Check out my cooking!!! See post below!

Southwestern lime chicken salad, with homemade salsa!

Added the chicken and the chips...

Add in homemade guacamole, whole-grain baguette and a table setting!

Who could forget dessert???

YUM!

My sister's home (taken a few weeks ago - everything is green now!)

My brother-in-law, Greg - hard at work on his landscape.

The new kitty, Boo

Boo taking a snooze!

More Austin Pics!

Cathy and Greg's backyard landscape

Where I WAS planning to get a tan!

This is TAZ!!

She is definitely a BIG KITTY, like everything in Texas!

More info on Austin

My surgery yesterday went well and was very fruitful. Things are proceeding and Cathy will receive the embryo transfer either on Sunday or Tuesday, and will know within 2 weeks (this will test everyone's patience!) whether she is pregnant or not!

Now, for everyone who thinks I am just laying around and not doing a THING...think again. I have been busy talking on the phone with important prospects, reading all of my materials I was behind on, watching a couple of movies, but mostly COOKING! Yeah, that's right! I LOVE to cook, but for those who appreciate it!

Take a look at these pictures and let me know if you MIGHT appreciate my cooking...

Austin update!

Welllll....what I was TRYING to say before, was about my trip to Austin!

However, I was rudely cut off mid-blog and lost everything I had written.

Here I am to explain the pictures below!

First, I am staying at my sister Cathy's house in Austin. Her and her husband Greg have a nice 3 bedroom home about 15 minutes from downtown and very near the airport. Cathy is a postal carrier and Greg is a biologist for the Texas Parks and Recreation deparment.

Since "everything is big in Texas", I was illustrating that with the truck that I was driving the first day I was here - Greg's Ford F150. Quite a depart from my Honda Accord, but nonetheless made me feel like a "Road Ranger"...until I got lost and couldn't find anywhere to turn the big machine around!

Additionally, Greg brings his talents to his backyard. They have land behind them that is open and will not be built upon, so he spends all of his spare time cultivating various wildlife attractions through wild plants and landscapes. They like to do bird-watching and have several feeders and houses. This is curious, since they own 3 cats.

That is another story. My sister has had cats ever since I have known her living on her own. When she moved from Cincinnati to Austin, she took them with her. Last year, tragically, she lost 4 out of her 5 cats in various accidents involving owls, wildlife, and an illness. She recently acquired 2 new kitties. The ones pictured below are 1 of the original 5 - Taz (multi-dark colored). The little one is Boo. His sister Scout hides in the house all day long and only comes out when I am not around!

The trip here has been very fruitful and I hope and pray that the results are favorable. To God be all the praise and glory, and His will be done!

Stay tuned for more pics of Austin.
PS - any hope of getting a tan are OUT. I am sitting watching the rain fall for the 2nd day in a row! Boo-hoo....

A break from Barcelona...Austin, Texas

Guest Blogger

As I worshipped this morning I enjoyed watching Megan on the front row raising her hands and so involved in the service. Here is a picture of her in her old church setting when she was 5. In our worship sevice this morning her Mother was giving the welcome, involved in the Metaphor and playing the bongos. It seems like only yesterday that they came to our church just as Megan was preparing for her first communion in the Catholic church. We are so glad they are worshiping and serving with us!
Bill Weaver
Guest Blogger

And the cheesy bus tour continues...

More Spanish architecture
There are all types of those statue people...ALL TYPES!
Incredible construction in progress
Antiques shopping!
International antiques...

Cheesy Bus Tour!!!

I am going to apologize right now. I mean, you pay for a cheesy bus tour, you are going to take a LOT of pictures. The day was GORGEOUS. Everything you could dream Barcelona BABY could be, and here we were, gladly enjoying a cheesy bus tour. Who wouldn't take dozens of photos? Yes, about 200 to be exact. So, I am trying to choose the best of the best and only bore you with the details as such.

I also must explain at this point that though we had to begin the tour downstairs (on the double decker bus) due to lack of seating, it wasn't long before we ingeniously slithered up the stairs to enjoy the view (Jenny and I seem to be good at that...reference - OSU/Michigan game???)

Not long after securing our seats upstairs where we could also tan ourselves, we met these fine older gentlemen who were traveling as well. One of them in particular seemed taken with Jenny's outgoing personality (I'm quite certain that's what it was!), and proceeded to talk the entire trip in a bit of broken English...of his homeland, appearance in movies, and his incredibly awesome ranch in Mexico (Jenny may correct me if I am fuzzy on the details here...). Needless to say, they were our Cheesy Bus Tour Companions and though somehow I don't seem to have a photo - I must have been so enthralled with my trip to Barcelona BABY that I paid more attention to the scenery??

View from the top of the double decker bus!

Barcelona in bloom.

Interesting row of motorbikes but probably shouldn't have made the blog.

I thought "Little Italy" was funny to see in downtown Barcelona. Also a captured shot of a lone woman towing a small rolling suitcase seemed strangely familiar to me, especially as she rolled away from the "No stopping except buses" area.

The required European architecture picture...

One Last Look

The beautiful Mediterranean. What a perfect day!
Our last shot of the hotel in Barcelona.
The view of the city was incredible. I have a soft spot for cities built into mountains on the ocean (reference - Antofagasta, Chile)

Just in time, we caught the double decker tour bus. What fun! I have never done a cheesy bus tour before. But what a perfect day for it! It was about 80 degrees and sunny. Spring in full bloom!!!

Little did I know at the time, the character in the picture above would become quite the tour bus companion for my friend Jenny. Often the trips we take are interesting sight-seeing, but I find that the people you meet on ANY trip is really what traveling is all about.

The tour lasted a couple of hours. Maybe longer? Maybe we took too long at our 5-star breakfast? Either way, the day was entirely too short...