Charlie and the Y.O. Ranch...

One of the nicest people we've ever met was Charlie Schreiner III. He died a few years ago, but while we lived in Austin, we were fairly close to the Y.O. Ranch, which has been in Charlie's family since the 1800's.

The Y.O. Ranch is huge! Founded by Captain Charles Schreiner in 1852, the ranch has remained in his family for five generations, I'm not even sure how many 1000's of acres it has...

When you went to see Charlie, the distance between the front gate and his house was 9 miles! Our 2 boys had their first experience driving a car at ages 10 and 12, with some of the ranch hands. It was fairly safe, miles of open Texas ranch land...

The ranch raises exotic animals from all over the world. We've lost touch with them now, but his sons are still running it. They hold camps there for kids, and a longhorn cattle drive.

My husband published books for some years, and we did the book on the 100th anniversary of the ranch. We really had fun doing it! Charlie had a 100th year party that was out of a story book! They had kiosks of food prepared and served to the guests from every country represented by the various animals they raised. Probably the highlight was when Charlie rode into the banquet room on a longhorn steer!
Charlie collected everything that pertains to the Early West... as does my hubby. They had many trading and buying and selling sessions through the years. The main room in his house was built around an old bank vault that held his antique guns. Everywhere you looked, antiques were used to decorate the home. Some of them came from us. Take a look at some of these pictures from a magazine feature about the ranch in 1979. This copy he personalized to me, so it's a treasure.

Charlie was a character! He was married 9 times! His personal physician received the invitation to the 9th wedding and called the ranch to say... "I can't make it to the wedding, tell Charlie I'll catch him next time!"...

I think of Charlie III often, both Joe and I miss him... Charlie was generous, kind, had a heart of gold, he was a real Texas gentleman! We were blessed to call him our friend. The Y.O. Ranch is a piece of Texas history that has added a lot of fun and flavor to the life of this city girl!

our fears are our foes...

Psalm 34:4: "I sought the Lord and He heard me, and delivered me from ALL MY FEARS".

From my dad...

"Fears...phobias...anxieties...worries... what a load of NO-NO's.

Fears come in all sizes and shapes and in so many ways. Some have said there are 365 FEAR NOT's in the Bible. That ought to take care of every day in the year. There are so many, because there are so many different kinds.

The Lord wants to deliver us from ALL of them! Don't you love the "all's" of His word? All fears are made for prayer. And for faith. And for answered prayer. He has a Word for every one of them.

For example, it is wonderful how and when and where Jesus spoke His "FEAR NOT's"... not in the comfort of a rocking chair. But on one occasion in a boat, rocked by a storm. And yet Jesus was there at rest - asleep on a pillow... in the same storm where His disciples were scared to death! Jesus said "Why are you fearful Oh you of litle faith?

That's the way it is with many fears... they can come suddenly, especially in some stormy situation. Yes, they come even when Jesus is right there...

Satan instigates some new stormy trial and test with his fear tactics... not because we are AWAY from Christ, but precisely because we are now Christians, His own disciples... with Him and He with us... in the same ship! (call it His 'fellowship') (this was where my dad would smile and we kids would groan at his humor!! :)

Fears are dark. Foreboding. Threatening. Love to work in the dark, often at night. Indeed they come from the realm of satan and his dark kingdom. Before we know it, they can enter our thought life as thieves. They can come as deceivers, like angels of light, getting us to think they are the voice of God. They can be very subtle.

Then we wake up and say "This is NOT God's voice!"... And we REFUSE it in the name of Jesus. We 'resist the devil, and he will flee from us'... We don't FIGHT it... don't FEAR it... we FAITH it. (I peter 5:9)

Just like Jesus... we use God's Word as our sword... "IT IS WRITTEN... IT IS WRITTEN"... (Matt.4, Luke 4)

Fear is a "downer"... wants to get us DOWN, eyes off of Jesus, and down we go - like Peter on the water...

We can believe God to answer when we pray with the psalmist"...

'I sought the lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears'...

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The above post is from the notes and writings of my dad... my 'guest' blogger today! He would be smiling! :)

staying 'heavenly minded'...

There are days when the pull of being too earthly minded seems much more real than the knowledge that heaven is coming!...

Do you ever have that push-and-pull of living on earth, but wanting that heavenly purpose in all that you do?? It's the level of living that I want in my life, but 'so help me hannah'... I can get upside down so quickly! I really WANT to be always mindful of eternity, but the human earthly me gets in my own way more often than I really want to admit!

BUT GOD... and He is the one who steadies my heart and calms my spirit... one more time, and reminds me that He is God, and is holding my whole little world right in His almighty hands! I NEED that knowledge and assurance, every day...

My mom used to say about my dad, he had one foot in heaven and she wanted him to be sure 'he wasn't so heavenly minded that he was of no earthly use'... so she was always pulling 'the other foot' back to earth... I hope you will understand when I tell you that although I am his daughter and have his genes, I have never had that problem!... I saw it in my own dad, he really lived with his eyes on the goal, so did my mom... and more than ever, I have an increasing desire that God is building in my heart, to keep that 'eternal perspective' every day...

"People with their minds set on you, you keep completely whole,
Steady on their feet,because they keep at it and don't quit.
Depend on God and keep at it because in the Lord God you have a sure thing."(Isa.26:3 The Message)

P.S. from Tante Maren...

I received this email from my cousin Solveig on Sunday, following our trip to Norway, and it was too meaningful not to share... (I just wrote about Tante Maren last week, she is my aunt who lived through concentration camp)...

Solveig translates into English:

"Hi, I just phoned mother and translated your blog for her and she wanted me to send you some words. She still have the little "book" of recipes. They were collected in a piece of velvet from some clothing and stiched together with small threads. About bitterness she said that she don't have the genes for becoming bitter. In the c.camp the great fear was to be sent to extinction camps (Arbeit macht frei) and she had at first much anxiety about that. Then some evening in bed she remember she folded her hands and prayed to God to help her in the agony and had an immediate feeling of response and had never thereafter any fear of being sent. And she wasn't sent. She also told the story about one Christmas eve in camp. They had put some white paper on the table and saved some food for the Christmas dinner to share. Then some of the girls that went with the enemy came and mother first reacted on that (as you know the norwegians didn't like that the girls went with the soldiers) but her mother in law (my grandmother) said that these girls were to be pitied and should be treated with some dignity too and invited them to the table. This learned mother to look on a person as a person and an act of doing per se. She also said to me once when I asked her about the treatment of this women after the war, if she felt anger towards them. Mother answered that the people that persecuted this women most, were the ones that were passive or fraternizing themselves during the war. "We who really was in the battle and had to sacrifice security, life and property understood that it is never that simple. You must be able to forgive."

That's my mother."

Love from Maren and me"...

No wonder we all love Tante Maren!

one more look...

I'm really trying to get back to 'life in Texas'... really!

Here is one last glimpse of my Norway...

... truly a 'land that I also love!'...

a wedding in Norway...

This was not a typical wedding!





















My niece, Romy, and her wonderful 'now husband', Mark... wanted a small wedding, and she wanted to be married in Norway, where my mom was born and raised.








That brought a whole bucket of challenges! For 2 Americans to be married in Norway, it must be in a court house with a judge and legal counsel. They found a very special lady lawyer, Sidsel, and the judge was another surprise. Instead of a typical courtroom sentence or 2, he spoke from his heart to the 2 of them, about the commitment and sacredness of marriage... He was a gift!
























Later, about 20 of us, Norwegian cousins and my aunt (Tante Maren)... gathered at Emma's... all I can say is if you ever go to Tromso... you HAVE to eat at Emma's! She is a Norwegian gal who grew up with a mother who loved to cook, and every bite we ate was a delicious gourmet delight! The king and queen of Norway eat at Emma's, and I sure know why...
Mike, my brother in law, opened the dinner with prayer, and after the first course, my brother Dick sang "You Raise Me Up"... After another course, my Tante Maren (she is my mother's youngest sister at 91 years old, and the one I wrote about here, who spent over 2 years in concentration camp during the war)... said she felt she was speaking for my parents who are both in heaven, and she read to the bride and groom and all of us... in Norwegian with animation and joy... First Corinthians 13, and her daughter Solveig, read it again in English... I don't think there was a dry eye... When Tante Maren speaks, it is like talking with a living legend. It was the icing on the cake for the whole day...

And then came the wedding cake with an American flag and a Norwegian flag on top, marzipan icing with white chocolate curls.... raspberry and black walnut layers!!... Is that descriptive enough??

My sister brought a big box to Norway, full of pictures from all of our families down through the years. There was a lot of 'digging' into that box by the cousins, and so much fun to see relatives in pictures from long ago, some gone now, others far away...

These are 2 of my Norwegian cousins, Solveig & Leiv Kare... they came dressed in the traditional Bunad beautiful costumes and jewelry...




















So today... everyone has gone back to their 'real worlds'... and the newly weds have already returned from a trip to Greece...







I am still half way in Norway, but the heat in Texas is quickly bringing me back to reality!

From Norway.... back to Texas!...

This was the view out of my hotel window in Tromso, Norway!

I am still so full of all that I saw and experienced in this most beautiful country...

The midnight sun is real! I think I took this photo at about 1:30 a.m.... we had to pull the heavy drapes across our open windows to darken the room enough to sleep...

Fresh fish... continental cuisine... the sound of Norwegian conversations in the background everywhere we went......

Norwegian aunts, cousins and fun!...

Silky white blond hair on young girls... hair I have frosted and hoped for my whole life... there it was, all around us... but not on me!!

Fishing boats everywhere... water... mountains, even some lingering snow up high...

From beginning to end... a joyful journey... a visitation to the land where my mother was born and raised...

More coming... you aren't going to get by this easily! I do have some pictures, and a few stories to share...