The Zoo is closed

Actually, it wasn't closed, but every time someone says let's go to the zoo, I always say "the zoo is closed." I guess I get that from the movie Jerry Maguire. There is one scene where he is talking to the kid and they are going back and forth about stupid facts, then the kid says "let's go to the zoo"and because it is like midnight, Jerry says "the ------- zoo is closed" and it always makes me laugh when he say it. So we were trying to figure out a cheap way to kill a few hours in St. Louis before we left for the conference and Erin said, lets go to the zoo. I said, the zoo is closed. She said no it isn't and then I had to explain it. She hasn't see the movie, so she didn't find it as funny as I did. Anyway, the zoo is free, so that worked out nice. It is a pretty cool zoo too. I would go back. Here are some pics that I took.

This is the only bear that we saw. A couple were hiding and the polar bear recently passed away.

Penguins all running around

Except for these two who took it upon themselves to hit the buffet line early.

Some flamingos

Chimpanzees were having a great time flying around.

This one was having a snack and wouldn't share with anyone

This one actually had a leaf and was doing some housework.

This one was having a salad and kind of supervising the rest of the family making sure they were not causing trouble.

Taking a nap and doing nothing (typical of cats, even the big ones)

Different breed, same result.

I guess some things never change. Cats like to do nothing and sleep. Big or small. Doesn't matter. Don't get me wrong, I like cats, but I prefer dogs.

Mexican Beaded Lizard, one of only two types of poisonous lizards in the world. The Gila Monster is the other. Some say Komodo dragon, but the sign at the zoo said these two and google said the komodo and mexican beaded are like cousins.

Big snake

Giving the turtles a bath, then they went right back in the mud.

There was a monkey sitting in the corner. We figured he must have been in time out for not behaving.

Gateway to the West

One afternoon while we were waiting for our conference to start, Erin and I met up with one of her friends from high school and spent a few hours enjoying the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. This encompasses The Gateway Arch, The Old Courthouse, a museum and 2 movie theaters that are actually under the Arch. The museum is where I learned about Take Me Out To The Ballgame that I wrote about in the last blog.

This blog is going to mostly talk about the Arch. Erin said it was 630 feet high, as well as 630 feet from leg to leg. When we were driving to it, I didn't think it looked that high, so I said it wasn't 630 feet, and then when we got closer, I told her I believed it, but it for sure wasn't 630 feet from leg to leg. She called me Doubting Thomas, which actually is a good nickname for me, so I decided to step it off. If one of my steps is approximately 3 feet, it should have taken me 210 steps from leg to leg. So after 210 steps I was standing just about exactly in the middle of the opposite leg. Adjust a little for smaller or bigger steps, and you get the 630 feet that she was positive it was. Go figure.

Overall it was really cool. The weather was perfect, I told everyone we brought it from El Paso and they owed us, and one lady actually paid up. We were at a country store after the conference in Illinois and I told the cashier I brought the weather and I should get a free muffin, so she asked if I had been there before, I told her no, so she said wait and brought me a blueberry muffin. It was great. Enjoy the pics and look for a few more blogs soon.

Walking up to the arch from the park. That is when I decided it was that tall.

I was still thinking about that distance.

Erin was pondering how high the Mississippi was

Standing under the Arch with the Old Courthouse in the background

I had to hold up the flagpole so the river didn't take it away.

Zoomed in on the observation deck windows

Getting into the little bubble car for the ride to the top. If you know Erin, you will know how small the door is. I had to crawl into it. :)

Erin made sure to point out the elevation

Overlooking the Mississippi into Illinois

Cool shot of the Arch shadow into the river.

Busch Stadium where the Cardinals play

Barge going down the river

Those are people laying in the grass

See, I zoomed in.

See, it really doesn't look like 630 feet.

There was like 12 inches of rain in October (more than we get in a year) and the Mississippi was flowing a little high. This is a sidewalk by the river.

Cool shadow of the Arch in a building when we were heading back to Erin's for my first honest to goodness home cooked (albeit early) Thanksgiving dinner in like 15 years. Thanks Barb. :)

They had some bonnets for sale in the levee mercantile. I wanted Erin to get this pink one for the summer construction season to keep the sun out of her eyes. If you can't find me, she probably hid the body after killing me for putting this picture on here.

Who knew

We went to the Gateway Arch the other day and in the museum part they had a small room about how St. Louis is the gateway to the west for baseball as well. Lots of old school photos and memorabilia, but the best thing was the full lyrics to the song sang at every baseball game played every year. I took a picture of them, you may have to click on the picture to see a larger version, but here they are typed out as well.

Katie Casey was baseball mad.

Had the fever and had it bad;

Just to root for the hometown crew,

Ev'ry sou Katie blew.

On a Saturday, her young beau,

Called to see if she'd like to go,

To see a show but Miss Kate said,

"No, I'll tell you what you can do,"

"Take me out to the ball game,

Take me out with the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,

I don't care if I never get back,

Let me root, root, root for the home team,

If they don't win it's a shame.

For it's one, two, three strikes, your out

At the old ball game."

Katie Casey saw all the games,

Knew the players by their first names.

Told the umpire he was wrong,

All alone, good and strong.

When the score was just two to two,

Katie Casey knew what to do,

Just to cheer up the boys she knew,

She made the gang sing this song.

"Take me out to the ball game,

Take me out with the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,

I don't care if I never get back,

Let me root, root, root for the home team,

If they don't win it's a shame.

For it's one, two, three strikes, your out

At the old ball game."

Lyrics by Jack Norworth, 1908

The lyrics to the whole song.

Queremos Ver, Queremos Ver

Another copy and paste from Erin. Thanks again. I like it when we do the same exact thing. Saves me a lot of time. We wanna see! We wanna see! We wanna see Jesus lifted high! I feel like that song was playing on Rosy's boom box ALL week as Erin and I worked with the 4th and final MOST Ministries team of the year to hold eyeglass clinics at San Lucas and Cristo Rey. It works though, huh? I also thought it was pretty fitting that the whole service on Sunday the 24th was themed around the story of Jesus healing the blind man. I didn't notice that at the San Pablo English service; I only made the connection after I heard it in Spanish. We started off the week by going to church at San Lucas on Sunday, making sure we were there early to set up. That didn't turn out to be very difficult, since Mexico's Daylight Savings Time began a week earlier than ours. That meant it was always an hour earlier there so we left when we normally do for services and got there with a little over an hour to spare. It also meant that we could sleep in a little later than normal all week since in order to start the clinics at 9:00 am and have a little bit of prep time, we didn't have to leave until around 8:30 when we were in Anapra and more like 9:00 once we moved to Cristo Rey. Apparently the rest of the world forgot about the change though, because the bridge line to get back on Sunday was crazy long, like 2ish hours. Judging by Monday morning as you'll see below, I was afraid it was going to be a theme...but I guess everyone remembered to change their clocks by later in the week!

The line to get IN to Mexico on Monday morning.

I guess she likes her new sunglasses because that is the BEST smile!

These 2 were very interested in whatever it was we were doing...they kept peeking their heads through the door. I guess they eventually worked up the courage to come inside.

Heidi at the testing table.

Debbie (the group's only RN) with Pedro as her interpreter at the nurse station.

The final station--evangelism. This was SOOOO cool! I don't really remember it being like this in Chihuahua, but maybe because it was kind of a slow week (481 people total), Javier, Rosy, and Pastor Martinez were able to sit down and have entire conversations about the Bible with almost EVERY person that came through our doors.

Arthur (one of the interpreters that Rosy found for us) attempting to figure out this guy's presciption...his eyesight was REALLY bad. It wound up being like 10 something, I don't remember if it was - or +.

Arthur was also super-excited about teaching the eye chart to the waiting crowds. It talked about the anatomy of the eye, various eye diseases and conditions, and foods and behaviors that promote good eye health.

Jose Angel, our optician friend. He saw the report about the clinic on the news (yes, we were on the news again), and came to see what he could do. We were packing up at San Lucas when he stopped by, but we told him we'd be at Cristo Rey the next 2 days, and he showed up ready to work with his tools of the trade and everything. Lois asked him if he was a Christian and he said he believes in God but isn't very serious about it, he just likes to help people.

Pastor Martinez got some new shades!

Fernando, Erin, and Pastor Martinez. She is wearing Don's jacked because it was freezing that day! Not really, it was like 55 degrees, but it was one of those days where it got progressively cooler, so she had taken her pullover off. Later on it started pouring and a cold front blew through, which deterred a lot of people from coming. We saw something like 124 people on Wednesday, 96 of which were before lunch.

Lois is a movie star :)

While at Cristo Rey, we had the opportunity to witness first-hand something I had only heard about at a recent staff meeting: Cristo Rey's efforts to generate some revenue for the church by opening a little thrift store and charging for a hot meal every day at lunchtime.

The group happily helped support the endeavor by having gorditas on Wednesday and chile rellenos on Thursday instead of ham and cheese or PB & J!

I am not getting soft!!!!!

Okay, so there isn't a lot of stuff going on right now that I can blog about. I will put one up about the first annual golf tournament once I have all the information, and usually I steal Erin's blogs when we do the same thing, so I took some advice and put up an original one. Basically it is some pictures of me and my El Paso family. All of us that work in the office are close knit and I have "adopted" some of their kids as my "nieces". So here are the pics, enjoy them, but don't call me soft. :) Have a great day.

Erin, Viviana, Camila

Viviana and I at Chuck E Cheese

Viviana again

Playing with Viviana when her mom needed a baby break

again.

Another copy and paste. Thank you Erin for doing my blog for me again :)

Our first servant event since August was here last week, from St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Barrington, IL. They normally bring 20-25 people and do a medical clinic at one of Pastor Hernandez's (Pepe's) mission sites, but this year, they opted not to cross the border which reduced their team to just 5--all guys. We planned a project in Horizon City for them--Olga Reyes's roof/electric--but they still sent a check down so that Pepe's doctor friend who normally helps them out with their clinic could run one in their stead, the same week even. I thought that was a very cool idea, and I don't remember the exact numbers that Pepe's wife Blanca told me, but he saw somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 people in 5 days.

Barrington's week started off by crossing the border for church at Santisima on Sunday so that they could be there to celebrate Pepe's 20th anniversary as a Lutheran pastor--their church has been working with Pepe for several years now and they were NOT going to miss that. I'm glad we went too...I think Erin and I would have gone even if they hadn't wanted to! The service was PACKED! People came from ALL of the YLM Mexico mission sites to share in the celebration, and it probably didn't help that there was a baptism that day too, and communion. To help shorten things up there was a biography of Pepe instead of a sermon, during which I learned lots of things I didn't know about him. Who knew that he first felt God's call into the ministry at age 13 so he studied for many years to be a priest? It wasn't until after he married Blanca and met some of the other YLM staff members that he realized his true calling was to the Lutheran ministry...I could be biased but I think that was a good choice!

After the service, there was a party, of course. After a few song and dance performances by the combined youth from all our Mexico mission sites, Pepe called the whole group, Erin, me, Pastor Martinez, and Javier (pastors from Cristo Rey and San Lucas, respectively) up to the head table with his family and other close friends. He kept telling everyone that we got to eat first because we had a bridge wait ahead of us to get back to the mission! Once we finished eating it was starting to get dark so we needed to get going, but Blanca insisted that we eat some of the cake she made (there were 2, hers and one someone brought from a bakery), and since you can't say no to that she gave us some to-go plates!

Back at the mission, the guys told us that after talking to Pepe, they would prefer to work with him all week rather than in Horizon. Problem #1: there were already 71 bundles of shingles on Olga's front porch. Problem #2: we had been promising her for a couple weeks that she would get a roof (which was becoming a greater and greater priority since every time it rained water leaked through the cracks in the OSB and damaged the frame underneath) and her electric run. So, from then on out, the plan became put the roof on in 2 days and then go work with Pepe, and that's exactly what we did!

With the goal of meeting with Pepe on Wednesday morning in mind, Erin and the guys worked our tails off and gave Olga a darn good looking roof...in TWO DAYS! I did ALL the electric, and the rest of them shingled like crazy under the direction of their resident former roofer. Wednesday the group crossed the border to meet with Pepe/scout the project he wanted them to do, and Thursday and Friday their task became to build a porch at San Pedro y San Pablo--buying all their own materials out of pocket--which will provide extra space (and shade!) for Bible studies, meals, and clinics. Erin and I stayed back to finish up the electric on Wednesday and get some office work done the rest of the week. We also got to see Super Josh, one of the 2008 summer volunteers, for a couple days...he's roadtripping around the USA for a month before he starts 2 years of pilot training in MS. Anyways, the porch had been high on Pepe's priority list for awhile, so it was a total God thing that it got done last week--we had told him it wouldn't be completed until at least February! He plans to dedicate the porch on Reformation Day, Saturday, October 31. I don't know if I'll be able to make it since we have other Reformation stuff going on here at San Pablo, but it'll be a neat event for sure. Pepe has been talking for a long time about getting regular ministry going out there and this will bring them one step closer. The guys from Barrington were even talking about what it will be like in 10 or 20 years and remembering what Santisima used to be like...a concrete slab...so who knows?!? OK back to 2009...enjoy the pictures!

Cake #1

Cake #2

The kids all made him a sign that says, in English, "Congratulations Pastor Pepe!"

Enough partying...time to get to work--This house needs a lot of wire ran. Especially in the bathroom that goes in the 20 year old daughters room. ;)

Ken laying shingles.

It was important not to put too much weight on our toes so we wouldn't damage the courses (rows...in roofer speak) we had already laid. Dan's technique unfortunately didn't work, but it was too good not to take a picture of.

Dave, the group's leader, arrived late due to a funeral, but he literally got off the plane and got to work!

Even so, everyone who had been there all day thought it would be fun to stand around for awhile and watch him work!

More of God's Country, baseball style.

Another bonus copy and paste. Thanks again Erin:) I used to get fired up because she would always get her blogs up before me, but this is really kind of cool. Maybe next time I will get mine up first and she can steal mine.

Erin and I got back from our third trip to Colorado on Thursday evening. This was without a doubt Erin's favorite one, mainly because the purpose of our trip was because we had tickets to the ENTIRE Cardinals-Rockies weekend series! Before I get to the baseball, though, check out the cool looking storm we drove through on the way there! It really didn't rain very much on the highway but you could tell the mountains were getting slammed.

We also went to the U.S. Mint on Friday afternoon before the games. They don't allow photography, though...or a whole list of other stuff--pretty much you can bring your wallet and car keys...so I don't have any pictures, but we learned lots of cool tidbits about coins (paper money doesn't actually fall under the jurisdiction of the Mint, that's the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's job). It was interesting but I'm still not quite sure why it's apparently Denver's most popular tourist attraction though...it was CRAZY hard to get tickets!

Friday night was a fireworks game. Supposedly our seats were "fireworks obstructed," probably because they were under the overhang at the top of the stadium and they left the lights underneath it on, but as you can see we had a perfectly good view. We sat in front of a couple other Cardinal fans who were actually from NC so they just picked a team...Erin told them they made a good choice! It only took about half an hour for them to move everyone from centerfield ONTO the actual field so debris didn't fall on them, too.

THESE were our seats for Saturday night's game--LOTS of Cardinal fans were around us b/c we were right behind the Visitors' dugout. In Erin's opinion it was obviously the best of the 3 games too...because her team clinched the division even though it was the only game they beat the Rockies all year.

Sunday the whole family went--Ken, Carol, Stef, Mike, and Erin and I. Our seats were in right field this time, right next to the bullpens. There was a divider in between them though, but that is the visitors over there with all th trees and stuff' The Cardinals lost for the 2nd time in exciting fashion that series and 6 out of 7 for the year.

Below we can tell who was on the winners side :) (6-1 this year)

Monday and Tuesday we went bike riding around the Cherry Creek Reservoir, went to the movies, got some $1 scoops from Baskin Robbins, relaxed a lot, and worked a little, and then Wednesday, our last day, we drove up to Idaho Springs. We went there on our April trip too, and Erin loved it, so we got some more Colorado style pizza and toured a gold mine that we almost went to the last time but it was closed.



At the very end of the tour they give you a little baggie of sand and let you try your hand at panning for gold. Erin was very afraid she was going to lose all of hers in the water but she actually found a couple flakes!

This was inside the gift shop...I'm not really sure what we did...

I also went to the dentist on Monday. Krysia and Stephen recommended him, and he also knew Pastor Heimer...he offered to help us however he could so we're hoping he'll play in our golf tournament on Nov. 2 and maybe even sponsor a hole!