Love, Faith, Peace and Joy

 BEAUTIFUL 

 ADORABLE

 CUTE!

ELEGANT!

and … CREEEPY

That is how you can describe some of the lights we saw in Brownsville, Tx.  this Christmas.

Remember the old-fashioned lights from yesteryear? Well, this is them on steroids.

 Lit up, they looked beautiful.

This was the side of somebody’s garage and their front window.

 This was a very large Nativity scene.

This trailer parked in front of a house made us wonder how they made the money to pay for their fancy country club house.

 It was nice to see the ones who went all out.

This Santa with the reindeer in mid-flight looked cool.

This was a garden in someone’s back yard.

 

This tiny ladder caught my eye.

 These tiny creatures climbing a ladder to the roof had to have been the most adorable decorations I saw.

 Some houses looked spectacular in just plain white lights.

 

While others jazzed it up a bit with bright colors.

 This house lit up one corner on Boca Chica Blvd.

  This house was beautifully decorated.

 

The girls put the reindeer’s size into perspective when they stood by it.

 

This was the sight I longed to show them: Christmas lights reflected off a resaca’s surface. A resaca is the kind of bodies of water we have down here in this tropical area.

 

We live in a tropical area so seeing a decorated palm tree was nice. This one was 40 feet tall. They had to have thrown the ornaments up there because they were waaaay up there.

 

This was a regular tree but the lights created the illusion of a palm tree.

 

 These girls were pooped and tried to sleep on the way back to Port Isabel.

 

 Tried to, anyway. 

The night I took this picture was the night the father of these beautiful twins was injured in a horrific 30-foot fall. His back was broken and he is paralyzed. Please pray for him, these girls and their mom and brother. If you can contribute to the fund that was set up to help them with the incredible blow that has befallen them, please donate whatever amount you can to the : “William A. Plouffe Fund” at Lone Star National Bank – gift account 2905004843. He is in critical condition and the family needs your help badly. If you and 99 other people give just $5.00 that would be worth a million to us. These girls are only 13 and their world has been rocked by this tragedy. Their daddy was the major breadwinner and now Mom has taken a leave of absence from her Walmart job to be by his side. There is no other income but what is donated out of the goodness of people’s hearts. Please help them for as time passes, people’s interest will wane but their dad’s condition will stay very, very serious. Thank you for your kindness and know that we appreciate everyone’s prayers. May God bless you and your family as well as the family of these beautiful girls who brighten up a room like a ray of sunshine when they enter it. Have a blessed Christmas.

The Fog

This afternoon I felt so lucky for living near South Padre Island at the southernmost tip of Texas because I had heard of the incredibly amazing low temps around the nation and here the sun was out and the temps were trying to climb up to their usual balmy selves.

The water in the bay looked like a mercurial mirror.

Then a very thick fog rolled in quickly and caught us all by surprise.

It reminded me of how stupid horror movies always add some military-related accident that is the cause of all the mayhem and blood-slinging.

The mist, the fog, all the eerie lights glowing through the mist made for a spooky evening so I hightailed it home. To see how cool the island is all the other time click here.

Cold Front

 Though South Padre Island is certainly paradise,  we are not impervious to cold fronts that have devastated the rest of the United States.

 We got a cold front yesterday that had the fishermen hightailing it out of the bay.

You could literally see the bad weather pushing away the good weather.

I rode my bike, as I had been bicycling and enjoying the beautiful weather before this came in, down to the end of the street to see the beautiful weather that we are so accustomed to be completely pushed out of the picture, literally.

The temperature has PLUMMETTED to a deadly 50 degrees and will be right back up to 85  by this weekend. Why aren’t you here? I spoke to a man who said the wind chill in Iowa was -35 yesterday. I said, “Why aren’t you here?” He said, “I don’t know.” (They are waiting for a grandchild to be born then they are coming to paradise.) If you are in a place that is colder than 50 degrees, you need to consider coming down to South Padre Island on the southernmost tip of Texas where the beach is beautiful, the food is great, things are affordable and life is good. The island gets many visitors in January and February due to the horrible cold weather that is freezing the rest of the nation. To find out more about this wonderful area click here.