Meet a dear friend of ours as he receives his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University last night:
Termpan Paul Pitakbunkate updated his cover photo.
10 hrs ·
We "adopted" Paul into our family 6 years ago when he was assigned to my cousins son as "campus buddy" in his first year at A&M. Paul is from Thailand; unable to go home that first Christmas Justin brought him home to spend a family Christmas with his family. Since then Paul has become a cherished member of our family spending almost all holidays and school breaks with us. Justin has traveled to Thailand numerous times to spend time with his family and do missionary work. We'll be meeting Paul's entire immediate family this evening as we enjoy a dinner of homemade Thai food and Texas barbecue to celebrate his accomplishment. We're hoping, in a few years, to be celebrating his American citizenship

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But DD and DGD's will be unable to attend. DD surprised the girls this morning...they left at 8:30 for, what they thought, a last minute summer fling at Sea World in San Antonio. But DD headed for Austin.

Redstorm questioned her choice and DD told her they were taking a different route...until she "missed the turnoff" and had to enter the Austin airport complex. Then she announced they were headed for ORLANDO

for a 4 day visit to Universal Studios.

It's been 6 years since we visited Universal and Redstorm had requested a day there during our November trip. DSIL is spending the weekend at the coast, tarpon fishing, and after checking prices on a 4 day stay in a condo on a beach ... in August during a major fishing tournament

... she started researching other short trips. Super, super deal on airline tickets and a "special end of summer" deal by Universal equaled a quick decision to surprise them with one final summer trip. They'll be seeing THIS castle later today...
It was really hard for Mimi to keep this a secret for 3 weeks! They were clueless...one trying to talk her best friend into getting her family to visit their beach house in Galveston; the other making plans with one of her dance buddies to "meet up in San Antonio" Monday! They were VERY surprised when they called me after arriving at the airport!