Don Bowen Update: 2008-12-14

In this update: Hannah gets us into Disney, more vacation pics, I meet Brian Urlacher, need prayer for chest pain.

On Wednesday Megan’s good friend Hannah Winek got us Disney park hopper passes, We started at Hollywood Studios where Hannah works and she got us VIP escorted to the Backlot Tour ride. We got to ride right next to her as she gave the tour.

Here is a video on YouTube.

After we hit lots of the rides at Hollywood Studios we headed over to Animal Kingdom. Eileen didn’t join me, Mike and Wendy on the Everest roller coaster. I was worried it might be too much for me, but I liked it – even when it reversed direction. Eileen would have hated it. Then we went on the Safari ride. Somehow Wendy managed to smile despite the fact that she had not won any cards yet.

After the Safari ride we checked out the tigers, which were graceful and beautiful. Then we headed back to Hollywood Studios to catch the Stunt Car show. I put videos of both up on YouTube here. Right before we left, Wendy and I rode on the Tower of Terror. What an incredibly full and fun day.

Thursday we just relaxed at the condo, watched videos and played Hearts. It was a good plan because it rained hard most of the day. Near the end of the first game of Hearts I realized that though Mike and I were playing to win, Eileen was playing so I would lose and Wendy was playing just to beat me. 3 against 1! 🙂 Wendy did win one of the games. I think Eileen helped her.

It seemed that everywhere we went all week people wanted to give us money or tickets to watch a 90-minute presentation, but we resisted. Our condo was great. It actually had four big flat screen TVs, but we rarely split up and usually were at the table playing cards and helping Wendy on her crossword puzzles. Thanks for the condo, Kevin!

On Friday we decided to eat lunch at Chick-Fil-A. We had just watched the Chicago Bears playing the New Orleans Saints the night before in Chicago so when Mike and I saw a very big guy at the table next to us who looked like Brian Urlacher, Chicago’s middle linebacker, we didn’t believe it at first. But it was him, so of course I asked if I could get a picture with him 🙂

No, I did not tell him I am a die-hard Packer fan and he didn’t ask. Hey, Mike is a Bear fan. Close enough 🙂

Thank you all for praying for  me and our vacation. I did pretty well the entire trip and  only had bad headaches on Thursday and Friday nights. Come to think of it, that must be why I didn’t win at cards on those days.

I thought we made it the entire week without incident back on the home front, but on the ride home from the airport Amy called to say she had just been in an accident. Fortunately she and the other driver were fine. Our Toyota didn’t didn’t fare as well.

Rod, start looking for a Honda Civic 🙂

I’ve had a chest pain on the right side all week and it has gotten worse. Please pray that it’s just pleurisy and that it heals quickly so I can sing in our church’s Christmas program. We practice all week and the nine performances start on Friday night. It affects my breathing and causes me to cough, which will make singing, especially in the quartet, a bit tricky. Pray also for my headaches which seem to happen in the evening.

Cal spoke about finding peace today at church and I can honestly say this is the biggest thing I’ve learned this year. When I say learned, I don’t mean that I have it down pat,don’t ever worry and always have peace.  Just that when I worry I know how to obtain peace and I know that when Jesus promises to provide it He means it. Peace is nice when you are worried about a test or getting in trouble for something you deserve to be punished for. It’s important when you are worried about your child picking their mate or losing your job. But it is critical when you fear for your life, your spouse’s or  child’s.

“Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you.”

(2 Thessalonians 3:16)

I need a miracle, God specializes in them, pray BIG!