Lai Sees the Island, "Hallelujah"; Mark
- Feb 22
- 12 min read
Updated: Feb 22
I remember seeing a billboard in the late 1990s around where we lived near Austin, Texas. On that billboard was a place called "The Island on Lake Travis." I FELL IN LOVE immediately, hard and fast. THEN I was SO disappointed because it was a retirement community for rich people. Retirement community. Aooohhhooh SHOOT. I really really LOVED it. Drat. The Island on Lake Travis is a 14 acre literal ISLAND that was built on one of our big rivers that lead into downtown Austin, and it is called Lake Travis. I think that's how that works, it's a river. So, back in the 1990s they had taken this 14 acre island and put the most beautiful, huge, intimidating, glorious GUARD GATE up with electronic gates with secret codes and Security Guards that stayed in the Security room, there at the massive entry point. If you had paid your dues and were allowed access to this glorious island, who's even ever heard of that level of luxury, my goodness, THEN after the Security Guards and gate had approved you you were allowed entry. The massive high, strong double gates would electronically open and you could drive in. They locked firmly behind you. But magic opened to in front of you. For then, you were allowed to drive over a very long and very stunning entry road with the lake made from the river flowing by in the far distance on each side of you. It was truly magical. THEN, as you approached the fortress of beauty style castle style private residences, condominiums, three stories worth, three sections worth, directly at the end of this long lake surrounded, island entry drive you gasped and looked in wonder at all the tame deer. Deer gazed at you with their little fawns and the big ones with antlers, quietly grazing on the island grass. Next, you entered a cavernous underground system of parking. Each parking spot was carefully guarded, this was an island after all, with limited parking tucked out of sight to preserve the glorious view. You slowly drove by about 200 parking spots with signs that you better park in YOUR reserved spot and NOT anyone elses until you found YOUR numbered spot. Then you parked. Then, there were big steel rolling luggage carts at your convenience. You put your groceries or your suitcases or your whatever you had to carry to your King and Queen and Prince and Princesses OWN unit. Then you read signs. There were 3 sections. Your parking spot was in the section closest to your elevator. Yes, elevator. Not just any old elevator, either, a glorious gold encrusted glassed elevator. You took your luggage cart to your elevator, got in, it fit nicely, and pushed the button for your floor. Three floors. Then the door magically closed behind you and in front of you was a wall of glass and you saw the entire glory of Lake Travis flowing by in front of you as you and your luggage were transported into pure luxury. You gasped and caught your breath, stunned at the beauty, the nature, the river, the castle type grounds, the pools, the glorious swimming pools, one on each end of the complex, one with rounded corners and one with angled corners. I loved the one with the rounded corners. Lai learned to swim there, her mom finally let me put her in the pool and start teaching her at the age of 3 months. At the age of 4 months we, Lai on my lap and I, sat on the heavenly pier that stretched out over the lake from the complex. Sitting beside us, that day, was one of the most honored and decorated, Hollywood Hall of Fame, Stuntmen in the history of the entire industry, Mark DeAllesandro. I was holding baby Laileigh, whom I pretty much hadn't put down for the past 4 months, and for whom I had chosen to live at the Island, just her mom and me, so she would be born into the Island on Lake Travis magical lifestyle and atmosphere. Why? Because Lai was our crown, our best of a several generations of best long line of achievers and knock-them-senseless level of achievers in our family line. I wanted her to be born into this world, so she was. Lai was on my lap. The stuntman god of all gods, Sylvester Stallone's Rambo, Rocky and thirty year career of all of Sly's mega-movies, was sitting beside me on that bench on that pier. How had this happened?
Gigi to Angel on the phone: "I was just doing my exercises today, I wasn't thinking about you AT ALL and out of the blue the Holy Spirit tells me, "Take Angel with you tonight." So she had. She had taken me to her "Dinner with Dreamers" private dinner of under 20 people being held for the movers and shakers of the film industry, at a fancy restaurant in Austin. There, I had told my Chapelgate story. There, Mark DeAlessandro had heard me. There, we became life-long forever friends because he decided we would. Mark came into my world. Mark came into Laileigh's world.
When I moved back to Austin in 2010 from the 12 years I had spent in Orlando, where I had chosen to move to and live while I raised my 4 children, well the oldest was already entering college at Abilene Christian, as our fourth generational family representative, I had remembered that billboard I had seen before I moved to Orlando. So, I had tracked it down. NOW it was no longer a retirement community. NOW the townhouses could be individually purchased, rented, or blended together as a unit you owned and used but you could also rent out for extra income. FINALLY!!!!!! I could GO THERE!!!! And the doors had magically opened as I knocked. I lived there with my youngest daughter, Skye, whom I had brought with me from Orlando, and my Classic Rock bass playing Singer/Songwriter boyfriend I had spent a decade with in the music circles of Central Florida. I brought them both with me from Orlando. Now, it was move back to my family time, we had moved here from Tennessee when I went to Abilene Christian College, after graduation from High School. Mom and Dad and our family had also picked up stakes and moved, me to Abilene, and them to Austin. Dad had founded our electronics manufacturing corporation which they then ran and developed for the next 45 years until 4 years ago. For 45 years Dad had a wood and gold desk weight in the center-front of his big executive desk with the walls of windows that looked out over the Central Texas hills. It was read by every business contact that entered his office and sat down in front of his massive desk to his gentle and keenly intelligent, Texas manners and ways, that THIS territory they had just entered was Dedicated to God. Just like I had dedicated Chapelgate to God with a big 4 ft. by 6 ft. wooden handmade sign Robin and I built ourselves. THIS is OUR home (it looked like a State Park) with the Gristmill sitting on the edge of the Millpond, you couldn't see our extinct log - American Chestnut - and stone two-story 5,000 sq. ft. mansion, it was tucked up hidden in the never-ever cut forest on a 200 ft. high cliff, so it could overlook the Gristmill and the millpond. So it needed a sign. We created a sign that THIS was NOT a State Park, essentially, THIS was OUR HOME. Stay out. We had 39.5 acres that Robin had bought for me, with 20,000 sq. ft. of historical buildings, centered around our Grist Mill, massive concrete dam, and Lodge home. I intended for it to be PRIVATE. We had made it so. THIS Garden of Eden belonged to GOD. We wrote it on our sign.
Back to Austin. SO, when I moved back in 2010 the man I considered to be the best musician, Classic Rock/Metal bass player Singer/Songwriter (oh he could write and compose and play all the instruments and create his masterpieces in our home studio we'd built) in all of Orlando, Central Florida, the World in my eyes, was by my side. AND he and I intended to conquer Austin, the "Live Music Capital of the World," which we then started doing, step by step, for the next decade. Skye, Bax and I moved in to "The Island on Lake Travis." It was right up the road from my parent's/my family's 5 acre prime real estate, multi-multi-million dollar machinery filled electronics manufacturing facility. I had watched my two parents, from birth, in Abilene, while they attended as 2nd generation representatives of Abilene Christian University, rise from their previous excellence-achieving examples ancestors. The first thing my dad ever said to me, and he repeated it my entire life, was I love you, your Mom loves you, God loves you, and when you grow up you are going to go to Abilene Christian University. I did. 3rd generation.
So, there we were, fresh from conquering the Chapelgate world, for me, fresh from conquering the Orlando music world, for us, arrived to settle down and conquer the Austin "Live Music Capital of the World," world. I had moved us to the Island. From there, we began to bring in the local best musicians, Bax could meet them because Bax was a god, because the Island had a restaurant. It had a glorious piece-de-resistance restaurant/bar with tall glass windows and a balcony with the best view of ALL of Lake Travis, the glorious river, deep deep, wide, wide, glorious river. Heaven on Earth. I then dedicated our new adventure to God, our family habit. That had lasted until you now see me in THESE pictures that popped up today in my "Memories" on Facebook. In THESE pictures my tiny little precious granddaughter has grown up going to the electronics manufacturing plant, every moment of her life, hearing about God, hearing about Abilene Christian University, immersed in the world of music, songwriting, and heavenly goals. She, in these pictures, has returned to the place we lived when she was born. I have created a special dinner where I can EXPLAIN to the world what God's Bible REALLY says, on this date, my goal is explaining Genesis and what the Sabbath REALLY means. I've created a dinner, not my first, my one of many previous ones, just to do that.
Lai, is seeing "The Island on Lake Travis." Lai is being given the tour of the grounds. Lai is being told the story (again) about Mark DeAlessandro, sitting beside us on the pier overlooking Lake Travis, while I film him with my iPhone, with baby Lai on my lap. Mark is talking about his time spent with the late David Wilkerson, whose books were beloved to me as an early teen, "Run Baby Run," and "The Cross & the Switchblade." Mark is talking about THAT because Mark dedicated HIS world to God and conquered it with GOD's divine guidance, which is how we wound up sitting on this pier in the first place, BOTH of us Do That. Mark, whom I met through Gigi, whom I met when my real estate lady brought her to the gig for local Austin musicians Bax and I organized at the restaurant at the Island, in 2012, it is now 2018, whom I met through her and Mark both being in "Dinner with Dreamers" (Gigi dedicates HER life to God as well, see all my stories about all of us) is telling Laileigh and I all about David Wilkerson, and I'm filming it. I've created, "Texas Tales from a Lone Star," and have been creating episodes to explain all this world view stuff to the world since 2012. I still do that now, 2026. MARK looks over at 4 month old baby Laileigh, sitting enraptured with it all, on my lap and stops and stays, "YOU love Jesus. Say Hallelujah!" Baby Lai, focusing on him already with her little baby mouth says, "Hallelujah," as I swing my iPhone over from Mark to her and capture it on film. From that day forward Lai became "Hallelujah Baby" to us. From that day, Mark then carried her, at my request, as I filmed, up the stairs from the pier, to the center of "The Island on Lake Travis," holds her in his two strong Stuntman hands, as if an offering to God, our God, and they perform Lai's first stunt. We call it "leaning out over the waterfalls." She was a baby after all. But what a dramatic location, epecially when you realize from the photos of the waterfalls, the location, the pier, the castle-type island grounds, just where it all is.
That's what I'm explaining to Lai and showing her in these photos, today's memories, that just popped up. This land, this world, is God's world, we dedicated it to him. All of us. xo Angel
Copyright 2026 Angel Isaacs All Rights Reserved
Written February 22, 2026 at 1:41 pm
Lovely night! “Grandmama, can we go to the pool?” “What time is it?” “6:30 am” “No, let me sleep. But you can make me a cup of coffee…” She’s singing in the kitchen and making my coffee. She’s already checked the balcony and assurred me “it’s warm” while cold air gushed into the lovely bedroom, me asleep, sortof. So I check Facebook and see my tracker bosses liked my orb story I wrote for them (true story, below). I checked the Dreamer group and told Kyle I’d probably be at his dinner in Dallas next week for National Christian Broadcasting. I said probably, just to save the option. I sent his post to Mark & Gigi and told Kyle cause I know they’ll be there and neither keeps up with his page, I always just tell them. And now, Lai’s warming up the Panda Express leftovers for us. “Grandmama, I’m SO glad we’re on the FIRST floor. We can be noisy.” “I thought the SAME thing! There’s no one under us when we walk.” “Yeah, just a parking lot.” “Remember when we lived in that apartment when you were two? We got in trouble for walking too loud. Remember, Mark came to visit us there. He stayed on the phone the ENTIRE time. We sat on the stair steps watching him pace around the parking lot on his phone. That’s when we started calling him “nut nut.” Smile. “Lai, go take a picture of the balcony, for my story…(she does)… NOT a picture of you sticking out your tongue on the pretty balcony!! Do it again and get the balcony.” “Grandmama, can I have some coffee?” (I’m still in the comfy bed and don’t want to get up.) “Yes, but you’d have to climb to get the cup…Get a real picture of the balcony, get the pretty view, get the river.” Cold air. She does. “I got nineteen!” “You didn’t get the balcony, just the river. Oh, here. I’ll do it myself.” I get up to take a picture of the balcony, for this story. “Grandmama, since you’re up, can you get my coffee cup?” I do. “Can I call mommy? (she has her own condo, down the hall.)” “Mommy had to stay up till midnight, she had homework due (she’s in RN nursing college). Let her sleep.” I go back to bed.
Copyright 2025 Angel Isaacs All Rights Reserved
Written February 22, 2025 at 9:52 am
