A Promise

This beautiful rainbow was in the sky Monday afternoon.

I'm so thankful someone brought it to my attention and even more thankful that I always have my trusty camera in my purse.

Third Annual Girls Get-Away

This picture of me and my friends is supposed to be in a different spot on this post. Arrrggg! When you get down to the part where we were about to head out shopping on Saturday morning, this is when this picture was taken. This is in front of the hotel. I didn't have time to play around and try to rearrange. It wasn't cooperating! :(

Anyway....here we are......

Kellie, Tina, Me & Paula

My friends picked me up Friday around 5:45 p.m. for our third annual girls trip. Actually Tina (on the far right of the next pic) always attends our monthly dinner dates, but has yet to go on our weekend excursions. We told her this year we were going to kidnap her if she changed her mind about going. :)

We made a stop in my sister's town so I could drop something off.

Me, Kellie, Tina, & Pam. K. T. & I all graduated from high school together and went to the same college for a while. Paula grew up in another town in OK, & later married a good friend of ours. Pam was my roommate while I was at college and K. & T. lived across the hall. We had so much fun. T. is one of the funniest people I know. Pam said she was only around her a short time the other night and she had her laughing.
We arrived and got all settled into our room at this very beautiful hotel.

We took snack foods and got into our jammies and talked and talked and talked. We turned out the lights at about 1:00 a.m. and talked more.

I bet it was 3:00 a.m. when we finally got to sleep. Paula's son called the next morning at 8:00. Oh well...we needed to get up. We were going to spend the day shopping. We needed to "get a move-on"as my mother used to say.

Our room was on the 5th floor and this was our view. Sigh.....

Remember the picture at the top....

picture that in this spot just before we went to our first stop here:

This place is always crazy busy! They have a ton of jewelry, purses etc.

It was still crowded, but not like it gets later in the afternoon on a Sat.

Next on the agenda.... lunch.

We went to an outlet mall not far away that had a million stores. We all separated and set a time to meet up.

Sat. evening we walked from our hotel to this area where we would eat dinner and look in some of the neat stores in this area.

I'm so glad the Christmas lights were up. I absolutely love this area.

We wanted our picture in front of the Ya Ya's sign.

Mexican for dinner. It was so good!!!

We had a suite and Paula and I slept in one part and T. & K. slept in the other. The clock in our room had never been set back. I didn't ever mess with it until Saturday night. I was trying to see how to make it light up so I could see it during the night. I messed a little too much with it.

The alarm went off at 7:30 a.m. I thought I'd get on up because 7:3o wasn't too bad....only to realize about 10 minutes later it was in fact only 6:30. :(

Everyone else was still asleep so I got completely ready, made my coffee in the bathroom etc.

I took this picture from our room early Sunday morning.

The weather was perfect the whole trip. We were able to eat outside a couple of times. This is us at breakfast. We had the most adorable little waiter. I'm not sure where he was from, but he had the cutest accent. His name was "Adeal" like "Let's Make ......" :)

He heard me say something to the others reminding them that I woke up at 6:30 and later he was serving us and one of the gals said something and he said "But, she's been up since 6:30." Too cute.

I started looking at the menu I got the night before to see what I would order for breakfast. Nothing like just finishing a meal and already planning what you're gonna eat next. :)

This restaurant menu said they had award winning croissants. I asked our little waiter (teasing of course) if these were indeed award winning and he said, "Yes, they won an Emmy last night!" It really was delicious!

It would get my vote.
After breakfast we went for a walk in the area across the street from our hotel.
Tina and I are sitting in the distance. Isn't it just beautiful here?

This is all staged.....

Tina wanted to pretend like she fell. ???

I'm sure anyone watching thought we were completely nuts.

Kellie stayed over on the far side and chose not to walk around with us.

You can see her way back in the background.

She called to be sure Tina was alright after she saw her on the steps. :)
I set the timer and ran to get in this picture. I set my glasses down by the camera and said "Now, y'all don't let me forget my glasses." I won't mention any names, but someone was being a little smart and said "Ummm....you will have to get your camera...I'm sure you'll see them."

So, I'm pinching her pretty hard. That's why we're all laughing and that's why my eyes are soooo squinty.
They also give me hard time (all in good fun) about taking so many pictures. I'm sure they don't mind when I have prints made and sent to them. :) They'll see something really dumb and say "Valerie.....don't you want a picture?"

I told them I was putting the camera away for good after we checked out of our hotel.

I couldn't resist when we were close to home and saw the beautiful sunset. (See yesterday's post for a picture of that)

We had such a good time. We're already talking about next year's trip. I always make the room reservations. I sure hope we can get a room with a balcony though so "somebody" will be happy. (Kellie) :) Ha!

Awesome Sunset

I went on a girls trip with three of my friends over the weekend.

We had such a great time. I took lots of pictures and will post about

our trip in a few days, but I wanted to share the beautiful sunset we saw on our way home.

Absolutely gorgeous!

Leaving VA

We got up Sunday morning and made it to early church at Thomas Ro@d. This was something I really wanted to do and was so glad our flight didn't leave until a little after 12:00 noon. It was such a wonderful service. When we walked in they were singing "Victory In Jesus."

Then the praise leader led us in two of my favorite songs - "Sanctuary" and "In Christ Alone." I was so blessed.

I watch this program on tv on Sunday mornings when I'm getting ready for church and am always blessed. What a great service.
After church we went to eat breakfast before K. had to take us to the airport.
It was from the window of our booth in this restaurant that I took this next picture. I love this picture. (Have I mentioned that before?) :)
Here we are at the airport about to say our good-byes. :(
Pam and her beautiful daughter. She's beautiful inside and out.
Me hugging her good-bye.
And she and her momma hugging good-bye.

These next three pictures are of the city ofAtlanta as we were about to land.


Thank God the flights home were hassle free. Every flight was on time.

I got back to my home in Oklahoma at about 8:00 p.m.

We had a great time. Pam and I laughed so much and enjoyed every minute together. K. was a joy as always to be around and I appreciate her driving us around everywhere. Meeting Melinda (my blogging friend from NC) will always be a very special memory as well.

I'm thankful for all of the memories of this VA trip.

VA Trip Day 3

These first couple of pictures are actually still of the first day we were in VA....before we got our luggage. In the distance are the campus dorms or apartments. I hope the kids appreciate the beautiful views they have, especially this time of year. Gorgeous!!!

Pam and K.

Outside of our hotel...

Lunch. Yay....we finally got our luggage and have different clothes to wear. :)

In the distance in this next picture you can see the cute little chapel that is in the picture on my header. The view is spectacular from here.

Inside the lodge. Very cool place. If I were a student I'd be up here often!

The Lodge

I adore this little chapel. :)

This is always a must & is always good.....

(no mug to add to my collection) :(

We went to the football game, but left after the first quarter because it started raining. We didn't have rain gear so staying was not an option. It was a fun atmosphere and we were glad to go even for a little while.
Later in the afternoon we went to the mall and while we were there we saw the most adorable trick-or-treaters! Oh my gosh. I really wanted to take a few pictures, but I thought the parents would think I was a real weirdo. There was a huge line of little ones with their parents going from store to store. Too cute!

Later we went to see a movie and then ate possibly the worst Mexican food ever. No kidding....they brought the salsa and chips (which was the best part of the meal) and this little bowl of white stuff. It was cold and actually tasted sort of sweet...like miracle whip. Yuck!!!

This was our last night. We went back to the hotel and began to pack and get our things together. We wanted to be sure to get up in time to go to early church.

What a great, fun-filled day.

Stay tuned for our last day in VA.

Day 2 Virginia Trip

My niece and a friend drove an hour to get us when we finally arrived in VA. late Thursday evening. We were so thankful that we didn't have to spend the night in Atlanta. (as it turned out the plane we would have been on the next day had we had to stay overnight, was delayed. We would have been dying!!!")

We didn't get in and settled in our hotel room until nearly 1:30 a.m. Friday.

K. was able to spend the nights with us in our hotel and we thoroughly enjoyed her!

We were also very thankful for all she did to help us while we were there.

She had some things we needed, since our luggage wouldn't arrive until Friday night around 8:00!

We got up early on Friday so we could attend the chapel (convo) service.

I had to wear the same hoodie and jeans to chapel, because that's all I had.

Thankfully others were dressed casually too.

It was so beautiful there. The leaves on the trees were so colorful.

I took a ton of pictures....prepare yourself. :)

The next few pictures were taken on our walk to where the convo services are held.

There's a tunnel that goes under the highway. Pretty cool!

The praise and worship was very good. The speaker this particular day was Dawson McAllister. You can view his website here.

One of the highlights of my trip was meeting a very special blogging friend, Melinda. She lives in NC and drove two hours to meet me and have lunch & shop a little. We had talked via e-mail and blog, but had never met in person.

What a delight it was to finally meet her.

I felt so bad that our luggage still hadn't arrived and I didn't want to still be wearing my OU hoodie. I bought this new top after we got out of chapel.

I had a suitcase full of choices for the day, but had to buy this plain jane top.

Oh well.......

Turns out our luggage was at the airport where we had flown in the night before, but the good news is that they would deliver them to our hotel later that evening.
Melinda chose this wonderful place for us to have lunch. It is one of the most adorable little places I've ever been. Here are a few pictures from the Farm Basket.










I've never seen a pumpkin like this before. So strange.
This next picture was taken from an area where we shopped. The trees are gorgeous!
K. had been in class all afternoon, but when we got back to the hotel Melinda said she wanted to tell Pam & K. goodbye. She pulled out gifts for all three of us. SO PRECIOUS!!! She was so sweet and thoughtful. She even took pictures off her walls at home so we could see her family.

She has an amazing testimony of some things that have happened in the past few years. Pam and I were extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to have lunch with her. I can't say enough about how thankful I am to God for sending me such a precious friend in this way that only He could have orchestrated.

Here she is giving P. & K. their gifts.

These are the gifts she gave me.

Pam's son had told her about a pizza place that had a really neat atmosphere and was very good. We located it and went there for dinner.

He was right. It was delicious! It was also packed. There was an hour wait to get a table. It was worth the wait.

Here's Pam and K. and a few more pictures that we took after we ate dinner.

We had a busy, but very fun first day in VA.

Stay tuned for day 2.

My Travels To Virginia Part 1

Last weekend I was blessed to be able to go with my sister to Virginia to see her daughter who is attending college there.

We drove to Dallas Wednesday night and stayed at a hotel near the airport since we needed to be there early Thursday morning. We were able to leave our car at the hotel and take a shuttle to the airport. (that was great, by the way!!!)

I decided to dress very comfy while traveling this time. I had on my OU hoodie and my comfy jeans.

We arrived at the airport in plenty of time get checked in and to go through security. I had to be frisked because I didn't have another shirt under my hoodie. :0 Note to self.....next time wear a t-shirt under the hoodie.

We began boarding on time and were about to take off around 9:30 a.m. when the pilot said he didn't like the sound of the breaks and wanted the mechanic to take a look at them.

After a while he told us there was indeed a problem and we would have to get off the plane and go back into the terminal. Since a storm was coming and we had to walk outside, they advised us to go quickly. They also had no clue how long it would take.

Everyone was scrambling to see if there was another flight to Atlanta. There wasn't.

After several hours we were told it was time to board the plane again.

After we all got on and settled the pilot spoke "I'm sorry I have some bad news." I really thought he was joking. He told us the breaks were not fixed. We had to get off the plane again and it took about three hours longer. All in all we were at the airport 10 hours on Thursday!

When we did finally get to take off we almost knew we had missed our connecting flight.

We landed safe and sound and did indeed miss our connecting flight by about 15 minutes. We were going to have to spend the night in Atlanta, but another flight was about to leave that would get us to a town one hour from my niece. She agreed to come pick us up there....minus our luggage.....but, but at least we were going to get to our destination.

Wednesday night I told my sister that I had found a verse in Psalm 5:12 that would be our verse for the trip. "For thou, LORD, will bless the righteous; with favor will thou surround him as with a shield."

It was a frustrating day being stuck in the airport and then missing our connecting flight, but God took care of us and protected us and showed us favor.

Leaving Dallas

In the air.....

Up, Up, and Away.......

We got to our hotel and settled in around 1:00 a.m.

Did I mention minus our luggage?

Thankfully I had my make up and flat iron in my carry on.

I do believe in the future I'll take an entire change of clothes in my carry-on.

I have much more to share about our trip, so stay tuned for part 2.

P.S. My new blog picture was taken from the restaurant where we ate breakfast Sunday morning before we left to fly back home. I love this little chapel and was so proud that this picture turned out.