Monday, November 17, 2008

Preaching and Visiting in Penn Hills

Our first snowfall greeted us on Monday morning.

Saturday and Sunday just flew by... On Saturday we decided to go to the German Marketplace and festival in Harmony, PA. It was a rainy overcast day for the most part. Yet, we got so see some of the craft buildings and we ate at the Harmony Inn. It's a very old building with lots of rooms and the rooms were used for dining. It's the first time I ever went to a restaurant and had to walk up a long flight of stairs to our table. It was a very quiet place. As it turns out the food was okay but the service was below average. Later we walked around the town and found a place called Otto's that was an ice cream shoppe with lots of Christmas items and also a decent menu. We thought we might try it sometime.

On the way home we stopped at a couple of places looking for Christmas lighted garlands for our staircase Bannister. We found several, but haven't chosen one yet.

On Sunday I had to preach in Penn Hills and a nondenominational church. The service lasted about an hour and forty-five minutes so I dropped Dee off at the mall en route (where she met Lisa S. and Kathy N. for breakfast and gabbing. The service I participated in was nice. Lots of singing. They projected the words to the songs on a screen. There were about 8 musicians up front (clarinet, trombone, couple of guitars, drums and keyboard player in addition to two singers). My role was to give a children's talk and the sermon. I thought it went well.

My contact at that church handed me my little burgundy New Testament. It seems I left it at the Penn Hills Baptist Church when I preached there. And the pastor from that church gave it to him to give back to me. (I wondered where that little NT went. I like it because of it's compact size and yet larger print type.) It was good to get it back.

Later I met Dee at the Monroeville Mall with our friend Lisa. Eventually her husband, Dennis, arrived and we had a great visit right there in Barnes and Nobel. Time wore on and it was about 4 pm when we arrived back in Mars. Since I hadn't eaten lunch yet, we stopped at Smokey Bones, had a great dinner and one of the meals along with dessert were free. Aren't coupons the greatest! We also tried a short cut home and found that it was about 7 miles shorter. (We got off the turnpike at Butler interchange (instead of Cranberry), drove up route 8 and turned left at the big Methodist church, then right on Merriman, and left onto the red belt and then right on Babcock, left of Valencia-Mars Road to 228. It sounds confusing, but the latter part is a familiar drive for me as it goes past the Pine Richland Elementary School where my Bogmeister's practice every Monday (and where our Dec. 15 Christmas Show is going to be held.) We finished off the evening watch the Steelers eek out a vistory over the Chargers. GO STEELERS!

It was a blustry snowing day yesterday with no accumuliation. This morning (pictured above) there was snow on grass and cars. None on the streets. It's the first real snowfall of the winter season.

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