[sandman]

Played your church tonight out at Collins Park and was wondering if you were there?

btw, have a bid in on a house in Prestonwood Forest, so God willing we will be moving up to your neck of the woods.

[Hold My Own]

on that note, have you guys ever played at the big league dreams park???

I saw that on Softball 360 and it was unreal, I'd give anything to play there

[sandman]

on that note, have you guys ever played at the big league dreams park???

I saw that on Softball 360 and it was unreal, I'd give anything to play there

Heard of it but have never been down there. It is about 50 miles on the other side of town and quite frankly, our church team is not that good. Don't want to travel 50 miles to get beat. I can save the gas and only travel 5!

[Sly Fox]

No, I don't play on the softball team because of my crazy work schedule. But the coach and half the players are from my Sunday School class.

As for Prestonwood Forest, we really liked that neighborhood and that was one of the places we focused on buying a house ourselves four years ago. We wound up buying next to Champion Forest Baptist (which still is looking for a new pastor coincidentally). You may or may not realize that your church used to be located across the street from Prestonwood Forest and was callexc Prestonwood Baptist before they bought Champion Forest Baptist's old facilities.

Big League Dreams cost about $27 million to build and it is located 2-3 minutes away from my parents house. I've not been inside the place (no reason to as of yet) but it looks impressive from the Gulf Freeway. We've covered quite a few events down there.

[sandman]

Yes, I knew that we were once Prestonwood. I had friends in college that were from his church. That facility is now owned by Grace Bible, right?

Wanted to stay in Cy-Far, get into an established neighborhood, not be subject to as much re-zoning as we are out on the Cy-Springs side of the district and get closer to the church and friends. Took one drive through PF and decided that was where we wanted. Unfortunately, houses stay on the market a very short time. We looked at the perfect house only a few days after it went on the market and the best that we could get in was the backup offer.

Hey, is the pastor at FOTW related to the former pastor at CFBC? Noticed they had the same last name. We had Dr. Cobb from CFBC come speak about a month ago and he said they were still looking.

My wife's family is coming in next week from Wyoming, and we are going to take them down to the beach at Galveston. I'll check out Big League Dreams on the way down there.

[Sly Fox]

Prestonwood Forest still has one of the best neighborhood Christmas displays int he country. It always used to have the largest but some neighborhood has since passed them up. Its a holiday tradition for the Sly Fox family to spend an evening driving through there.

Yes, the pastor of the Fellowship of the Woodlands (kerry Shook) is the son of the retiring pastor of Champion Forest Baptist (Damon Shook). The FOTW now runs around 12-15k a week and is one of the largest churches in the SBC. Champion Forest runs around 10k at last check. But the two churches have COMPLETELY different worship philiosphies. The younger Shook took Ed Young Jr.'s format while CFBC reminds me of old school Thomas Road (they even have a Sounds of Liberty-style singing group). It seems there is a megachurch on nearly every corner down here.

To get to the ballpark complex, take the FM 518 exit for League City heading southbound and stay on the access road. Its about halfway down to the 646 overpass (the road to my Dad's church). They actually had to scale back the number of ballparks they built due to cost overruns. But it is still rather impressive.

As for Galveston, we tried to make it down last week but my workload buried me. We'll be heading down in two weeks to Stewart Beach. We'll probably head to Marios on the Seawll for lunch. They have a fantastic yet reasonably priced Italian lunch buffet. Galveston gets a bad rap, but I thoproughly enjoy heading down there these days. WE plan on hitting the new Schlitterbahn there later this summer wants the hype starts to wear off.

[sandman]

Never visited CFBC, but I didn't envision it as being a "classic" style church. Maybe it was just the look fo their new facility. FOTW is definitely contemporary. Probably a bit much for me as I have not completely shaken off my old IFB shackles and see some of it as entertainment more than church. But that is why we have such wide variety of styles, right? Find the place that fits us best.

Yes, I was really surprised when we moved here and saw the plethora of BIG Baptist churches. Not like San Antonio where everyone seemed like they were Catholic.

Thanks for the tip on Mario's. Always looking for good places to eat like a good Baptist. I grew up going to Corpus, so the beaches as Galveston look "normal" to me. We lived in SC for three years, and let me tell you that the Grand Strand had some nice beaches. That was the only thing that I missed when we finally were able to get back to Texas.

[Sly Fox]

We have a number of Coastal Carolina posters ont his board and they all are glad to extoll the virtues pf their beaches. I admit I haven't been there since I left LU in the Late '80s.

I spent six years working in Corpus and the beaches down there are much nicer in general. But the seawall has improved by leaps & bounds since Tillman Fertitta starting buying it all up. La Cosa Nostra or whatever, the man knows how to put on a great show (one visit to Kemah proves that).

[sandman]

btw, every time I see your avatar I feel like screaming "Swiper! No Swiping!"

[Sly Fox]

Awww, man!

[jack_sparrow81]

One thing suprising about Corpus beaches (Mustang Island area, not the bay) is that there wern't many condos and hotels and the tourist trap shops lining all up and down the beach. There were a couple of hotels heading north towards Aransas. Does the city prevent this or there just isn't as much interest out there in developing?

[Sly Fox]

There are a few environmental issues, but if you have the money you can build along that coast. There are developments from Port A all the way down to JP Luby Surf Park. But there just hasn't been the big investment money there like there was down on South Padre Island. Padre Island there in Corpus just never has seen the rush for investment that most coastal communities have enjoyed. Frankly, it makes for more secluded beaches and less traffic. Not a bad combination in my opinion. The City of Corpus really doesn't have much say out on the islands. Its primarily Travis County domain.

This thread obviously is of little interest to the vast majority of this board. But hey, there are a couple of us who enjoy talking Texan. You Pennsylvanians can chat it up in your own thread.

[sandman]

Took the family from Wyoming down to the island to see the "ocean". They were so excited that I didn't get into the whole "gulf" thing.

We did Mario's - good recommendation. 9 of us ate for $75 and it was delicious.

Also went by the ballpark, which looked fairly impressive from the outside. Maybe one day will get to play there.

[Sly Fox]

Glad you enjoyed Marios on the Seawall. They have several locations on the island but I stumbled across it a few years back while my Mom was being treated at UTMB following a heart attack. We've been going back regularly ever since. When we want to go upscale we hit Gaido's for the best seafood on the Texas Gulf Coast.

We'll be down there in a week and a half as we go to the Festival at my Dad's church that he is running on a Saturday instead of traditional VBS. He's having an illusionist come in and running a big one-day carnival. So we're going to work in Galveston into a couple days down that direction.