More Vacation Stuff...

Our trip is progressing quite nicely.  We had a lot of fun visiting with Don and Mary. (Tom's friends from his childhood.)  We went to their door (now you have to realize that they haven't seen Tom in 20 years) and saw the curtains flutter when we knocked on the door.  Our first thought was that no one was going to answer the door.  (Tom WAS going to say when she opened the door, "Have you heard the word of God today?" in a nasaly voice reminiscent of an old Saturday Night Live joke but when she opened the door and he saw her face he decided that wasn't a good idea if he wanted her to let him in...lol)

Anyway, Mary opens the door and says "Can I help you?" and he says "I'm looking for Don and Mary Clark" and she says "I'm Mary but Don isn't here."  She didn't have a particularly friendly look on her face but Tom forged on..."Well, I'm Tom" and she says "Tom?" and he says "Tom Hammond" and she repeats it and then you see a light bulb come on for her...lol.  She gave us a really big hug and invited us in. 

She tried to get Don to come home because he was at a church picnic and he said he was about to start their bible study and would come home after that.  We chatted with Mary and their son Jimmy for the next hour and then when Don was about to come in the door, she sent Tom out of the room and introduces me to Don as her cousin and says, "You remember her, right?" and he has this puzzled look on his face but says "yes, I remember her."  Their son Jimmy was absolutely rolling on the floor laughing and I figured that would give it away to Don and then Tom walks in and Don looks at him with another puzzled face.  We tell him who Tom is and all of a sudden he gets it and actually looks relieved...lol.

We had dinner with them last night and heard Don's testamony and he shared some CDs with us from different sermons that his pastor has given and he gave us a New Testement on CDs as well.  Honestly, he has such a generous and giving spirit that, if he had thought of it, he would have given us the shirt off of his back if we wanted it.  They are a really sweet couple and I hope we see them again soon.  I would love to meet someone like them in Alabama and become best friends with them. 

We took our camera with us last night and totally forgot to get pictures.  In fact, we left the camera there and they called us and we had to go back and get it.

Early yesterday we went over to Sharyn and Sherman's and went with them and their grandson, Dustin, to the Creation Museum.  It was really an amazing place. 

We started by going to the Stargazers Planetarium show.  We were all herded into an auditorium with seats that laid back so you could see the ceiling where all the stars and galaxies, etc were shown.  By the time it was all over, you realized just how small and insignificant you really are in the scheme of things and you wonder, since we are such a small part of the entire system that God created, why does he care for us so much?

Next we went on to the different displays.

Bambi and I getting to know each other...

Tom traveled back in time to play with the dinosaur...

They had an amazing display of Noah's ark.  Here are some pictures from the different displays of their idea of what Noah's ark was like.

Old Noah was organized...lined 'em up..two by two..

Close up of that two by two action ...

 Poor prostate sinners....missed the boat....

Floating around in that sealed up boat...sinners dying all around it.  I sure am glad God came up with a different plan to save lost sinners.  8-)

The detail they put into the inside of the ark was great.  Here they are having a family dinner inside the ark.

More of the inside of the Ark...

Just imagine the smell from all those animals closed up in the ark.  All the work that Noah and his family had to do to take care of all the animals and make sure they lived until the flooding was over.

The final scene on Mt. Ararat.  You KNOW they were glad to open that door and get out of there.  8-)

Today, Tom let me sleep in until 9:30 this morning and then we got our coffee and looked for a movie to go see.  We finally picked "Larry Crowne" which is a Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts movie.  It was really good.  A good lighthearted comedy.  We are resting around the room until dinner time and then we are heading over to Texas Roadhouse to have dinner with Sharyn and Sherman tonight and say goodbye to them before we head back home tomorrow. 

By Grace Alone -

Teresa