Church Stuff

I have to tell you about this wonderful church we've been going to. Thanks to Emily (my sister-in-law's sister... do you follow me?) we have discovered a very cool & spiritually lifting place to worship called Austin Stone Church. It's in downtown Austin so it takes us about 25 minutes to get there, but it's SO worth it. The music totally envelopes you & lifts you up SO high, no matter how down you are (trust me, we've been pretty down lately).

Anyways, we went to church last Sunday evening and saw Emily there! We haven't seen her since we came to Texas, so it was very good to see a familiar Iowa face. I hope we didn't scare her away... sometimes it's a little wierd to have a family sortof 'drop' into your lap when you're not expecting it. I hope we can catch up to her again soon.

In an attempt to get plugged-in we have joined a 'community group' which meets tonight for the first time. The whole family will go, even though the kids think it's going to be a waste of time. I think all of us will benefit from getting to know new people & holding each other accountable. I'm expecting it to be a lot like a 'small group' that we had in Iowa.

Here are some pictures from last Sunday after church. I didn't take my camera TO church, so these pictures are on the way home. Some things I didn't catch on camera is the fact the ground & rocks are still warm at 7pm so I took my shoes off to walk to the car. I know, I know... me... without shoes is a miracle in itself. But I couldn't resist the warmth....

The church is right downtown so I took some pictures of the Capital of Texas. It's a beautiful light pinky-marble-limestone when you get up close to it.

I wanted you to see the complex of bridges that simply crop out of no where! There is a lot of traffic so these bridges are nice to have.

This picture is funny, the mexican guy was on some sortof scooter that didn't go very fast. I don't think it's street safe, but here he is going along a busy highway. It's usually the mexican people who do funny things, like load 9 people into a truck cab, or deck out their cars with fuzzy carpet in the windows, etc. I'll have to take my camera with me more often to get pics.