Riverside Bible Camp, Fall Refresh

Riverside campers!  These three from our church Lutheran Church of the Cross in Altoona IA.  Robby is hoping that these three go back next year, and the year after as he said it was one of the most fun weekends EVER!  :-)

2017 Wine, Beer and Food Expo

Our friends had tickets to the 2017 Wine Beer and Food Expo and invited us along for the ride. And it was a fun ride, indeed! 

Plenty of new beers to try out and so much laughing that my jaw hurt at the end of the day!

Didn't take any pictures that day, but there were two that were shared:

These three lovelys!

And then there's these three...

Thanksgiving 2017

Well, better late than never, I guess... 

I've fallen (further!!) behind yet again but hopefully with Christmas break coming up, I'll be able to do some catching up.

We'll start the catching up process with a 3 week late Thanksgiving post.  It's the first time in four years that all 5 of us kids were together with our Mom.  There's been a pile of times where a group of four of us make it, but not very often with all five.

So, other than the evening passing WAY too fast, it was a great time with great people and some great food!

My fam!  Back row: Steve, Dianne, Doris, and myself, Ted.  Front row: Vince and my momma, Elaine.

Grandma with all of her grandbabies(!) except Billie Jo, who lives in Tennessee.

Robby and Caleb.

Dave and Shadow the Beast.

Dave's daughter and her boyfriend...  For the LIFE OF ME, I cannot remember their names.  I'm thinking she's Ashley, maybe?

Jake and my niece Leah.

My nephew Tim and his mom, Kathy.

And so it was, hopefully it's not another 4 years until we're all back together again!

6th Annual Installment of Got'cha Day!!!

Some days are just better than others. Wedding anniversary's, kid's birthdays, Christmas, and so on...

Dec. 5th became special to the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit because in 2011, in the city of Changchun, China, we met the AMAZING little boy who was now our Caleb Schmitz!  

He has brought such immense joy to our world and is the embodiment of love.

Caleb, we LOVE YOU and happy Got'cha Day!!

This was 5 years ago today when we finalized the domestic part of our adoption.  What a great day and a fun time watching Robby "testify" to the bench on why Caleb should be in our family!

And the not-so-little little guy just a month or so back!

Hawaii Vaca, Post 15 - Hawai'i Volcanoes Ntnl Park, Pt. 1

So after the Painted Church visit, we piled back into the rental car for our next LONG drive to Volcanoes National Park for what hopefully involves some hiking.  We like hiking and should do more of it.

The boys were nearly fed up with this part of vacation due to the length of the drive.  Robby came in to see me when I had started working on this post, and he said, "Man, I need to realize where I am when we're on vacations like this and to enjoy EVERY moment of them, because they go by fast.  I admit that I didn't enjoy this little adventure as much as I should have just because of the drive...".   He's growing up!

So lets take the first look at what the boy didn't enjoy all that much.

This was merely the parking lot!  It's already beautiful!  We're up on an very mildly active volcano and can see lovely forests and the ocean from our vantage point.  What's not to like about this!?

Another view with similar scenery with the ocean as the distant back-drop.

This was a little visitor center that had a 3d model of the park and also let us know which roads were closed due to volcanic warnings and such.

YES!!!   Have I mentioned that I love volcanoes???   What could possibly make this better?

Ahhhh...  there they are!

Caleb jacking around with Robby's glasses.

This visitors center displays that show various methods of creating the different lava flows that we'll see.

More of the same, only uh...  different.

Scenes like this were amazing from the air on our helicopter tour where you would have two vastly different lava formations side by side.

This stuff is creepy looking!

So that's it for part one.  That was only the visitor center stuff and we have a WHOLE lot more to see!

 

Hawaii Vaca, Post 14 - The Painted Church in South Kona

So, day 6 of our vacation has begun. We were watching tv and it was one of those channels that advertises various stuffs to do while you're in that area.  One of the things that was in the looping advertisements was the painted church.  The church is St. Benedicts Roman Catholic Church and was built in the mid-to-late 1800's.  It had some history to it and a cool back story and best of all, wasn't too far off of the road that we would be on to get to Volcanoes National Park, which was our primary destination for the day.

We decided that we would attempt to find it on our morning drive and by golly, we did.  It's in a very non-touristy area where we were on narrow, curvy roads in which the mature vegetation was so different from anything else that we had seen (or would see!) in Hawaii.  Locals were out in their yards and sometimes on the road, picking fresh fruit that was growing all over the place.  By the time we got back to the church, it was SOOOOO quiet and peaceful, it almost felt like we were doing a bad thing by just being there.  

There was another car or two in the parking lot but there wasn't a person to be seen anywhere.  We looked around for a bit and discovered that the church was open, so we went inside to look at the paintings that the original priest, Father Jean Berchmans Velghe, had done to help teach the Bible at a time when many people couldn't read or write.

I did not take any pictures inside of the church as I didn't feel right about that.  There are a few pics in the links that I provided above to give you an idea of what it looked like.

We did take some pictures outside of the place though, and once again, they simply do not capture the natural beauty of the area!  But hopefully you'll enjoy them anyway.

Not sure what or where this road leads too, but there were some gardens and other things, like crosses, along the path. 

This appeared to be the newer part of the cemetery on the grounds.

The back of the church (the previous two pics were immediately behind where I'm standing for this picture) and a little bit of the garage where a car and lawn mower were stored.

A bit of the garden area and older cemetery (I'm only guessing because of how full it was!) in the front of the church.  Not the loan telephone pole which was along the road we drove in on.  It's hard to tell in this picture, but you can see the ocean from here too!

Another garden/cemetery shot.

And the front of the church with doors open wide to help welcome the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit!  You can just barely see the garage on the very right of the photo where the first pictures were taken.

That was it.  A nice little stop in an area that's so beautiful that I can't describe it properly here!

Off to the volcano!

Rain/schmain! It's Tailgaitin' Time!

Robby and his life-long buddy Noah, on the right of the picture with Noah's dad, Bill in the center showing off his Iowa State Cyclones wear.  They usually take Robby to at least one game per season and this years just happened to be on a cool, damp Saturday morning after weeks of wonderful Fall weather.  Robby didn't care!!  He had another great time.

Mr. Happy Eater

Why does this boy look so crazy-happy in his restaurant shots!? He's cute and I won't take no for an answer...

Hawaii Vaca, Post 13 - Big Island Helicopter Tour, Pt 3

I ended the previous Hawaii post with the comment on the last picture that said, "The last of the valleys before we ascended over one of these ridges and entered what appeared to be flat grasslands for ranching. Who knew?!?", and so, that is where we pick up on the part III of the helicopter tour.

Once over the ridge of the valley (and past a bit of forest, but not much!)  we come to these open pastures.  How do I know they're pastures, you ask?

Because those little, teeny-tiny black speckles you can see milling around that hill in the center of the photo are cows and goats, that's how!  It was crazy how fast the landscape changed.

That same hill from the above photo is the hill in the middle-right of this photo and you can still sort of see the livestock in the center of the picture.

More of the same, but a little more hilly as the landscape is getting rougher.

We're getting closer to the ocean again and you can see the ravines where the water runs down off of the Mauna Kea.

Palihae Gulch running down into Kawaihae.

This is Kawaihae and is only about 5 or 6 miles from Waimea where we had supper at the Big Island Brewhaus on our inaugural evening on the island.  If you go there and you like Belgium style brews, I HIGHLY recommend the Golden Sabbath.  I tried that one, Overboard IPA, Red Giant, Hoptopias IPA, Tall Dark and Mandarin, Starshine Ginger Bier, Monk's Brunch pale ale, The Black Whole stout, Coconut Creme Ale and Mele Maibock.  Oh, and Red Dwarf, a red IPA. But that's it.  We both had flights so there was plenty of sampling going on.  No need to get locked up on your first night...

The coral was beautiful from the air.

Hapuna Beach.

The narrow little town of Puako.

This is the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows.  It seems like we've hit a major resort-type area with piles of golf courses and hotels and yadda, yadda, yadda...

That little cul-de-sac jutting into the water is made up of about 6 or 7 huge mansions including the Toyota Mansion, which is a real thing, it turns out.

That funky circle'ish type building is Ocean Tower at Waikoloa Resort, and the one behind it is Palace Tower Resort.  There are many others as well.

I think that's Kawai Point, but I'm not sure.  It was neat, so it got a picture.

This is a new housing development and the big gray slabs are the plots of land in the old lava flow.  I forget what the pilot said the plots were selling for, but it was astronomical!!!

More of the same but this development was...  uh, further developed.  Note the beautiful green grass (in an old lava flow???) and the swimming pool in that same yard!  I wonder what it cost to have someone come in an excavate a pool in terrain like that?!?

I believe this is Makalawena Beach and I'm sad because this means we are dangerously close to the airport and have to be finished.

That big spread is Cellana, a biotechnology company but that's all I can tell you. There's also Kanaloa Octopus Farm, Kona Cold Lobsters, Natural Energy Laboratory, Ocean Rider Seahorse Farm and Shrimp Improvement Systems Hawaii in that mess.  The stupid airport is just to the left of the pic. 

All good things must end and so it was.

Off we went to get lunch at the Kona Brewing Company and had another sampler of a bunch of beers that aren't available stateside, that I know of anyway.  

Our day wasn't over yet, but one of my favorite parts of the vacation was.