Baptism

Oh my words!  What an amazing month so far and we are not even near Christmas!  My faith has been steadily growing since we emigrated and at the end of November I knew I needed to get baptized.  I hadn't thought of it at all, it was so sudden.  So I went to church to find out more.  I have seen lots of baptisms since being at Kingsland so I knew the format.  I thought carefully about my testimony.  Here it is:

My name is Ginny Dorrington. Although I didn’t grow up in a church family, I have always known that God is with me.  Since emigrating to the USA in 2012, my faith has grown with the help of many Godly friends. It's only in the last year or so that I have begun to develop a relationship with Jesus. I know now that the Lord is using me to lead other people to Him and I also know that I want to affirm, continue to grow my faith and give my life to Jesus through baptism.  God has chosen me to be baptised at this time and I proclaim that I am His.

And so, on the 18th of December, I was baptized.

Baptized by Pastor Brad Flurry.  A totally wonderful experience.  So moved by the number of friends who were there too.  Very unexpected.

This is NOT how to do it!

Good grief.  Where does the time go?  Ten months since my last post.  That is appalling!  Will try to bullet the salient points and then......try to keep a bit more up to date -OK?

August

Our amazing running daughter ran the Habanero hundred - yup 100 km.  Crazy?  Yup but I felt super proud of her and we managed to call in on our way back from CA which was nice

This is her medal

September

September of course is Bella's birthday.  She spent time before that cooking with Grandpa and then after eating her birthday cake (a dog at her request) had her birthday sleepover with us.  I love these special occasions.



October
Had a lovely birthday and for our anniversary we had a meal at Pane e Vino which has not only good food, but the added bonus of being opposite.  However, there was a little problem....... we took with us (after checking) a bottle of our favourite red wine.  When we got there, they wanted to charge us over $30 corkage!!!  Shock is one word.  Needless to say, we bought one of theirs but it was super disappointing.
Of course, October is Halloween here.  We got the children to help decorate the outside of the house which was great

ANOTHER roadtrip!

So, for summer, we decided to 'house sit' for a friend in CA.  Of course we had forgotten how big Texas is.  Can't afford to fly and hire a care on our pensions, so decided to drive.  Needless to say, it was a five day trip, but on the plus side, we say yet more of this amazing country!  Our little care has been amazing I have to say.  Carrying us for thousands of miles.

The week before the Road Trip, we had our fist English visitors since Sarah and Carl came out last summer.  It was simply lovely and when you get friends coming and bearing Thornton's chocolates, it doesn't get much better!  It was so nice to see Karen and Andy.  They looked well and it was a shame that they had such a short stay with us.  They too went on to CA where they had a great holiday.  Soooo........on with the road trip to California...

We started off by visiting San Antonio.  We had never been and as it is the home of the Alamo, was certainly worth a visit.

 The huge monument at the site of the Alamo

 One of the windows

 Entrance to the site.  Much smaller than we expected but most of the site is now built upon

Very peaceful considering it's history

                

My Goodness Me!

So, on the 2nd December, we went on a marathon house viewing session (9 in one day) with our amazing realtor Tamara Pendleton.  We saw quite a few that we loved, but because of the area really fell in love with one of them.  On that evening, we put in an offer!
In the morning - Tamera let us know that the offer had been accepted.  This is the link to the house
So tomorrow on the 5th December, we are having the home inspection, the termite inspection and any other inspection we can think of to ensure that we can go ahead with the purchase.
Might still be in a bit of shock - excited though!  AND we might close by the end of the year.
The other big thing we have done today is re-register our car in Texas so we have a new numberplate (license plate):

How exciting is that?

End of our Road Trip - Start of life in Texas

So we left the last hotel early on the 29th November so we could arrive in Katy and sign the lease etc.

 It was very foggy for one part of the trip!  However the skies cleared thank goodness

 This was pretty much our first 'sign' of Katy.  Exciting!

This is the community in which we are living.  Love the name!  Just a small apartment because hopefully we won't be here too long.

It was SO lovely to see the kids and equally lovely that the Route 66 t-shirts that we had  bought them fitted them!

 They brought us some leaves, which they often do.  We had bought a piece of petrified wood and so I put the leaves with that.  It made a nice little display.





Our apartment is on the first floor.  Very 'bijou!'.  We have rented basic furnishings as our stuff is in storage in San Diego.  These photos give an an idea of what it's like

So.........here we are in Texas.  We were excedingly tired the day we arrived because there was such a lot to do but we did manage to go and see the family which was nice.  Hadn't seen their house either.

Didn't sleep well, but new bed, new covers, new place and over tired probably accounted for that.  Hopefully better tonight.
Of course we hadn't brought the stuff we needed so raided Walmart and H.E.B today to buy things like, a frying pan, a saucepan, cleaning stuff, a bin - good grief!  Still we are now settled in I think and start house hunting in a couple of days.

Here's to our new adventure!

Route 66

Well, we have finished Route 66!  Can't quite believe it really.  We did the Chicago to Oklahoma a few years ago and now have done Santa Monica to Oklahoma.  It feels strange to have finished.  I will miss it I think.  It has been a simply wonderful experience.  Here are a some photos from today.

 This sign for the Cotton Boll Motel is one of the last surviving signs of its kind.

Then of course we came across this museum.  Stafford was an astronaut - the second one I've come across on this trip!

Here is a piece of moon rock that he collected.  He was the pilot on one of the Apollo missions.  How amazing.

These things have all actually been to the moon!

Just crossing over to another bit of Route 66 and saw this sign.  Couldn't resist a photo.  It made us laugh

This was the second amazing bridge we came across today.  It is beside Lake Overholser and really very pretty.  So glad it's been preserved.

Then we went straight to see Jerry McClanahan who wrote the EZ 66 guides which we had found so useful.  He is an artist as well as a Route 66 enthusiast and we bought one of his water colours as a souvenir of our amazing trip,.

He also signed our certificate of completion of Route 66.  There was a big map of the Route in his gallery.  It seemed impossible that we had driven all that way.  Albeit in two goes, but still....

Jerry also, very kindly, wrote in the guide exactly where the picture we had bought featured.










So, now in Oklahoma City on the day before Thanksgiving.  Finished the Route and starting the next phase of our amazing retirement.
Because we had completed the drive, we thought we would buy a bottle of bubbly to celebrate.  Went to a liquor place.  It was HUGE and there were attendants in the car park directing people where to park.  Astonishing.  Still we now have a bottle chilling in the fridge in our hotel room.

Tomorrow we start the two day trip to Katy in Texas where we hope to buy our forever home.  Will be keeping the blog going though.

And another state.......Oklahoma!

Well, what an amazing Road Trip this is turning out to be.  I have seen so many things for the first time.  What a privilege it has been.
Yesterday we crossed the midpoint of Route 66 and also went to the Cadillac Ranch

It was a shame that the cafe was closed really.  Took a photo of the town name too for my cousin Adrian

This was amazing.  We could so easily have passed it by.  SO glad we saw it or rather knew it was coming up.  And that we had bought some paint!

Think I'd make a good graffiti artist!

Steve doing his 'thing'

Just an amazing thing to find.








Today we left Amarillo.  Not impressed with the city at all.  That whole area seems to be the US dump for 'dead' vehicles of every type.  Such a shame really and ruins the landscape.  Talking of the landscape, it's really very flat now we are in Texas and the soil is an amazing red colour.  Today's firsts for me, included seeing a roadrunner doing just that.  Having huge balls of tumbleweed travelling across the road and

getting my very first view of cotton growing - amazing!  Had to pick up a boll that had already fallen off the plant.  We saw lots more on the roadside as a lot had been already harvested and clearly tipped off the wagons here and there.

This huge cross (visible for miles) is apparently the biggest in the Western Hemisphere.  It really is impressive I have to say.  There are sculptures too of the stations of the cross around the base of the cross.





Then we went to visit one of the most unusual museums ever - the history of barbed wire.  Called the Devil's Rope museum, it was sadly closed, but outside were these HUGE balls of barbed wire.  Cannot imagine how they were done!

Then we came across this wonderful art Deco building.  In a tiny 'dead' town.  Apparently it was a hotel called U Drop Inn when Route 66 was thriving, but what a stunning piece of architecture it is.

 

Route 66 is just amazing!  It's not been easy to follow and you really need to research the route well beforehand but it is so worth it.  Some of the original road has vanished under interstate roads but there is a huge amount that you can travel and it's on these that you find these gems.  The book we used for most of our research was EZ66 Guide for travelers, by Jerry McClanahan - excellent resource. 
So here we are in yet another State - Oklahoma and in Elk City.  Tomorrow we hope to meet the author of the book who lives in Chandler and have our certificate of completion signed by him which should be fun.