TRAVEL AGENDA IN 2005

6/21-7/4 Inks Lake State Park TX
7/5 Stamford TX
7/6 Lubbock TX
7/7-14 Glorietta NM
7/15-8/7 Fun Valley CO
8/9-17 Zion National Park UT
8/29-9/6 Alaska Cruise
9/24 Stamford TX
9/26-10/10 Inks Lake State Park TX
10/10-10/21 Lake Ray Roberts TX
10/21-12/12 Twin Coves Park, Grapevine TX
11/24 Thanksgiving, Decatur TX
12/25 Christmas, Coral Springs FL

Christmas in Florida and an Engagement!

Coral Springs, FL: December, 2005


Our Christmas this year was great. We spent two and a half weeks in Florida at Joni’s Mom and Dad’s house in Coral Springs, Florida (near Fort Lauderdale).

The best part of the holiday was that all of Joni’s boys were able to be there. Jim lives in New York, Ken lives in California and Chris lives in Texas, so getting everyone together at the same time is not an easy task. But, this year was different. All of us came to be together with Grandma and Grandpa. The boys all flew in on Christmas day and stayed most of the week.


The highlight of this Christmas was Jim’s engagement to his girlfriend Barbara O’Connor. Our family has been waiting for Jim to place a ring on her finger for a few years now and we are all very happy to be welcoming Barbara to our family. Jim proposed in a white horse drawn carriage in New York City, just a few days before Christmas. What a guy!

Jim and Ken spent one afternoon scuba diving off Fort Lauderdale beach. They both have their scuba certification and try to scuba whenever they can. Joni, Barbara and Chris enjoyed the beach while they were out their in the ocean about 300 feet from shore.

Ken used to live in West Palm Beach and went to see some of his old friends. Jim and Barbara took a side trip to Fort Myers on the west coast to visit Jim’s former boss.

Some old friends of ours, Dale and Carol Heistand from Trophy Club, live a few miles from Joni's parents house. We were able to get together, have lunch and catch up on some news. They love to travel and own an RV also. We hope to get together with them sometime during our visit to Florida.

Our visit to Mom and Dad's was great. We all had a good time. Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed watching all the activity and were glad that everyone was together.

McGibbon Visit

Lakeland, FL: December 19, 2005

On our way to Florida for Christmas, we stopped in Lakeland, Florida for 2 nights. Joni’s best friend from college, Gayle (Hannah) McGibbon, and her husband live there. Joni and Gayle have been able to see each other a few times over the last few years and enjoy every minute they are together.


We parked our motor home in front of their house and plugged in our water and electric. Gayle and Dean offered to give us their bedroom, but since we brought our bed with us, it was easier for us to just stay in the RV.

One evening Joni, Gayle and Gayle’s granddaughter went to see “The Nutcracker”. Joni had never seen it before. We enjoyed our night out, while the guys stayed home and watched football.

One afternoon we toured Lazy Days RV, a huge motor home sales place. Dean sat in the driver’s seat of every motor home we checked out. Seems to us that RVing is in their future.

We told them of our plans for traveling through south Florida for the winter. They seemed to like what they heard and will join us when we go to Key Largo at the end of January. We’re really looking forward to spending more time with them.

Steel Magnolia House - Paul & Karen Reinhart's

Natchitoches, Louisiana: December 12, 2005


Paul and Karen Reinhart are good friends from our Sunday School class at Memorial Baptist Church in Grapevine, Texas. They left a successful real estate business over two years ago and followed their dreams of owning a bed and breakfast house. The dream has turn into a full scale adventure. They purchased the house that was used for the making of the movie Steel Magnolias. Julia Roberts, Sally Fields, Dolly Parton and Shirley McLaine were just a few of the stars performing in the movie.



The garden pictured is where Julia Roberts (Shelby) father shoots birds out of the tree in the wedding scene - which annoys Shirley McLaine (Clairee).

It needed a lot of repairs and work to get it back in shape. Paul and Karen wanted to restore the house back to its original condition and also restore the feel of the house to the movie setup. With a lot of blood, sweat and tears they have done a wonderful job. Business is very good and their B&B is one of the most popular spots in Natchitoches.


We enjoyed our time with Paul and Karen. We were able to update each other on common friends from church and events in our lives. They gave us a complete tour of the Steel Magnolia House and its history. It was great to be with them.

Christmas Musical at Church

December 10-11, 2005

This year our church presented a Living Christmas Tree, for the Christmas season. Being loyal choir members, we wanted very much to be a part of the performance. We stayed “home” for an extra week so that we could be in it, leaving for Florida on the 12th.

A large scaffold in the shape of a Christmas tree was erected in the church parking lot. Can yiy find Delton and Joni in the tree???? It was decorated with lots of lights and color. Spotlights and tree lights were programmed to change and move with the music that we sang. As people came to see our performance, they were greeted by parking lot attendants who directed them as to where to park. Then they were offered hot chocolate and cookies and were told to tune their car radios to a certain channel where they could listen to our music. They could choose to remain in their cars or sit outside and listen.

We had an early freeze this year and were concerned that we would have to move inside, but God gave us warm up just in time. Even so, there were heaters placed under and inside the tree, blowing hot air on the us as we sang. We were not cold.

It was great to be able to in choir again – even for a short time. We have travels around and visited a lot of churches, but there is nothing better than being at your home church and being part of a church family. A good time was had by the choir, band and all who attended.

Twin Coves RV Park

Grapevine, Texas: Fall, 2005

We stayed in the DFW area most of the fall 2005. Since we were spending Thanksgiving with Delton’s family we decided to stay a little longer and sing in our Christmas musical at church.


We stayed at the Twin Coves RV Park on the north side of Grapevine Lake. We were close to Trophy Club and close to Memorial Baptist Church. It is a nice little park with only about 40 camp sites. We had a view of the Grapevine Lake and access to some great hiking trails that went from the park to Grapevine Dam – about 8 miles one way.

Joni continued to ride her bike every morning. The park was a great place to ride. The park is in a very nice area of Flower Mound having homes ranging from $800,000 to $1,000,000. Joni enjoyed riding among the beautiful homes, but it made her wish she had a house again. But, once we got on the rode again, she was fine not having a house.
We just had a little set back for while.

We had a few visitors while we were there, but mostly went to visit our friends at their homes. We spent 4 days with Kandy and Val Franklin in Trophy Club during the NASCAR races. RV parks had filled up early due to the races, so we enjoyed a long weekend with our friends in Trophy Club. We parked in front of their house and Joni said she felt like she lived in Trophy Club again. She was pretty happy about being there. After the races were over, we moved back to Twin Coves Park.

During our stay at Twin Coves, we had a cold front move in. Since the temperatures dipped to about 15 degrees, the park shut the water off. It’s not much fun staying in an RV in cold cold weather without water. Soooo, we called our friends, Mary Jane and Dave Mulaski, who live in Trophy Club. They said we could stay with them until the cold snap was over. Again, Joni was so happy to be in Trophy Club. The Mulaski’s actually live on Joni’s old block (before she married Delton) – Meadowbrook Lane. We spent some of our time there playing bridge and making plans for our Florida trip. The Mulaski’s will be taking their motor home to Florida this winter and we will be spending a bunch of time with them.

Sunday School Party at the Fain's

Southlake, TX: December 11, 2005

Jerry and Charlotte Fain opened their home to our Sunday School Class for lunch. They are gracious hosts and we have enjoyed being at their home on several occasions. Our Sunday School leader is Larry Van Loh and he led us in a time of sharing and giving thanks. After our sharing time we had prayer with specific requests for concerns for family and friends, travel and our troops that are in harms way.

Charlotte prepared a wonderful ham and everyone brought dishes to share. As always, we had more too eat that we needed. This was a departing time for us and we had a great time saying goodbye again to our close church friends.

When you meet friends you always find out a few new things. It was interesting to find out that Jesse Vasquez grew up in Stamford, Texas, which is also Delton’s hometown. Jesse graduated in 1968 and Delton graduated in 1960. They had a great time taking about the Glory Days of Stamford High School football.

Skit at Church

December 6, 2006

During our stay in the DFW area (home), Joni was asked if she would like to be in a skit at church to be performed during the Sunday morning services. She jumped at the chance.

It was called “Body Parts”. It was about a guy named Bob who was a passenger on a plane. He was sitting next to a non believer. Bob wanted to talk to the non believer about Jesus, but was very nervous about it. The skit is about how his body reacted to this situation. Joni was Bob’s BRAIN! Her part was about how Bob’s brain would feel stupid if he were asked a question he couldn’t answer. Each body part had it’s own reason for feeling uncomfortable. The parts were: stomach, hands, brain, bottom, mouth and face.

It was part of a sermon series given by our pastor, Greg Simmons.

Southlake Carroll High School Football

Irving, TX: December 3, 2005

Southlake Carroll High School played Plano in the 5A State Quarterfinals. The game was held at the Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, Texas This was the second playoff game that Delton was able to see of the mighty Dragons. Walt Fenoglio has been the voice of the Dragons for many years and he invited Delton to come to the game. The Carroll Booster Club has been videoing the games for several years and Walt does the play by play. In one of the games Delton helped out with the spotting. The videos are placed on DVD and VCR tapes and sold to Dragon supporters. Proceeds are used to purchase items for the various athletic teams at CHS.


As you can see from the picture there is quite a crew supporting this production. These are dedicated Dragon fans and it’s incredible how much time they spend in producing the game footage. They research their opponents statistics coaches and players and are well prepared to add interesting facts to the play by play coverage. During the game they keep detailed statistics on the game and are prepared to recap this information at any time. The job they do is amazing and it’s equivalent to what you see on any broadcast you get on TV.