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Category: Stanglin Family (Page 4 of 21)

A Moving Weekend

November 15, 2021 / / 0 Comments

We’re finally moved in to our new digs! Stanglin Manor is now firmly established on the very fancy sounding Castleford Road here in Midland. And while we are still very much living out of boxes, and might be for a while, our hearts are full of thanksgiving and love for the kindness and the sweet generosity of our church family at GCR and our new neighbors who are making this transition very easy and a lot of fun. We spent Friday just getting all the boxes into the garage and then all day Saturday getting those boxes to the rightful areas of the house – and attic!

Speaking of Saturday, we were all three thrilled to participate in KWO’s 12th annual Kick for Kenya 10K, 5K, and 1K run that starts and finishes in our parking lot at GCR. More than 400 good people of all ages and athletic stamina ran to raise over $50,000 for KWO’s work in feeding, equipping, and educating 2,700 widows and orphans in Nairobi. KWO just opened their 16th children’s home in Nairobi this past year and GCR is honored by God to be a partner in this great work. I was privileged to help welcome the runners to this important event and to pray over them before the race. And then we just watched and cheered them on. Most of our new friends at GCR rightly assumed I would not be running. But when I was asked a couple of times Saturday morning if I would be walking, I answered, “Yes. I’m walking from my truck to the breakfast burrito table and then back to my truck.”

Sunday morning at GCR we celebrated all God is doing in us and through us in Kenya with pictures and videos and an inspirational story from Tim, who just returned from a two week visit to Nairobi. Callie and Will blessed us with a dynamic reading from Ezekiel 34 in which our God promises to bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. And Iliana brought tears to our eyes and praise from our hearts with her powerful testimony and moving rendition of “Oceans.” A glorious day with our God and his people.

 

 

 

 

 

Then, after lunch, we came back together in the GCR parking lot to pass out food boxes to more than a hundred needy families in Midland through our great partnership with Mission Agape. It was really cool to distribute the Thanksgiving meals and the gift cards and the cookies to each of these deserving families. But the real joy came in praying over these good people and lifting up their specific and personal needs to our Father. What a sacred time that was. What a blessing that our God would deem us capable of acting as priests on behalf of these neighbors in Midland and the surrounding communities.

 

 

 

 

 

The weekend wrapped up last night the way most Sunday nights end at Stanglin Manor. Whitney and I dueled to the death over a hot backgammon board (she beat me 3-2) and I made popcorn. Yes, the first thing cooked in our new kitchen was my popcorn. And, yes, it felt like home.

 

 

 

 

 

Peace,

Allan

Destin-ation Wedding

November 8, 2021 / / 0 Comments

My sister Rhonda’s youngest son, Asa , got married to a beautiful young lady named Addie Saturday night on a beach in Destin, Florida. And I was filled with gratitude and joy to be the one officiating the ceremony. What a great honor to be asked to perform a marriage ceremony – any marriage ceremony! But to be asked by your nephew and his bride is a tremendous honor and privilege I’ll never forget.

I’m still not sure why a guy from Edmond, Oklahoma and a girl from Frisco, Texas have to go all the way to Florida to get married. But we were happy to make the trip. Rhonda rented a massive beach house two blocks from the ocean and we all stayed together for three days and three nights, hitting the beach when it wasn’t too cold, hanging out at the heated pool in the backyard, eating wonderful food, and playing games late into the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had never preached a wedding on the beach before, certainly I’d never done one barefooted. But per Addie’s request, we all shook off our shoes Saturday evening and enjoyed a fabulous ceremony with a marvelous backdrop of an ocean sunset with all the scenery and sounds that go with it.

Addie and Asa, you two do love each other. That’s very clear. People who know you best say you’re proof that opposites attract. But what I see is that you balance each other so well. You really do complement each other so perfectly. You both put the other first. You protect each other and care for each other. You both have a sense of purpose together and you’re focused. You both love our Lord and are committed to his people. And I am just beside myself with anticipation over what God is going to do in you and through you together to his glory and praise.

Thank you for asking me to marry you two this weekend. I can’t describe how honored I feel. Be assured that I, and everyone on both sides of our families, will move heaven and earth to help you and support you and love you for as long as we live.

May the grace of God bless your marriage relationship and all your relationships. May the love of Christ crown your marriage with increasing joy and peace. And may the power of the Holy Spirit unite your hearts and your lives together forever.

Peace,

Allan

Sisters, Showers, and Sandy Cheeks

September 27, 2021 / / 0 Comments

The loving and generous folks here at GCR yesterday threw a “shower” for Whitney as she prepares to move into her own wing of our new house. It was borderline obscene – the amount of furniture, appliances, towels, dishes, and gift cards she received. Wow. Overwhelming. It took all of Carrie-Anne’s car and the entire bed of my truck to get everything home. Just another example of the way we are being loved and blessed by our new church family. The way GCR is taking care of Whitney is an answer to our prayers and a gracious gift from our God.

Both of Whitney’s sisters came out of Oklahoma exile for the event, driving down from Tulsa and Edmond and arriving late Friday afternoon. We made up Whitney’s bed with Valerie and Carley inside, under the sheets and blankets and pillows, so that when Whitney got home from work and went to her room, they popped out as a big surprise. (We would have it on video, except, I was the one in charge of that part.) It was the first time we’d seen these two since the first week of July so, needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed all the catching up, all the food (Blue Sky, Carrie-Anne’s fried chicken), the laughs, the stories, and worshiping together for the first time at GCR.

We also did the one-hour drive down to the sand dunes in Monahans on Saturday and tried our best to climb up and slide down the biggest hills, with varying levels of success and frustration. The attendant at the check-in station was exaggerating when she said purchasing and rubbing a two-dollar lump of wax on the bottom of our sleds would give us the “Griswold Effect.” It didn’t. The “Loose Sand” signs along the roads in the state part, I think, refer to your vehicle’s floor mats. Forever. And the inside of one’s shorts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, a truly wonderful weekend. Carrie-Anne and I both feel so grateful to God for our fabulous daughters, for the love we share together in our family, and for the community of faith he’s moved us to in Midland.

Peace,

Allan

Home in Midland

August 30, 2021 / / 0 Comments

We closed on the house here in Midland late Friday, a wonderfully beautiful home with a lot of personality and character in the Saddle Club subdivision on the northeast side of town. The timing was so perfect in acquiring this house – the previous owners had just been transferred to Houston when we saw it and their company had purchased it from them and was wanting to get it off their books quickly. We feel like if we had seen it just a day later it would have been gone. And it’s perfect for us! So perfect!

 

 

 

 

 

The layout allows for Whitney to have her own wing in the house with a bedroom, bathroom, den, and exterior access to a private patio. The rest of the house is an open plan with plenty of room for entertaining. The game room is big enough to handle the ping pong table and all our Dr Pepper stuff. And the lot is surrounded by older oak trees and massive pines.

What else comes with a house built in 1981 is the need for updating. I’ve spent several hours over the weekend scraping popcorn off the ceilings while Carrie-Anne and Whitney have been removing cabinet door handles and light switch plates for the texturing and painting that’s about to take place. Thanks to Mike Rupe who showed up unannounced yesterday to help scrape for three hours and to Gary Glasscock who’s helping us coordinate all the updating.

We feel very blessed by God and by this community of faith at GCR in Midland to be in possession of such a house. We feel very grateful. Once we get in for good, may the house be used to bless the church and for glorifying God. Until then, may we be blessed with resilient muscles, determined patience, and contractors who show up on time.

Peace,

Allan

Moving Week

July 14, 2021 / / 0 Comments

We moved our youngest daughter Carley into her on-campus apartment for her Senior Year at Oklahoma Christian University yesterday. For reasons I’ll never understand, she continues to insist on third floor apartments. I think she wants to be the one disturbing the people below with her noise, not the one being disturbed. So, for one last time, we hauled the couch and all those heavy tubs up three flights of stairs in Edmond’s July heat.

The moving ritual is well established for us. I assemble everything that needs assembling, perform a minor plumbing task, and hang stuff on the walls while Carrie-Anne directs the cleaning and installs the shelf paper. Of course, my sister Rhonda met us for lunch for delicious cheeseburgers at The Garage. And we took Carley to the grocery store to load up her fridge and pantry.

Valerie made the drive down from Tulsa to join the moving festivities. And we delivered to her the top of her wedding cake that’s been in the back of our freezer since July 24 last year. We’ve told her that she and David have to eat some of their wedding cake on their one year anniversary for good luck or something. She didn’t seem that thrilled. Maybe she doesn’t think a Sugar Momma’s cake from LeeAnn Clark will be as good a year later.

Our movers are arriving tomorrow, packing the trucks, and meeting us in our temporary house in Midland on Friday. Today is a day for tying up all the loose ends here in Amarillo: notifying the utility companies of our move, sending the change of address notifications, cancelling the memberships, mowing the yard for the very last time, and trying to find the keys to the front door for the new owners.

Peace,

Allan

Ranger Hangar

July 12, 2021 / / 1 Comment

It’s not really baseball if it’s played inside a dome.

The girls and I took a quick five day vacation to a couple of our favorite places in Texas last week, wrapping it up with our first visit to the Rangers new ballpark in Arlington – the hideous dome they built to replace the most beautiful stadium in the state. It’s an awful thing. It looks like a massive airplane hangar. It looks like a gargantuan temporary metal building somebody erected over a weekend so they could sell knockoff Nikes or bootleg T-shirts. Situated directly across the street from the gorgeous Ballpark in Arlington, the contrast between the two venues is striking. And terribly sad.

Yes, the seats are cushioned in the new place and, unlike with Jerry’s Death Star next door, they’re all a bit closer to the on-field action. And it’s cooler, of course. It was 94-degrees outside and 70-degrees inside. I wasn’t sweating. Carley reported feeling a bit chilly. Yes, it was very, very comfortable. But it didn’t feel like a baseball game. Walking around the concourse felt more like getting ready for a hockey or basketball game, or a concert, not a baseball game. Aren’t you supposed to be sweating your lips off at a Rangers game? Isn’t that part of what makes the Lemon Chill so great?

And no fireworks. It was a Friday night game, but you can’t do fireworks indoors.

But they still do the wave. I was hoping the new stadium would be wave-less. It’s not. New stadium, same wave-happy fans.

It turned out to be a really fun night. Before the game, I had the great joy of introducing Whitney to longtime Rangers Public Address Announcer Chuck Morgan. The inventor of the dot race. The voice of Arlington Stadium, the Ballpark, and now this Ranger Hangar. We met him in his PA booth right behind home plate and he autographed Whitney’s hat with his famous, “It’s baseball time in Texas!”

The Rangers went hitless through five innings but then scored three runs in an explosive sixth inning to beat the A’s 3-2. A good, clean, well-played baseball game. In a dome.

And they didn’t play Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “If the House is a-Rockin'” after the final out. I was puzzled by that. We lose the song but we keep the wave? Who made that call?

The rationale offered to the public for this abomination has been two-fold: that the summer heat wears the team out so they’re not as strong down the stretch of a baseball season and that more people will attend Rangers games if it’s more comfortable. These are loser arguments from a loser mentality. It’s so disappointing. My response continues to be 1) a winning organization uses the local weather to its benefit. You don’t see the Chicago Bears or the Green Bay Packers putting roofs on their stadiums. They wear short sleeves in sub-freezing blizzards and intimidate the opponent. The weather is part of the home field advantage for an outfit with a winner’s mindset. And 2) it’s not the weather keeping fans away, it’s the inferior on-field product. When the Rangers are winning the division and contending for the pennant, the stadium is packed even in 100-degree heat, even in 88% humidity. I don’t care how cool it is inside the dome, nobody’s coming to watch a last place team.

Peace,

Allan

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