Photo Collage

I put this collage together tonight. I used my Cricut for the designs and put a few photos in. Simple elegance! And lots of fun to make!

Painting Project

Last Sunday I took Hayley's white, little girl furniture and painted it with milk paint. I loved the process. It was easy to work with and is water based so clean up was a snap & is not harmful in anyway to the environment. So the black & red paint I used is green! I wish I had taken a before picture but you can probably picture the typical little girl white furniture with pink trim. That was what I started with.

I am pleased with the finished product. She is redoing her room in black & red. It looks very sleek! I painted a coat of red first and then several coats of black on top. I sanded several spots to show the red popping through then painted a couple of coats of top coat. In the first picture above, you can see a little red table to the right of the lingerie chest, that is the color red I painted under the black. I looked like I had war paint all over me.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Today is the 23rd anniversary of my marriage to Michael Wayne Neel. We were married 1-11-1986 at 7:00 p.m. at St Paul Lutheran Church by Rev. Carlos Boerger. The wedding was awesome and our marriage has been simply beautiful. God picked Mike for me long before I knew God or Mike. I look back over the years and see His fingerprints throughout my life and I am just so humbled by all He has blessed me with. I deserve none of the blessings He has bestowed upon me and I am not always grateful. God just keeps on giving and forgiving me every day of my life. WOW! Thank you, God for all you are and all you do. Today, I especially thank you for my loving, gentle-hearted & faithful husband, Mike.







Our sweet, generous son, Matthew gave us a very well thought and extremely generous Christmas gift this year. He booked a Plaza Suite at the historic Emily Morgan Hotel for our anniversary weekend. Mike and I stayed at the Emily Morgan on our wedding night and haven't been back since. What a great kid! Matthew is a sentimental guy and he really touched us when he gave us this gift. We had a great weekend. The hotel is right next to the Alamo and our room overlooked it & Alamo Plaza on one side & the old Post Office on the other side. (The hotel is triangular in shape and our suite was on the corner so the view was amazing.) We bundled up and walked through the Alamo grounds then along the riverwalk, had a drink at The Landing and after more walking, we finally finished up the evening with dinner at Boudros. What a fun night! This morning we got up early and had breakfast at the Guenther House. We had never been there before and really enjoyed it. Thanks Matt! (honorable mention goes to Hayley for letting me borrow her fancy camera.)

The Emily Morgan at Night

IN FRONT OF THE FIREPLACE IN THE LOBBY

A New year - NO CAMERA

I had intended to clear my camera of Christmas pictures and post some Christmas happenings. But.... I cannot find my camera. I remember using it on the day after Christmas and then it is all a blur. I hope it turns up soon so I can get back in the blogging world. Do you know where it is?

Christmas Sock Tuesday

Working at a church, it is easy to get so busy making sure everything is done for those we minister to that we sometimes forget to stop, catch our breath and enjoy the season. So, I declared this past Tuesday "Christmas Sock Tuesday" at work. I sent out an email and told everyone to wear their best Christmas socks to our meeting on Tuesday and if they didn't have any to go out and buy some. I sweetened the pot with the promise that prizes would be awarded. There were a few party poopers but for the most part we had a great turn out. TJ & John were the 2 brave men who strutted their stuff with some mighty festive socks. (loved the toe socks Teej!) Rachel, who works from home sent in her entry via email as you can see from the picture above. We won't even talk about Mary's socks!

Pastor & Greg were running late to the meeting so we started the fun after we confirmed neither of them were participating (big surprise!). It took about 15 minutes to model our socks, talk a little trash about whose were the best and give 3 prizes away. (to be fair and avoid hurt foot feelings, we had a drawing for the prizes)

When I pulled the first name out of the hat, I saw John was written on the paper. I just started to say "John", Joy thought I was saying her name and started screaming! I had to disappoint her and tell her it wasn't her. Oddly enough, the next name I pulled out of the hat was Joy! I said her name and she just sat there with a blank look on her face. It was too funny. As you can see we had a good laugh over it.

A Family Photo

Thanksgiving 2008

Concordia's New Sanctuary

For the past 13 months or so I have patiently watched as our beautiful new sanctuary has been built. The staff had a tour in July while I was on vacation. I haven't had any other opportunities to tour the church until today. Blake Lavender, a friend of Matthew's is interning with Joeris Contractors and he told me a few weeks ago he would love to take me on a tour. What a sweet boy! I gathered up my girlfriends Darlene & Miriam and headed over after lunch today. We were wowed with it all. They were installing the carpet and finishing up the concrete work. The concrete will be stained this weekend and the pews are arriving on Monday. It is really looking like a church! The photo below is of the 2500 pound steel cross that is hanging over the massive alter area. the workers at the bottom of the picture give you an idea of just how big the area is. There are automatic black out shades above the cross and around the upper windows that can be closed for presentations. The stained glass windows are from the original church on Basse Rd. They are so beautiful.

The glass company is finishing up the final window work. This picture is a view of the narthex from our court yard. It will be so nice to have a narthex again & it is BIG. Mike is looking forward to it from an usher's perspective. He won't have to stand out in the cold breezeway on wet, windy, January mornings.

I took a lot of other great photos but I'm not sure how Pastor Tucker would feel about me showing them so I will have to keep them a secret for now.

Last night they lit the cross for a short while for troubleshooting and training. It was causing quite a specticle along 1604. You could tell people were stopping to look at it. I got goose bumps when I saw it. Not the best picture ......

Thanks Blake! We had a great tour. WHO is that man???

I'm a little disappointed i didnt get to wear a hard hat though!

My little cutie pie

Isn't this cute? I caught this shot of Pebbles while she was on a run. We went for a walk and Mike started kicking old snow. She would run after it like a ball. She was in mid air when I got this picture.

Pebbles had fun but was definitely glad to be back home.