Well, we've sure had a busy spring and summer! The week after Easter, Gaye took Dan to a concert by the Atlanta Symphony, with a program of J.S. Bach (Dan's very favorite classical composer). In June, we all went to a festival in Fort Valley (Peach County) GA, where we got a free serving of The World's Largest Peach Cobbler.

Our summer highlight was Dan's & Gaye's mission trip to Mexico! We went with 5 others from our church to a small Christian girls' orphanage in Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico (just south of Tijuana). Most of our time there was spent building and fixing up buildings for the school that the orphanage staff runs – for their own girls, as well as the surrounding community. We came back VERY tired and sore...and it was ABSOLUTELY worth it! (Click here for photos and more of the story!)

Oh, and we now have a pool! We bought a little backyard pool at Wal-mart – it's about 8 feet across and 30 inches deep – but it sure was fun through the summer on hot days! We like to get cold drinks and snacks, play some tunes on the boom box, light tiki torches, and consider it a luau!

Dan, Gaye, and Anne went TWICE to Asheville, NC! Once was in July, to visit Dan's brother Robin, who was teaching at the Swannanoa Gathering, an annual music "camp" event. The other was in September, to visit Gaye's mom for her birthday, along with Gaye's brother Leigh and his wife Miki...we visited the Biltmore mansion and had a very nice dinner out together. (Photos coming soon...)

And, the kitties are finally getting along better. Our new baby, Stryper (our Maine Coon) spends most of her time outside, coming in to eat (and occasionally spend the night), and Purrty stays inside more often. They don't growl much at each other any more, and have learned to eat side by side! (Back to top)

Dan has been doing a lot of target shooting lately – most notably with his brother Robin, at an outdoor range near Asheville NC (which satisfied a desire Dan had had for a long time). Robin did great! Dan also took Anne and her boyfriend once, went shooting with a former co-worker and his sons, and then on Father's Day, he was invited by a friend to a private range where he got to shoot a WWII M1 Garand rifle!

To add to the shooting fun, Dan bought two new handguns recently: a Ruger .357 revolver and a Hi-Point .45 caliber semi-automatic. (Click here to see them and to read more about them!) The .45 was bought at a local gun show, that the whole family went to (and had fun at!)

Dan is interested by the fact that the U.S. Air Force is 65 years old now (as of Sep 2012)...when he first joined Air Force ROTC in 1980, the Air Force was 33 years old; when he retired from active duty in 2004, the USAF was 57; and now he's been an Air Force contractor for eight years...so Dan has been officially associated with the Air Force for 32 years of its 65-year history...nearly half! As the kids say, "Hey, Dad...you're old!"

And speaking of which...Dan WAS looking for a job again...but the Air Force restored funding for his contract through February 2014! Praise the Lord! It's the best thing for the program, and the taxpayers, too, because nearly all the institutional memory on our program is in the contractor staff, so they need us.

Dan has developed a taste for coffee, and likes taking Gaye to the local coffee shop (called the Bare Bulb) on occasional evenings!

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Gaye has been doing an awful lot, too...from building a homemade Barbie bed for a six-year old friend, to serving in the nursery at church (to get her baby fix, dontcha know), to driving Allen and his friends to each others' houses for summer overnights, to working out with Anne (they've been doing a video workout called the Shred...), to getting up early with Dan for morning devotionals (and sometimes sunrise photographs), to practicing music with her friend Amanda (a flautist) for an upcoming ladies' ministry event, to leading worship for a ladies' tea and an overnight retreat, to hosting old friends (like Ashley Tucker, Betsy's daughter, who visited us with her new husband!), to visiting the local coffee shop with Dan, or with other friends...she's been busy! (Yes, Dan knows he just wrote a huge run-on sentence...but life does feel like a run-on sentence sometimes!)

She and Dan took a couple of days for a marriage retreat at Callaway Gardens (a VERY nice place to visit, by the way), and the two of them got some time away by themselves! (and did some geocaching, too...)

She likes meeting Dan for lunch at a picnic table in a secluded spot by a small lake on Robins Air Force Base! She calls it "our secret place!"

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Anne is now nineteen, and she has a boyfriend! (A fine young gentleman named Jordan.) She took classes over the summer at her college (Macon State College)...as did Jordan, for that matter.

She took a trip in August – by herself – to visit her friend Jenny in Florida! (She's now a very experienced Interstate driver!). She had really wanted to go on the Mexico mission trip, but got sick (something viral...maybe mononucleosis), and we all agreed it was better for her to stay home and rest (and not infect a bunch of Mexican orphans). Allen helped take care of her while Mom & Dad were gone!

She's been joining Dad & Mom when they go to work out at the base gym a couple of times a week over Dad's lunch hour.

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Allen celebrated his 17th birthday with a day trip to the Wild Adventures theme park, in Valdosta GA, with a group of friends. Dad, Mom, and Anne and her boyfriend went too. We all had a great time–even when it poured rain for about 15 minutes just as we were leaving. He's spent some of his summer working for a friend who started up a lawn-mowing business. He also went with Mom & Dad to a Jazz & Spaghetti event, where a local jazz big band played while we ate.

Allen's ALMOST done with his driver training–it's likely that by the time you read this he'll be a licensed driver!

He likes to have lunch with Dad (we do it about every two weeks) at the local Chinese buffet restaurant – yummy! (Or, as the kids say these days, num num num...)

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Please pray for our family, as we all continually work to become the authentic individuals God wants us to be.

And, please, WHATEVER your political persuasion, as the elections approach, pray that God's will be done, and that many will turn to him, put their faith in Jesus, and be saved. It sure looks to us like the end times may be upon us...are you ready?

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Dan likes this web site format, and it seems to work o.k. It's based on a template we got free from someone else (hence the attribution at the bottom of the page), and modified to our liking, as permitted under his terms of use. Dan, as much as he likes hand-coding (yeah, right) couldn't do something this nice by himself.

The artistic photo pages, however, are still entirely Dan's design, for now at least, so maybe he hasn't totally abandoned the craft of manually writing web pages...

The "NIV" in our Scripture quotes stands for New International Version. The copyright requires that notation, as well as the following statement: "Scripture quoted from the Holy Bible, New International Version (R). Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of International Bible Society."

Similarly, "NKJV" stands for New King James Version, and its use requires acknowledgment as follows: "Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved."

KJV, of course, means King James Version, which, having been written in 1611, is public domain.

(Hey, I thought of putting in a FAQ section -- you know, Frequently Asked Questions -- but no one ever asks any questions about the site!)

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