A Christmas Waltz

"Christmas lights up the city...

If everyday could be Christmas, what a wonderful

world it would be. We could carry this feeling within

us all through the year."

Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil

"It is hard for us to get any feel for the size of things down here. A domestic example: what is for us a flower, our nice red Christmastime poinsettias, which we buy in pots, are here trees, small trees for here, only about twenty to thirty feet high. "---John Robert Ross---

The Advent Wreath is a custom that originated in Eastern Germany. Wreaths are round as a symbol of God's eternity and mercy, of which every season of Advent is a new reminder; and are made of evergreens to symbolize God's "ever-lastingness" and our immortality. Green is also the Church's color of hope and new life. Four candles, three purple and one pink, are placed within to represent the four weeks of advent. Purple reminds us to turn our hearts toward God; pink is a color of joy. The last candle, the white one, is lighted December 25th to represent the birth of Christ. Wreaths are an ancient symbol of victory and symbolize the "fulfillment of time" in the coming of Christ and the glory of His birth.

Because it's Sunday...

"And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." Luke 2:1

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Only 31 more days!!

It's Turkey time!!

Have a blessed day!

I have my feet on the ground and my eyes on the stars!

What a good life!

Just monkeying around in Manaus!

"But Time was dumb within that mansion old,

Or left his tale to the heraldic banners

That hung from the corroded walls,

and told of former men and manners."

---Thomas Hood---

Because it's Sunday...

You know you're in the South when...

"My Heroes have always been cowboys..."

"If you smile at someone, they might smile back."

Through the water

Little General

"A gray eye is a sly eye, And roguish is a brown one; Turn full upon me thy eye,-- Ah, how its wavelets drown one! A blue eye is a true eye; Mysterious is a dark one, Which flashes like a spark-sun! A black eye is the best one." William R. Alger

It's Falling...

Because it's Sunday...

"I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth." Genesis 9:13

Painted Waters

It's coming...

It's Christmas in Opryland

"Old man river, that old man river,

He dont say nothin, but he must know somethin

That old man river, he just keeps rolling along."

Happy Birthday Jennifer!

So glad to be spending it with you this year!

" Anything can happen on the way to Nashville..."

---dmb---

This time last year...

Wish I was there...

Because it's Sunday...

For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.

Psalm 61:3

When my Baby smiles at me I go to Rio...

"There were voices down the corridor, thought I heard them say..."

"Such a lovely place, such a lovely place..."

I Heard the old, old men say,
"Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away."
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
"All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters."
William Butler Yeats

It's nothing but a memory now...

Ear's lookin' at you kid...