New Year's Eve 12-31-16

The year sure went by fast. This, of course, is the last blog post of the year. I just checked the stats and there have been over 40,000 views since I started doing this blog in approximately Sept. 2014.

 I wanted to mention that I am going on vacation in nine days. Yes, I'm going to Hawaii. I'm going to do a lot more blog posts there so I can share the pictures with you. Harriet and I had a lot of favorite places that we used to go to and of course I'll be going there this trip too.

I'm flying out the morning of January 9. Our good friends Andy and Autumn, are flying over and arriving on Friday. I will pick them up at the airport and take them to their hotel which is about half a block from where I'm staying. Andy has taken up kite boarding a few years ago and has really gotten into it. I'm going to send you some pictures and I think you'll like them. Andy and Autumn are staying for four days right in the middle of my vacation. So we'll have a nice time.

Tomorrow is New Year's Day and the title of my message at church is " A New Hope For a New Year". I hope that you'll be able to attend a worship service and start the new year off right!

Maranatha,
Frank
PS. I sure miss my Girl!

Christmas Eve. 2016

Christmas eve 2016, we've had quite a bit of rain this past week. Especially last night they said between the inch and inch and a half a half of rain. There's snow on the mountains and it looks like we're going to have a white Christmas.

 I want to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I want to thank everybody for the nice Christmas cards. I'm not very good at doing Christmas cards. As I mentioned in the previous week, that was Harriet's niche and she did it so well.

We're going to see the new Star Wars movie today. I always look forward to Saturday when I spend time with the grandkids. They are so cute. When we are driving in my van, they chatter all the time and tell me about the games that they're playing in things that they're doing. Really cute!

We had our Christmas Eve service last night because this is when we have the use of the facilities. We sang the beautiful Christmas carols, had Communion and also a candlelight singing of Silent Night. The picture below is of the Praise Team.

 Tomorrow is the day we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I hope that you will make it a priority to be at church.
God bless you and I wish you the very best!

Maranatha,
Frank

12-17-16 Sat.

Just about one week until Christmas! We've been practicing at church to do a little skit tomorrow morning. Samuel and Ethan are in it and I got drafted to play a part. The kids are really cute. Of course the play is about Christmas. I'll let you know how it goes.

We got a lot of rain in the last two days. I believe about a inch and a half which is a lot. When you consider the average rainfall in San Diego County is about 12 or 13 inches for an entire year.

You know I mentioned I'm going to Hawaii in January and I've been thinking about what I'm going to pack. Harriet used to have a list that she would update each year on the things that we should take or the things that we do not need to take any more. I don't even have any idea where that list is. But, I will probably pack pretty light and then have to pick up some things when I'm there.

Since I'm going Down Memory Lane, Harriet and I had a division of labor as it were. I realize the problem now is that I don't know how to do the jobs that Harriet did so easily and she did them so well. And I'm clueless in Santee. I do have a cleaning lady coming next Thursday. I know that doesn't sound very exciting but I'm sure my little house is excited to have someone do a good job of cleaning.

Like Christmas cards. Harriet is the one that always sent the Christmas cards and I'm such a Slacker, I just don't do Christmas cards well. If I could type them on the computer and send them out it would go a lot easier.

I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Maranatha,
Frank

12-10-16 Sat.

This is a great time of the Year! You know it is nice to see all the lights, different colored lights and decorations. I was driving home from Bible Class yesterday evening and you can see how people are decorating their homes.
No, I did not put up decorations this year or last. We have this large lighted Manger Figures that our son Joe and I bought for Harriet a few years ago. I think next year I will ask the grandkids to come over and help me set it up.
The picture below is taken at our favorite place to eat in Hawaii. (one of our favorite places). It was our tradition to have our first breakfast there and then the last day when we are getting ready to fly home, we would eat there too. They have this great brunch (all the bacon you can eat). The best thing about it is the million dollar view of the beach and Diamond Head.

                              Friday, ‎April ‎23, ‎2010

Tomorrow Cyrus Mad Bondo is speaking at our church. I am really looking forward to hearing him. He oversees the work in Uganda for World Help, whom we have supported for many years.

 This is a really good picture of my Father and our son Joe at a Thanksgiving Day meal. I am sure Grandpash was giving some good advice.

 I hope you have a great week and let's not forget the reason for this season. It's about Jesus, the gift of God!

Maranatha,
Frank

12-3-16 Sat.

Good morning! I really am being a Slackered this morning. I almost forgot to do the blog. I went out and watered the plants this morning to keep them alive.

I just went outside and took a picture of the front porch area. You can see all the plants, especially the ones in the foreground that have been revived with diligent watering. The reason I'm sending you this picture is because a couple weeks ago my son Joseph, had his crew come over and replace the carpeting. They did a great job! You will see if you look carefully on the right side  you can see that the porch is not perfectly level, but the steps are level. When the men were doing the work they explained that the porch is not level, so there's going to be a slight angle of the porch. I told him that I did not care it's close enough. It really does look beautiful all this new carpet that they put down. My only regret is that Harriet is not here to see it and to enjoy it.

                                               2005

Not a whole lot of exciting things going on in my life. Just trying to keep up. It's just about a month till I go on vacation to Hawaii. I look forward to the trip but I can tell you right now that it will not be the same as when my girl was with me. We always had so much fun together and just enjoyed being together. Hawaii was a place where we could leave our normal routine behind and it was our time together with no distractions.

I was thinking about it and I'm probably going to take 1 million pictures while I'm there so I'll probably do the blog either everyday or every other day and update the pictures and what's going on.

Tomorrow's message is entitled: The Good Thief. I realize this is an oxymoron. It's a reference to one of the 2 thieves that were crucified with Jesus Christ. I hope that you will take the time to be in the house of the Lord tomorrow to worship the Creator, our redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ!

Maranatha,
Frank
                                                  2007

Thanksgiving Day Pictures

These are the pictures I mentioned in my previous blog post. All taken at Dave and Tracy's home, taken with Tanners Drone.

11-26-16 The Day after the Day After Thanksgiving

I hope you had a really great Thanksgiving! I can't help but remember what my father used to say, "Make every day a Thanksgiving day!" Daniel and I were invited to our friends from church Dave and Tracy along with a lot of other people mostly family related. Lots of great people and we all had a great time. My friend Tanner used his drone to take pictures of us while we were having Thanksgiving day meal. Unfortunately he has not sent them to me yet. When he does, I will include them.

So, the only picture I have is of me eating pie. Linette was cutting the pumpkin pie and cheesecake. I asked for a small slice and she was putting some whipped cream on top of it. I was just kidding her about the small amount of whipped cream so she of course covered the entire cheesecake with whipped cream. That's so you can tell what's going on in the picture and why I am laughing.








My friend Dave got his pilot's license last week and he took me for a ride in his plane. I'm including one picture and it's from inside the plane him if you look in the center of the picture you can see the runway we're lining up for.

Sunday morning I will be preaching on "Prepare for the Coming of the King". There are many aspects of preparation for the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. When you think about it in the Old Testament there was prophetic utterances concerning his 1st coming. Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies when he came the 1st time. But, who was ready for his coming? The wisemen from the East, they were ready both Simeon and Elizabeth in the temple were anticipating his coming. Then you fast-forward to when Jesus started his ministry, John the Baptist was waiting with anticipation for his arrival. A few years later the crowd received Jesus as he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Now we have the opportunity to anticipate his 2nd coming. There are twice as many prophecies concerning the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ than his 1st coming. Are you ready? I hope so.

Maranatha,
Frank

2013

11-19-16 Sat.

The above picture was taken on January 6, 2015. I wanted to show you the plants that are in the middle of the picture and their condition. They were just about dead. I received a lot of instruction from you all, to water and feed it. The next picture I took just this morning and you can see how the plant has recovered pretty well.

Thank you for all your help, not just with these plants but with helping me to figure out how to cook backed potatoes and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving Day. We all have so much to be thankful for. Which reminds me of that old song that we used to sing in church, "Count your blessings, name them one by one and see what God has done". Sometimes in life we focus on the negative instead of the positive. I know that God wants us to have a thankful heart. We give thanks even through the trials and tribulations that we face on a regular basis.

I wanted to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Maranatha,
Frank

11-12-16 Saturday-40,000 page views Updated 11-13-16 with a must see link

Since I started this blog back in September 2014 when my wife was diagnosed with lymphoma, this blog has received over 40,000 page views. Originally I started this blog to keep all of our friends updated as to Harriet's condition. After she died and went home to be with the Lord, I was going to stop writing the blog, but I had quite a few people encourage me to continue blogging. In a way it's therapy.

How about that election! I was so sick and tired of all the negative bantering back and forth this past Tuesday, when I went to sleep I figured that Hillary was going to win. I did check the election results for the states on the East Coast and when I saw that Florida had voted for Trump, I thought there might be a chance. You know about that proverbial snowball.

So I was very surprised when I woke up and found out that Hillary had lost and our new president is The Donald. Now it's going to be time for him to perform. Did he just give empty promises or is he actually going to do something? Personally, I think he will perform. If he can seal our borders so that we keep all the illegal aliens out regardless of their nationality, I would be very happy. A friend of mine said that they should seal the border and give amnesty to everybody that's already here illegally. I told him that in my lifetime they've already done this twice. And each time they say okay now everyone else that comes to our country illegally will be sent back and they never do it. The last president that really sent the illegal aliens back to their own country was President Eisenhower. I heard on the news just yesterday that the attorney involved with ICE said that the last few years they have had their hands tied. They have been so frustrated because they had illegal aliens in their offices handcuffed because of the crimes they have committed and they have been told by those above them in authority to let them go. Hopefully, now we have a president that will allow ICE to do their job.

The Acadamy Award goes to:

https://instagram.com/p/BMr_czODuD5/

Can you believe all these emotionally distraught people because Hillary lost and Trump won? It is amazing. Especially college students. They are totally without any backbone. When you look at previous generations the young men that were college age went to war. When going to war during WWII or Vietnam war, there was no email, no cell phones and they were out of communication with their loved ones for weeks and months at a time. These college students are totally spineless. Do you remember when President John Kennedy was assassinated? If you were alive you remember where you were when you heard the news. I was sitting in my US government class Herbert Hoover high school in San Diego California when the teacher announced with tears in his eyes the president had been assassinated. Yes, everybody was sad. There was no grief counseling. No shortening of schooldays. Not so today. These spineless college students have to have a safe place and counseling because Trump won the election. It's just amazing, in a negative way.

Can you imagine if Mrs. Clinton would've won the election and conservatives would have done the same thing these rioters and marchers have done on the streets of Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and across the country? They would've been called male chauvinist pigs.

Well, enough of that ranting and raving. On a positive note, I reserved a rental car for my trip to Hawaii in January. I used Costco as the go-between with Budget rental car. 1st time I've used Costco to rent a car and I saved a $120. With Budget Rent-A-Car they have this deal called Fast Break. If you sign up for this and it doesn't cost you anything, you give them all your pertinent information like credit card, drivers license and so on. When you rent a car you don't have to fill out any paperwork you just show up and jump in the car and leave. It saves a tremendous amount of time.

I was going to send you a picture of the plant that has been resurrected but I feel to take it during daylight hours and it's dark right now. I'll try and take a picture of it this next week. It's when I talked about last week in the blog

I hope everybody has a great week. Don't forget, Maranatha!

Frank

2013

Harriet and Autumn

11-5-16 Sat.

Last Sunday there was a birthday party for little Lincoln. He is one year old. He's really a neat little guy. I'm going to include a picture of Lincoln's parents, Tanner and Breanna (Bri for short).

The birthday party was that Bri's parent's house, Tony and Linette. Tanner's mother Jamie, took these pictures. It was kind of fun watching the opening of the presents because he's so small he can't do it. So parents are helping to unwrap the presents and then little Lincoln would reach out to hold each present. But then it was time to move on to open the next present and I'm sure it was confusing for the little guy. I think I might have taken a picture with my cell phone, let me check.

 He such a nice little guy. If you read last week's blog you know that I was trying to explain how I do the tango with him. Janie took a picture of us. He's really cute he wants to do this all the time. I'm not sure what he finds interesting about it, but I sure enjoy it.

 We all had a really nice time. Great people!

I'm looking forward to taking the grandkids to see this new animated movie that came out this weekend. It's our bonding time and I just enjoy spending time with them. Especially feeding them the cheese nachos. I wish I could give you a picture of the boys especially Ethan 6 years old how his eyes light up when we talk about the nachos.


I wanted to thank everybody for the help about a year ago when I realized the plants were dying. Harriet used to water them all the time and when she got really sick, I guess I neglected them. The one that was absolutely in the worst condition only a little bit of green left on a few tiny leaves and I followed your instructions and it's amazing how is coming back to life. I will try and include a picture next week. It's interesting because I realize that's how it is with a lot of things. When they are neglected they die. When they are well watered and cared for they thrive. That will preach.

Joe and his Mom

I hope you have a great week.

Maranatha,
Frank

Sat. 10-19-16 The Wedding

The Wedding!

I had a wonderful time on my visit to Oregon. All the relatives are great! Harriet's older brother Jim and younger brother John both live in Halsey Oregon. Their children and grandchildren live relatively close by and came in for the wedding. It was John's son Caleb that was getting married to Ashley.

The wedding took place out-of-doors, near the town of Sweet Home, OR.

The reception took place in the barn type structure that was built specifically for this purpose and would hold at about 250 people.

You can see they are cooking food in the above picture. John and Diane's daughter, Jenelle and her husband John raised the hog that was butchered for the reception. And they cooked it and made pulled pork. Really great family.

I'm getting ahead of myself in the order of events but this is a picture inside the barn for the reception. Left to right, me, Harriet's sister LeeAnn, LeeAnn's husband Spence and Harriet's older brother Jim.

 The picture below: Harriet's brother John, praying for his son Caleb and new daughter-in-law Ashley.

At the reception we had 2 jars one with Caleb's name on it and one with Ashley's name. You put money into the jar that you want that person to get cake in their face. Of course Caleb got more money so his wife got to smire his face with cake. I was just thinking, Harriet and I did not do that.

The groom dancing with his mother, Diane.

I'm going to add some more pictures just to show you how beautiful it was.

 Of course my favorite picture, a nice fixer-upper. Early 1950s Chevy, it just needs a little work.

Well, that gives you an idea of how the wedding went. It's really beautiful country in Oregon and it would be a great place to live if it didn't get so cold.

Maranatha,
Frank