Crystal Wins Settlers! New Player!!

Saturday night Crystal Abbott, Andrew Raffety, Liam Egbert, and Josh Ellinor came over. Yvonne had roasted a new turkey on Saturday, yup a second one in a week, so the guys could have turkey sandwiches and chips for dinner. Bless her heart!

Then we pulled out our Settlers of Catan game to teach Crystal and Liam how to play. They caught on really quick! And you can tell from the title of this post, Crystal won.

Sunday after church Andrew, Josh and Crystal came over again. Yvonne made Turkey Crepes for dinner today. They were GREAT! For dessert we had chocolate peanut butter ice cream, and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream that Andrew brought last night.

After we ate we went watched "The Climb" with Jason George and Ned Vaughn.

And finally, we shared prayer requests and prayed together. But there was one last request; a picture of Josh and Crystal together. They knew each other from back home in Illinois!

Thanksgiving Day 2016 at John and Yvonne's!

Thanksgiving was a blast this year! And what a houseful we had!

Sarah, Brian, and Jacob came down from Newport News.

Then it was seven sailors from all around the Hampton Roads area! But, I'll let the pictures do the talking today.

Just in case you were curious, Jacob was the "ice breaker" for the day.

This is called "patiently waiting" for dinner.

And this is called DINNER!!!

This is the required group photo...wow! I love seeing our table this full!!!

And just in case you don't see it, this is called "Thanksgiving food coma"

Yvonne got tired of the KitchenAid splattering whipping cream on her blouse so she covered herself while she made the whipped cream for dessert.

This is everyone running to the kitchen for dessert!

Yvonne cutting the sweet potato pie and everyone still waiting.

Now she's cutting the apple pie!

This is what you might call a close up of the pie with the whipped cream!!

Crystal and Kezia enjoying the pies!

And real quietly Yvonne asked who might help her do the dishes. Four of the sailors jumped up and went to help. She was really impressed! Thanks guys!!!

Then it was also cell phone time! None of these young men and women go anywhere without these! If an enemy every found a way to disrupt cell phone service we'd be sunk!

Then Janzen spent the evening with the energizer bunny - Jacob. Having nieces and nephews he was used to playing with children. He was challenged - to see if he could wear Jacob out. It didn't work. By the time Janzen was finished he took off his coat, and his hoodie. He was perspiring heavily! Jacob, he was just getting started!

And here they are showing off their muscles!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! Thanks for coming over and spending the day with us!!

Saturday Night Golf and Sunday Afternoon Hallmark Movies

Last Saturday Andrew and John came over to the house and we kicked around what board game we would play. After everyone threw in their two cents worth, Andrew talked us into playing GOLF!

Do you see the black monster with the huge gaping mouth sitting there ready to devour the cards? It's actually the automatic shuffler. None of us are good at shuffling the cards except Austin. And actually, he does better than the automatic shuffler! But he's on deployment, so couldn't help us out.

See how my finger nicely frames John in this picture? It lends excellent depth perception to the picture. Wish I could say I did it on purpose. I just have a horrible time keeping my finger away from the lens of my iphone.

Here's Andrew with that concentration look of what his opponent is playing.  

And here is the most beautiful woman in the room!! She's keeping score.

And this is ME! I love the picture Yvonne took. It hides most of what I don't like seeing in a picture of me. Yea!

This is Yvonne shuffling the cards using the automatic shuffler.

John Ortiz won the game! Yea John!

Sunday Tia Bishop came to church again and then came over to the house afterward. Andrew and John were here too, and so was Liam Egbert. 

Yvonne was putting the finishing touches on dinner, I was in my office checking on an online stamp auction that was coming to a close that I was involved in. 

All of a sudden I heard Yvonne say, "No! Not Harry Potter!"

Liam was checking on something to watch on television and clicked on a Harry Potter movie. Dustin chimed in and said, "Yea, we don't want witchcraft do we!?"

Liam then found "The Fugitive", but Tia started chanting, "No! Hallmark! Hallmark! Hallmark!"

By that time I was in the room too. So I said, "Hey guys, you've had your pick before, and since Tia's new, Hallmark it is." 

All the guys groaned and said, "Nooooo!" But they were good sports about it.

Do you notice that Tia has the tv remote in her hand? 

Dustin is one of the culinary specialists on his boat, so he went in the kitchen to help Yvonne make dessert. He made a chocolate chip pie. Yvonne made white chicken chili for dinner. 

Then Liam cracked me up! He told Tia, "Look what you've brought me to! I'm sitting here hugging a pillow, eating chocolate, and watching a chick flick!" We laughed! He even let me take a picture of him in that sad state of affairs. :)

We actually watched TWO Hallmark Christmas movies that afternoon! We'll see who comes over for Thanksgiving after that ordeal! Tee Hee!

Veterans Day Trip to Williamsburg

This weekend was our annual trip to Williamsburg. Every year Colonial Williamsburg honors the military, including retirees and veterans, by waiving the admissions fee for the Veteran's Day weekend.

John Oriz, Tia Bishop, Liam Egbert, Josh Ellinor, and Andrew Raffety all joined us! After getting our tickets, a head call, and a quick bite to eat, we all walked to the Revolutionary City (I forgot how far it was and that they offered a shuttle). For me, that was a LONG walk!

Our first stop was the Governor's Palace. Impressive wall decorations! Long guns and swords!

Fortunately, the tour guide hurried up his tour so we could see the Fife and Drum Corps come parading down the street!

This drum was almost bigger than the boy playing it!

From there it was on to the auction in front of the weaver's house. It was really strange with all these people walking around with the funny triangle hats!

After we got tired of the auction we went across the street to the Court House just in time to go inside and participate in a trial - MINE! Josh and Andrew were selected as jurors and were seated in the top row on either side of the Magistrate.

This young guy in the funny triangle hat was the country sheriff!
 

 Tia sat in the row in front of the Jurors.

OK, so here I am standing in front of the bar facing my accusers.

The year was 1775 and this was the prosecutor reading the charges against me, and me listening to the charges. Which included vagrancy, preaching the Gospel without the proper Church of England License (I was a Baptist preacher). and 'trespassing' on land that was not licensed for the purpose of conducting religious services, and inciting a slave uprising because there were 50 slaves in attendance at my meeting.

This gentleman was the prosecution's primary witness!


The evidence I presented in my defense was suppressed by the Magistrate as inadmissible, because it was a letter from a prior magistrate that was now dead. Since I had been brought before this court previously for preaching without the required permits, I was found guilty, and bond was set at 100 pounds. Because I could not pay that exorbitant amount I was sentenced to one year in jail, and warned not to "preach through the bars!"



When the Magistrate asked the jurors if they concurred with his ruling there seemed to be some confusion or disagreement. The clerk of the court called for a polling of the jurors. But they all voted to incarcerate me - even Andrew and Josh! There's gratitude for you!

Then it was outside to visit the stocks!

I'm not sure I would want to spend several hours, let alone several days in the stocks! From the stocks it was on to the Virginia Capitol Building.

John wanted to go all the way to the front. The tour guide said it was all right. John thought more people would come with him, but no one else wanted to go past the bar! From there we went to the bakery to get hot drinks, and then we called it a day.

By that time my back was hurting pretty good, and the guys ran to get the shuttle to wait for me. But to no avail! Five minutes later there was another one. All of us were ready to be in our warm cars and head to Andrea's Italian Restaurant for PIZZA!!

Parents are always embarrassing their children, so why shouldn't Yvonne and I be any different?

Oh was the pizza ever GOOOOD!!! We polished off three large ones in short order. The kiss was good too!

What an awesome day we had! Thank you Jesus!