Ocean Lakes Church of God

November 5, 2017

Yvonne and I had a great day today! We worshiped at Ocean Lakes Church of God this morning.

Pastor Steve Bergfield preached about the first communion service - in the Old Testament (read Genesis 14 and Hebrews 7). He talked about Melchizedek (try pronouncing that one!) and who he really was - an appearance of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament.

Afterward the congregation had their first Sunday of the month pot luck dinner on the grounds. The food was great! Dessert too!

Then Yvonne suggested we go "prayer driving" on Dam Neck Base! I got a chocolate attack and had to stop at the exchange on base for a "chocolate fix". God had a divine appointment waiting for us. We went in to look at the MWR Liberty Center in the exchange complex. One of the center employees came over and asked if he could help us. So we introduced ourselves to him and started chatting. Before we knew it, we were in an awesome conversation about Jesus Christ and the Gospel message. We shared our testimonies with him, what we did in our ministry, and the Gospel message.

An excellent day serving the Lord!

Our Naval Reservist Sailor Comes to Town!

October 27-29, 2017

Our Naval Reservist 'son' came in here from Lynchburg for his drill weekend. Helping to keep our country safe! I already feel safer just having him here!

Tonight, Saturday, after Todd got home from work we ate hamburgers and chips while we watched the OHIO STATE/PENN STATE football game. What a nail biter!!! Ohio state was so far behind all the way to the third quarter I wrote them off! Then in the last quarter they came alive and won the game by 1 point! Score was 39 to 38! Wow!

Then we watched a couple episodes of the ENCOUNTER series with Bruce Marchiano. This is a really interesting series. Makes you thing about the question: "What would Jesus look like and how would he behave if He were alive and physically walking among us today?"

Sunday afternoon Madison Cronin and Megan Sparks came over from the USS Leyte Gulf.

We ate home made rosemary bread, vegetable lasagna, salad, and for dessert apple crisp! Delicious!! Then we watched the movie "Facing the Giants" and finally, we had prayer together.

This was a great weekend!

Welcoming Madison Home From Deployment

October 6, 2017

It's been a long time since I've updated our blog and decided it was high time! Too many irons in the fire I guess.

But anyway, we had an awesome day going to the Norfolk Naval Base to welcome back the USS Leyte Gulf from deployment. We connected with Madison Cronin's parents - Patrick and Erica in the tent set up on the pier. It was fun talking story and getting to know them.

John Ortiz came to welcome her back too. Talk about one big happy family!
 

I love the festive nature of these home comings! It's like a great big huge party!

That's a thumbs up!

Madison with her mom and dad!

John O. and Madison with their "adopted" Virginia parents...

Madison brought back a beautiful doll from Norway for Yvonne's international doll collection.

And just for fun, this is what manning the rails on a ship coming back from deployment looks like with a kaleidoscopic filter added. Pretty cool huh?

Another New Game - Mexican Train Dominoes!

Saturday evening May 6th we played a game we had not pulled out since 2004! Mexican Train Dominoes...using the double fifteen set. We could have played all night long with that many dominoes!

There was some major concentration going on in this game! Check out the faces.

I like the colorful dice in this game! Way better than just black spots on white tiles.

The little plastic trains are cute too!

Here are the ladies...

"Hey, Don't look at my dominoes!"

Then, of course, we have the weekly mustache photo update!

Several people won a round, so we let the clock determine when we quit. No real winners and losers this week. Although, we NEVER have any losers...only one winner. :)

Taco Salad and Scrabble!

April 30, 2017

Last week Josh Ellinor and John Ortiz came over and since there were four of us I pulled down a game we've never played on a Saturday night - Scrabble!

 So we fixed ourselves Taco Salads or Tacos (whichever was preferred) and ate dinner. Josh shows off his colorful work of culinary delight. But, do you notice what else he is showing off? And no, that isn't taco sauce on his upper lip! He's actually sporting a new mustache!

And this is my work of art...oh, I guess you're too late...I ate it already!

Yvonne is eating nachos....well, tortilla chips with melted cheddar cheese.

And then we went to the game. I think you can tell the level of enthusiasm from the looks on the guys' faces...

But as we began to put words on the board the intensity and competition came out!

Josh finally won with the word "RIN" a Japanese coin. Yvonne and Josh were so close!

Then it was time to call it a night!

Sunday we had chicken, roasted potatoes, and green beans. Dessert was cinnamon rolls. Just after we ate, the door bell rang and Ruth Davis was standing there! Ruth is Andrew Davis' mom. She was bearing German cookies to boot! We had a nice time catching up with her. She and Mike came to visit Andrew when he was staying with us way back in 2009. She and Mike are really active in supporting our troops in Illinois.

By now you know me...I have to have pictures. Words alone just don't seem enough. Here are a couple of pictures of Ruth and Mike when they were here back then and Andrew too playing Attack Uno!

Do you notice anything unusual about Mike's face? Yup! He has a mustache! :) I just had to point that out!

Lamb Gyros and Logos (The Board Game)

April 22, 2017

No, I didn't misspell the word Lego. There is a board game called Logos. It's basically a trivia game that finds out how familiar you are with the advertising and logos associated with common products you use all the time! It's fun, and there are so many times that you feel like slapping yourself because you should have known that.

But, before we played the game we ate! Yvonne took the left over lamb from Easter Sunday and made Gyros! And yum were they good! Yvonne even looked up the recipe and made the tzatziki sauce.

And for dessert we had Klondike bars! What would you do for a Klondike bar?

Can you tell everybody was busy eating??? Then we played!

Guess who won the game? Todd, you are such a card!

Since I am terrible at taking selfies Bethany stepped in and helped me out. She really makes the picture much prettier than I would have alone! That was the mustache picture for the week too!

RISK! The Game of Global Conquest

April 15th

Tonight it was Josh, John, Yvonne and me again. We pulled out our RISK game tonight. We haven't played that game in ages! I took Yvonne out of the game and got her cards, which gave me a bunch of new armies.

And then John took me out, which gave him a lot of new armies. That left Josh and John to battle it out! If you look at the board you can see there's pretty much only one color left.

Then John moved through Asia and conquered Josh. Just check out the major wall of armies, cavalry, and artillery that swept across Asia in the right side of the picture. John came, he saw, and he conquered!

Josh , good sport that he is gave the victor's trophy to John.



And finally, we have the mustache picture of the week. It's actually starting to curl up on the ends now a little bit. But boy! Do I have to lose weight! I'm not liking that chin.