St. Louis Zoo

Grandma Mary and children in front of elephants Is there anything more fun than a zoo, and especially a zoo with youngsters? During our week in St. Louis, we spent lots of special times with Garrett and Shannon Worley. A week ago the day was spent at the St. Louis Zoo—what a treasure the city of St. Louis has in this zoo! Our highlight was to meet Melia (meaning “strong and beautiful”), the seven-week old baby elephant. Can you see her back there by her mama? She did not allow her mom to get more than a foot or two away and Melia was right back beside her, usually underneath her. They were just a delight to watch. The elephant on the left of the picture is now pregnant, so the St. Louis Zoo will be blessed with another baby elephant come next February. The Zoo folks tell us the lines to see the baby when she went on display were just enormous, but fortunately for us, the crowd was very light when we visited. Tim and Jerry and penguins When you have Carla Hilton, life-time collector of penguin memorabilia, for a daughter, we would dare not miss the penguins! They were darling and great fun to watch. Jerry and our dear friend, Tim Garrett, tried to look like penguins to blend in with the crowd, but I don’t think they were very successful, do you? Our time in St. Louis was so special—our thanks to Janelle and Tim for sharing their lives with us—and their children! For newcomers to our blog, Janelle and daughter Jo were roommates in Chicago for several years, so we just adopted her into our family as well. If she looks familiar to Midland friends, Janelle came for Jerry’s retirement weekend at FPC. Janelle, Shannon and elephants We are now on a farm outside of Rolla MO and enjoying every minute of it. The scenery is spectacular…nights are cold and crisp…days are sunny and bright…great porches to sit on and watch fall come upon the Ozarks…time to practice our musical instruments…a road to walk down and back each day (literally only ONE road – this farm is at the end of the county road so there is only one way to go!)…time to reflect on all our blessings – and you are all part of that!

Weekend in St. Louis

Happy 12th Anniversary to Jo and Scott! Shannon and I are sitting at Forest Park participating in a picnic prior to the Balloon-Glow last Friday evening…and our picnic supper brings back memories of twelve years ago this weekend, when we celebrated the rehearsal for Jo and Scott’s wedding by enjoying Popeye’s chicken and biscuits in a park…Popeye’s is still just as good as it was twelve years ago, and their marriage is even better than ever. I haven’t told you all that their home is going to be on the Mahnke Park Homes Tour in mid-October…you’ll hear more about that later! Balloon-Glow prior to the balloon race on Saturday afternoon was spectacular! Jerry had to indulge the children (Shannon and Garrett Worley) in their own hot-air balloons, while we walked around the Park after our picnic and watched a multitude of balloons being inflated with hot air and put into the sky for our delight. As it got darker, all the balloons would be made to glow on a set signal (horn), by the fire heating the air, as you see in the picture below. The energizer bunny (called the Hot Hare Balloon!) was the biggest of them all – and what a colorful display it was an unforgettable experience. Look who we got to meet! Please meet Elijah Garrett, son of Pat and Jessica Garrett, and grandson of our good friends, Mike and Phyllis Garrett of Monett MO. Eli came out to Jellystone Park (where we were camped on Saturday) to make our acquaintance, bringing with him his father Pat and his aunt and uncle, Tim and Heather Garrett. Jerry had officiated at the wedding of Pat and Jess two years ago, the fall after our retirement (and also the marriages of both of Pat’s brothers in earlier years.) What a joy to meet this delightful one year old…Jo would be so proud of him, for he uses sign language very well! And he never met a stranger! This has been a glorious rainy day in St. Louis…Babler State Park is well–soaked, but we are safe and dry in Sweet Mille (our RV). Unfortunately, the cook-out and s’mores with Garrett and Shannon had to be postponed until tomorrow. We will be going into town tomorrow to join Garrett for lunch at his school. Tuesday we plan to see the new baby elephant at the St. Louis Zoo, so we’ll be going back to Forest Park.

Southern Gospel Picnic

Use your imagination - and picture this: The Homestead Pickers, a music group at Silver Dollar City, are gathered on the front porch of the old homestead with all their variety of musical instruments readily at hand...and tucked back in the corner, there stands Jerry with his fiddle under his chin, backing up the group as they play through their show. Can you see it? Isn't that great! We spent the last three days attending the Southern Gospel Picnic at Silver Dollar City - and first-time event for SDC and judging from the crowds and enthusiasm, it will be a continuing event! But best of all was when we learned that the Homestead Pickers would have a jam session at the close of each day and anyone could come and join them. The last thing Jerry's fiddle teacher in Wichita told him was to find some folks to jam with, just jump in and DO IT. And he did...and he had such a great time. We heard marvelous gospel groups and were even entertained by Dr. Dennis Swanburg with his enthusiastic gospel message (he was MUCH more entertaining than when he did his introductions to the Mayberry RFD video series!) Every evening we had two more hours of entertainment in the Echo hollow Theatre at SDC--if you like gospel music, I suggest you check it out next year. Now we are enjoying a couple of relaxing days at the campground before leaving for St. Louis. This evening we will go to Branson for dinner at the Hard Luck Diner--where all the wait staff are good singers and one of them is always entertaining at the mike. We ate there last spring with Carla and are eager to go back. It was unbelievable on Friday to think that all those folks were at SDC and we didn't see anyone we knew - but on Saturday we were blessed to run into our dear friend Gayle Edwards from Crane (you might remember I mentioned last February that her husband Bill had died from cancer--he and Jerry were friends from grade school on). And yesterday we met Mike and Phyllis Garrett from Monett AND Phyllis's sister Linda and husband Mitch Garrett from Louisville who were passing through the area on a camping vacation. Linda has been a special friend for many years as well - she and Carla share the same birthday and even celebrated their birthdays together once when Carla was about 4 and Linda was ????...oh well...Linda spent part of her career as a Christian Educator in the hills and hollers of Phelps,KY and invited Jerry down to do a preaching mission at their two little mission churches--certainly one of the highlights of Jerry's ministry. So it was a glorious day to all be together at Silver Dollar City. So until next time - say a good word for Jesus!

Labor Day with No Labor

While the rest of the country seemed to be getting a small touch of fall with lower temperatures, San Antonio continued to enjoy its hot and humid weather! Both Midland and Kansas City had temperatures fifteen degrees lower than SA! However, SA finally got some much-needed rain on Monday night. All the decorative fountains are turned off, which is indeed a sad situation, so we hope they receive some rainfall soon. We did a lot of nothing while we were at Jo and Scott's-- our focus was for Jo to give her mother some Adobe Photoshop training, which she did admirably..now I just need lots of time to play and practice with the program. Go as quickly as possible to the movie theatre to see "The Illusionist"--Scott, Jerry and I saw this on Labor Day while Jo put in 3 hours of work at Sorenson. It is a GREAT movie, and we all highly recommend it to you. In fact, it is one of those I would enjoy seeing again--and I don't find many of those. The treat of our Labor Day was dinner at The Tower of the Americas...Scott and Jo had been there earlier for Jo to take photos, and Scott wanted to treat us to an evening there. The restaurant (run by Landrys) rotates--the view of the greater San Antonio area is magnificent, especially as the city lights up for the night. And besides that, the food was marvelous. If you enjoy photography, please check out Jo's website links on this blog. She is amazing her parents with her artist's eye. With the collaboration of another photographer at San Antonio Community College, she put together a San Antonio collage of 90 photos that is great. The first one was auctioned at a fund-raiser last week, and another one will be auctioned at Nutcracker Sweets in December, which benefits the agency Scott works for. The above picture was taken inside the Gruene Dance Hall when we surprised Scott in August. The Gospel Brunch, on the second Sunday of each month, is a real delight. And speaking of Gospel, which we do enjoy a lot, we are on our way to the Gospel Fest at Silver Dollar City--so we must get on the road. We are presently camped overnight just south of Dallas--and we are hoping that mid-morning traffic through Dallas will be more palatable than the 5 p.m. traffic--but I am betting traffic is heavy all the time around here. We hope you all are enjoying this month as we feel fall approaching. We do miss our new Wichita friends - Missouri is pretty close if anyone wants to come and catch up with us! Love, Mary