We ate at the Riverwalk Cafe which was a buffet style restaraunt with some pretty good food.  It is a beautiful place to visit, but I would bet is a bit pricey to stay at..

Check out the pics in the gallery…

We tried to pack as much into the weekend as we could. We went disc golfing multiple times, went paintballing, played some videogames, visited restaraunts that he had not been to before, and hung out at church. I had a great time, as did Alina and Rachael, and our friends, but I think especially Rachael. The whole weekend she spent every minute she could with Tim. Rachael kept saying “I love you uncle Tim,” and they would chase each other around the house. Even after he had left she kept asking “where are you uncle Tim.” I think she had a great time with him, and I know she looks forward to seeing him soon.

I did talk to him about the possibility of moving out to Texas and he seemed positive about it. He just needs to find a job out here. We would all love to see him move out here and hopefully he will. I just keep thinking about the fun we had hanging out and about how much we could have serving in the same church. Paintball and disc golf are fun, but nothing is better than serving God with those you love. I do hope, and ask you to pray with me that God would lead him to a good job out here and that He would help him in making the move.

The second thing that takes a while is public transportation.  Alina, Rachael and I went to meet my family at the Dallas zoo last weekend, and it just took forever.  We got to the train station just in time to watch the train the we were supposed to get on mockingly depart the station, but at least it was only 20 minutes until the next one.

So we bought our tickets (not knowing which ones we shoud get we went ahead and got the most expensive ones: “platinum” sounded good and hey for $4.50 it wasn’t too bad anyway).  You mathematicians out there should be able to figure out that if we put a twenty into the machine, it should give us $11 in change (Rachael rode for free), well the machine didn’t see it that way.  Apparently the machine thought we said “keep the change,” so it did.  The machine must be plagued with problems because it had a phone number taped to it for technical assistance.  We found out that to get our $11 back it would take an act of congress and a blessing of God.  So at this point we are still waiting on the bureaucracy of public transportation.

That machine not only took our money, but it also made us miss the next train, and I tell you, there is nothing more exciting that waiting on a train at a station with such a motley group of people.  Once we finally got on the train it took over an hour to go about 25 miles, which is super fast for people that don’t have their own vehicles, but we do and it felt as if it would never end.  When we finally got the park we paid $9 each (again Rachael was free) to get in, and then met my family inside.  The informed us that they had already seen all that there was to see and that all they had left to do was ride the zoo tram.  “Oh sweet, another train.”  Break out the wallet again, because apparently it isn’t good enough to pay to get into the park, you then have to pay for some old man to tell lame jokes.

Once that torture was done, everyone decided to go home.  “Yay, we get to get right back on the train.”  This time I think it took about an hour and a half.  Public transportation takes too long.

From the train station we went over to Alison’s house to hang out for a while which was fun.  Oh, and happy birthday Andrew.

If you thought that driving at eighty or even a hundred miles an hour on the freeway or through the streets of your hometown was fun, you could be truck driver material. If you think that it is OK cutting people off at these speeds, you could be a truck driver. And if you have no regard for life (yours or others) then truck driving might be the thing to consider for you.

I can’t tell you how many times on our drive out to Texas that we got cut off buy some truck driver who would speed up to 90mph+ to get by us. Next time we make a long trip (and don’t get any ideas, it won’t be a move back to CA) we will have to not only generally pray for safety, but we will have to specifically pray for safety from truck drivers as they are nuts.

Not only did we have to keep our eyes peeled for the next truck to cut us off, but in Oklahoma, we had to fight the storms that sweep away large buildings (< — obvious exaggeration). Joking aside, these were very strong storms the kind I haven’t seen since my days in ‘Nam (<– another obvious exaggeration). You know how when you watch the lightning at home that the lightning crashes and then you count the seconds to the thunder to figure out how many miles away the lighning struck? Well, we were going to do that, but before we could get out the “o” in “one” the thunder shook our cars. It was pretty frightening.

All in all, we did make it all of 1500 miles safely thanks to God (<– obvious understatement, as we wouldn’t be breathing today if it weren’t His will).

Send me an email at dustin@thewrightlife.com if you want our new contact info.

- dustin

And not only did I miss my family, but I missed my plane. I was about twenty minutes late for my check-in and they would not let me get on. I had four hours to think about how the next time I would be on time for my flight. That was a lesson I wish I would have learned a long time ago. Don’t get me wrong, the SkyLink train ride wasn’t bad, and neither were all of the restaurants, but the downed T-Mobile hotspot was a pain, and no matter how interesting an article you might be reading, four hours worth of it gets a little old when you’re missing so much else.