family back with you soon!

Happy Birthday Karla!!

Another Sis-in-law had a birthday today......HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KARLA OWEN!!!

Karla, we hope your day was special (I know it was busy!) and pray blessings over you! We love you!

This and That

Boy have I got lots of interesting tidbits to share but I have to back up a tad.......two weeks ago, our ladies had a formal tea party just for fun. They drink hot tea here and I got to experience several types of hot English tea (and found that if you add milk to it, it's much better!). Two ladies in the church had a great time putting this together and went all out with serving us English finger foods and specialty teas. I personally don't enjoy formality but it was a fun little party....here are some shots....

On Monday, we received a call from Melba Hollingsworth who is from Gordo (our hometown) saying that she and some of her family were in Durango on vacation! Melba asked us to meet them for supper on Tuesday and thankfully our schedule allowed it so we got to meet with them and eat at Carver's on Main. It was so nice to spend time with them all and to hear some of that "southern" talk!! Below is Melba, her brother-in-law Don, her sister Brenda, and her sister Barbara........

Sunday night we had small group at Don and Ada del Amott's home and it was so pretty....I took some pictures and thought you might like to see it....check out Ada's pretty flower bed...

This is their view where the boys are standing......

If you'll notice in both pictures is "Flat Stanley" who is visiting us from Alabama, sent by my niece Hallie. He's a character out of a book that is visiting to find out more about the state of Colorado and we will be sending him back with pictures of where all he's been while he was here...FUN!

Mason has been a tad sick this week......it all started with a sore throat and then he had a low fever and now it's moved to his chest. It's a viral deal because all of his friends have had the same symptoms. He missed a day of school but is feeling much better. Mike's friend Randy Pate arrived on Thursday from Arkansas. He attempted to come back in June but his flight was cancelled so he rescheduled for now. We're having a great time with Randy and I'll write more about his visit in another post. Also on Thursday, I went with Landon on a field trip and I'll create another post about that also at a later time.

Mason was in the homecoming parade Friday with the Student Council group. Mike and Randy took a trip to Silverton/Ouray/Hillcrest Golf Course all day and my day was just packed full of one activity after another. I had ladies bible study at 10:00 and one of my football moms friends came so that was exciting! Her name is Lana and she has moved here from Farmington and is a devout Christian. They are very active in their church in Farmington still but I am very thankful that she is here and maybe together, we can positively direct our other football mom friends towards Jesus. Anyway, after bible study, I had two cabins to clean and needed to leave Vallecito at 1:00 to make it to a 1:30 parade. I was already running late and this is what I ran into........

Isn't that hilarious!!! These sheep are moved to Ignancio for the winter and then back to Lemon area in Spring. Three "shepherds" herd the sheep the whole day and today they actually scheduled them to come thru town at a certain time for "Heritage Days". I did make it to the parade in time and got to see Mason in the parade.....for some reason he had nerd glasses on..?????

So after the parade, I had to pick Landon up and get him to drum lessons by 3:30 in Durango, then go grocery shopping, and then get home to cook supper for our company. PHEW! Worn out and completed the day with a headache!!

Happy Birthday Jennifer!!

Well, I am a couple of days late because our internet server has been down so I am very sorry....but happy birthday to my sister-in-law Jennifer Richardson (Mike's wife) who celebrated her birthday on Tuesday, September 22nd. Yes, she is Kayla's mom and their birthday is only a day a part. We hope you had an awesome birthday Jen! We love you!

Winter?

Winter has hit. It was 25 this morning and it hasn't gotten above 53 today. Tonight we have our first chance of snow. ON the other hand, the leaves are turning and it is getting so pretty here in the mountains. It is time for the bald eagles to return when the salmon start running up the streams. Great time to come to Colorado. The colors are amazing. Dress warmly though.
Mike

Happy Birthday Kayla!!

Happy Birthday to our niece Kayla Studdard who turns 15 today!! She is the daughter of my brother Mike and Jennifer and lives in Caledonia, MS. Kayla, we hope you have an awesome day and pray that God will bless you abundantly! We love you!

Moving Forward

Hey everyone just asking for your prayers for our church here. We decided yesterday to build an education addition to our church. We don't have any classrooms here and we really need them. Please pray for unity of heart and purpose as we try to build this addition. We will be starting the building in the spring because you can't build anything out here during the winter. We will also be calling on volunteers to come out and help us build this so if you know of any groups who volunteer for short term mission trips to do buildings like this please let me know. We are coming up on one year here in Colorado. It has been a difficult year. Landon still prays for us to move back to Alabama. The church has done well this summer and we are moving in a good direction but I am sure my family would rather be somewhere else. Pray for us. Winter is coming and it can get to be a depressing time out here when the snows come. I don't know how long I can continue to ask my family to be unhappy out here. It's not fun. Pray that God would give us peace about continuing our ministry here and that the kids would be happy. Continue to pray our house closes this month. We love you all and are looking forward to seeing some of you this winter. Thanks for remembering us. It helps to know you haven't forgotten to pray for us.

God bless,
Mike

Happy Birthday Chantelle!

Happy Birthday to our sweet friend Chantelle Miner who is our faithful blog follower and "commentor". We appreciate your comments on the blog and all your prayers and encouragement mean the world to us! We love you and hope your birthday was awesome!!

Busy, Busy Week

Hi Everyone! We've had a crazy busy week thus far which is great! Let me back up a little bit to update you on "life". The other day, Mason asked if I had done a blog on everyone of his games and when I told him "no", he fussed at me and said that I should be, that they are the best team ever!! I thought that was cute so I must report that on the Bayfield vs. Farmington game, they won 35-0 and this past Saturday was Bayfield vs. Bloomfield and the score was 27-12. He is thoroughly enjoying this football stuff! The coaches are the same ones he had for baseball (ugly mouth and all) but they review each week's game several times, record who does what, and rewards the boys the following week by giving them stickers for the amount of tackles they make. They put a lot into it for it to be youth league and I guess that's why they are such a good team.

Mason played in Bloomfield, New Mexico so we got to go shopping before the game in Farmington and it was awesome!! I haven't gotten to shop in sooooooo long because Durango doesn't really have much by way of shopping. Labor Day, we had 4 other couples over for a cook out and had a feast. One of the ladies in our church has started a walking group that meets at her house every morning at 9:00 a.m. so I have taken advantage of that when I can. Also, I have been blessed with lots of cleaning lately which I still enjoy believe it or not! It's so flexible...it beats having a job that I have to drive into Durango for!

Just had to add this for fun..............

Isn't that hilarious!!! What her brothers do to her....I tell you......

Happy Birthday Mama Kaye!!

Happy Birthday to Mama Kaye who turns 67 years young! I am so blessed to have her as a mother-in-law and my kids are blessed to have her as a grandmother!! Thank you for being so wonderful to us and we pray blessings over your special day! We love you!

Fish Fry

The community wide fish fry was last weekend and was very successful. We had lots of visitors and around 200 total. The fish was sea bass, caught in Mexico by one of our members that lives there in the winter. It was so good!

Here's Mike sporting his Alabama apron..(he wouldn't cook in it though b/c he was afraid it would get dirty!)

Shots from the fish fry under the tent......

The only issue was that it was 99% older, retired people and no young families! It can be so frustrating!! They'll send their kids to VBS and Youth but the parent won't come to anything...........YET- I will say!

You know when you are "high on Jesus", Satan starts to attack and he has us this week in many ways. But he hasn't stolen my joy! We are talking about building on to our building and just right off, disagreements have occurred. It doesn't bother me though b/c those who were at New Hope with us....I've already been "refined" by that fire!!! HA!

School is going well....Landon still doesn't want to go but he's starting drum lessons today and is extremely excited about that. Also starting today is our ladies study on James and I'm excited about it......James is so full of great stuff!

Please pray for my Uncle Bill who couldn't finish a stress test yesterday and may be having stints put in today. He is my mom's only brother and he is very special to me! Also special to me is mom's sister Gail who is living with cancer but she is not letting it control her. She is such a strong person and has started back teaching again, so pray for her to have strength, to feel good, and most of all to be healed in Jesus' name! Thanks for your prayers!

We have an extremely busy weekend starting today so be safe and I'll leave you with one more thought..............

ROLL TIDE ROLL!!!!!