Simplifying by Combining

I felt the need to simplify my online existence a little bit, so I am merging all of my blogging to a single location. I will continue to post picture and stuff about the family, but I am going to do it at my other blog. So for all of the family and friends who normally check here for news and photos and such. Follow this link to the new site. I am doing this partly so I don't have to try and keep up with so many things and partly because I really like Wordpress' features and ease of use.

Life in the North

One thing about living in North Dakota is that the weather is predictably cold this time of year. No worries about global warming here; no sirree! We decided to take a trip to Grand Forks today so that the kids could spend all of that Christmas money and we could restock the pantry and such. It was expected to be below zero all day, but we were prepared to dress warmly. I even packed coveralls in case something should happen, which I don't do very often. Amelia wasn't sure if she wanted to deal with the trip today, but I decided we would just get it over with. All in all the trip was uneventful until we started north on Hwy 1. As I was passing a car the light that indicates one of the tires pressure is off came on. I checked the tires a few miles up the road and one of them did indeed look low, but it seemed to be OK. About 30 miles further on the trip, and just a few miles south of town, we heard the unmistakable sound of a tire that wasn't going to go any further. But it's OK, we have a can of Fix-a-flat in the van. The only problem is that Fix-a-flat doesn't respond well to below zero temps apparently. By the time I could screw the nozzle onto the tire valve the can was so cold that I don't think it ever had a chance.
With that option unavailable, I called one of our church deacons who has an air tank and asked if he would be willing to bring it and try to air up the tire so we could hobble into town. Thankfully, he didn't mind a bit and managed to get down to us in about 20 minutes or so. Unfortunately, the air tank only managed to reseat the bead on the tire before it gave out, so we didn't get too far with that. I asked if he would run the family into town to the house while I stayed and changed the tire and also if he would be willing to put the stuff from the back of the van into the back of his truck so I could get at the spare. Amelia didn't want me out there all by myself and he volunteered instead to let her drive his truck into town and stay and help me change the tire. I use the word help here liberally, because he didn't about 85% of the work I think. I was trying to put on the aforementioned coveralls (I had inadvertently picked up Amelia's before we left the house) to get some protection from the wind. By the time I got that done, he had already gotten the jack under the back quarter and jacked the van up part of the way. My main contribution was in getting the spare tire on the ground while he warmed up a bit in the van(did I mention it was really cold? -25 or so wind chill at least). At one point I was reminded of the scene in "Christmas Story" where Ralphie is helping his dad change their tire in the snow and cold. I think we had them beat for temp although we didn't spill the lug nuts. Anyway, we eventually got the whole thing done and he rode into town with me as we could finally laugh about how tough a job that is in this kind of weather.

Pictures of the Kids

Have to get some pictures put up for the grandparents and any others who might be interested.
Here are the boys playing in Jonathan's room.

Here is AllieRose pretending to be a bride. If you look closely, you can see her "bridal bouquet under the yellow.

This is the kids in front of the Christmas tree.

I took this picture Sunday afternoon at church.

School's Out for now

Just turned in my last assignment for the winter term. I am done until January 12 now. I have decided to take 12 hours this spring, so I am going to enjoy the month long break as much as possible. Everything else is going good here. We are preparing to batten down the hatches for the weekend. We have a blizzard warning starting tomorrow night and at least 6 inches of snow is predicted for our area. We are also supposed to have subzero highs for Sunday and Monday as well. This is the trade off we gladly accept for not dealing with a long hot and humid summer. I for one like the snow. I have lots of sympathy for those who are made miserable having to deal with the mess, but it dosen't dampen my enthusiasm for the snow to fall and stick around all winter. I will get pictures up of the before and after the blizzard for those who want to see.

Thankfulness and Thanksgiving

Just the mention of the word thanksgiving is enough to stir a well of emotions in me. I am not the kind of person who generally thinks of doing those "little things" like writing notes or sending cards or things like that. My wife is the one who has a knack for saying the right thing at the right time or doing the little things that make a big impression. But even I can't help but stop and reflect on all the good things that God has blessed me with when this day rolls around. There are so many who have had an impact on my life, whether in just the last year or for many years before, I am truly blessed in friends and family and those who love me for who I am. I don't think I can even attempt to name everyone that has impacted my life, but I want to give thanks to God for saving me from myself and my selfish sin nature. I am not perfect, but He's still working on me. He has blessed me with a wife who has taught me more about the meaning of selfless and unconditional love than anyone I know. She is amazing and still finds ways to surprise me. I cannot imagine my life without her. She is a fabulous mother to our three kids and they will surely come to realize how blessed they are to have her as they grow older. Those three kids are a blessing that no words can really describe. They are funny and smart and creative and mirrors of our sometime insanity. Despite the frustrations that all parents I am sure feel at times, we are blessed to have three healthy kids who love life and love us as well. I try to remember to cherish even the times that they get on our nerves, for I know that none of it will last forever and the day will come when I will wish for just a minute that I could once more say, "could you please play without yelling?" or some variant of that anyway.

On top of that, there are our families that are far away in Arkansas. We miss them and love them as well. They have helped to make us who we are and have supported us as we have pursued God's will for our lives, even when it took us a thousand miles or more away. In addition to our physical families, there is our spiritual family. The different bodies of believers we have fellowshipped and worshipped with who loved us and gave us support with their prayers and even money as we embarked on the journey to this place in God's service. For all the dearly loved people in those churches, we say thanks again and again.

And we also have family here in the Dakotas. We have had the privilege to serve three churches now in the Dakotas. In that time, we have met many wonderful people who have blessed me and our whole family time and again. There are too many names to mention everyone, but if you have been with us at Westside Baptist or Black Hills Baptist or just around the Black Hills Association, please consider this a thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We love you all dearly and miss being in the hills with the people and family that God has given us there.

We are also, so very thankful for the family of God that we have right here in Langdon. The church family that we have come to know and love here in the last year plus is very precious to us. You have shown us love and caring and patience as a long-time youth pastor tries to learn what it means to pastor and shepherd a church family. I am thankful to other pastors who have given of their time and energy to support me with advice and prayer and resources. I am blessed to be doing what God has called me to do in the place that God has prepared us for for such a time as this. On this day and every day, I say thanks. Blessings to you all and Shalom.

Blog Neglect

For those who come here to keep up with the family, I apologize. Between starting school again and the hectic nature of life, I have not kept up here at all. I will put up a post later with some cute photos of the kids from the blizzard in Mandan earlier this month. In the meantime, for those who might be interested, I have just set up a site/blog for the church so I can post audio files of sermons and have a place for church stuff on the web. If you want to check it out go here.

Catching Up

I could say that I have just been very busy, which is true. But I have really meant to update the blog here for some time and just haven't done it. I will post some pictures from our Arkansas trip at the end of this post. Just a quick couple of notes for those who don't know. I did finally get a diagnosis for my mystery illness. The specialist that I saw in Grand Forks said that it was probably caused by a Parvovirus B19 infection. If you want to know what that is or more about it, you can follow the link or look it up on your own. Suffice it to say that it is no fun for an adult to have this at all. I had a blood test done in early September as a follow up that basically confirmed that diagnosis, so we are confident that I am basically done with that whole mess. According to what I have read, there are a few of the symptoms that can recur for months(particularly the joint pain is what I have noticed), but I am grateful to put it all behind me. The doctor still wants to run some blood tests to check my liver numbers again, but I don't know when they will do that. I have to see the doctor at some point this month because my Singulair prescription will run out, but we shall see.
We had a great trip to Arkansas to see family and friends and unfortunately couldn't see everyone that we wanted to see. Even two weeks just isn't enough time to do everything you want to do. It was a little warm for my taste though. We went through and entire summer here without ever seeing 90 degrees and it was already into the 60s most days by the time we left, so it was like hitting summer all over again with the weather there(except it was far more muggy than most of our summer).

Here is a shot of Amelia's family with the kids and me in the middle of it all.

Here are the kids with my parents.

This is me on the tee at Stonebridge Meadows in Fayetteville. I had a fun time playing a round with Doug that morning and he was kind enough to take this picture for me.

Thanks to the fact that my birthday follows the annual National Talk Like a Pirate Day; I was able to also participate in my sister's annual crazy piratey party. It was a lot of fun.

I was also able to see the Hogs play on my birthday this year. It had been five years since Gina and I had gone to see a game together. This game was not very memorable, but I had a good time and the Marching Razorback band rocked the house by doing the Thriller dance during their show. Man, I miss playing in the band sometimes.

Summer is coming to a close

Summer must be winding down since school is starting this week. My mother was always fond of singing the line, "now it's time to say goodbye to the summer!" this time of year. Ironically, we are getting some of our warmest weather this week, but it won't last for long. And warm is a relative term since we still haven't seen 90 degrees here this year, nor are we likely to see it. I am still playing the part of medical mystery. I had a CT scan this morning and a doctor's appointment later today to hopefully get some answers from that scan, but I also have an appointment set up in Grand Forks next week with a specialist of some kind.
We had a good week last week with the mission team here. The house was full and crazy at times, but the kids handled it well and we really enjoyed all of the fellowship and encouragement and the work that they were able to do. We saw seven people make decisions for Jesus Christ last week as well. I have plenty to do in the way of follow up and that is a good thing. I am putting a few pictures with this post of the team at work.

They do refer to it as practicing medicing

As many of you know, I have been sick for a couple of weeks now. We still don't have any complete answers to what is wrong, but I am feeling better. I have been living on Tylenol and Ibuprofen for a couple of weeks now to keep the fever under control so that I can function normally, but it is only suppressing the symptoms. I will see the doctor again tomorrow and probably next week and the week after and we will see what we find out then. In the meantime, please pray for my health and the doctors who are trying to figure out what it is that I have.

Baseball is winding down

T-ball is over and PeeWee is going to be done this week. Jeremiah is so proud of his medal that he has worn it to bed. Jonathan's team has put on quite a show this week. They have won all three of their tournament games so far with two of them being come from behind wins. Monday night they started the final inning down two runs. They scored five to take the lead and then took the field. Since all the players on each team bat in every inning, it is nearly impossible to prevent a team from scoring. I haven't seen it happen at all this summer. But of course, in the bottom of the last inning our kids are getting outs all over the field: at second, third (at least three in a row came there), they got a force out at home on the next to last batter and caught the final ball put in play. End result was a three run lead that held up. The kids were jumping up and down and yelling. In reality the league doesn't care about keeping score, but believe me the kids know the score. They lost to this team early in the season, but the improvement that our kids have shown is amazing. Last night they were able to bat last in both games (it's determined by coin toss) and in the first game they built up such a lead that we didn't need to bat in the bottom of the last inning(time was a factor too since we had another game to play). In the second game it was another come from behind win. We started the bottom of that inning down three runs. The kids had another good inning at the plate. They had scored three runs and had runners on second and third when the last batter came to the plate. He had been having a rough night without a hit to this point in the second game. I don't even remember him getting a hit in the first game. Normally, he is one of our best hitters so he was due. I told him he just needed to make contact and not worry about getting another home run(he has four inside the park home runs already). He made good contact and the two runners scored. He was tagged out at the plate on a close play. The kids were going crazy. As coaches we are so happy for them. I can't believe how much they have learned and improved this summer. I wish we had a video to compare it with. It is fun to watch. We have stumbled onto a lineup that works really well for the kids. Jonathan is hitting in the middle and the extra runners ahead of him on base frequently gives him a chance to get on with a hit, even in the infield. Last night he had a couple of hits that would have been good even without the extra runners. He is really getting better and I think he has a lot of fun as well.

Heat Wave and Fun Stuff

Well, it looks like we will have back to back days with temps in the 80s so I think that qualifies as a heat wave. I will tell you all one thing though. The sun up here is brutal. I was out today to watch Jeremiah's t-ball game and managed to really sunburn the tops of my knees pretty badly. I had gotten a light burn on them a week or so ago that didn't really do much, but this one is bright pink and angry looking. I put the blue stuff on it and that helped, but it is still giving off some heat. I have some pictures of Jeremiah at t-ball and the kids entertaining me a couple of days ago with some VeggieTales puppet action.
Here is Jeremiah standing at first after a hit.

This is Jeremiah running the bases.

This is Jeremiah playing at second base.

This was my own showing of the Dance of the Cucumber.

This is the part where Junior comes in to get his picture taken with the cucumber in authentic Argentinian garb. I have videos of this as well that are just priceless. I am not sure how to explain the presence of Laura the carrot other that AllieRose simply couldn't be left out of this much fun.

Baseball

Well, we finally got pictures from Jonathan's game tonight. I was the only coach there for our team and we were missing two players. Amelia was able to come and help keep order in the dugout for me. The other team only had 8 players, but we figured the kids would still have fun anyway. I got hit by a batted ball in the bottom of the second and the girl that was pitching to the other team got hit by one in the top of the third. It is pretty ironic, since I haven't seen a single pitcher hit by a ball in a game so far and it happened with both teams within an inning tonight. Anyway, here are the pictures of the pitcher with the rubber arm(at least my arm feels like rubber). How do you get one of those big league cold packs anyway? Also a shot of Jonathan at bat and in the field.
This is Jonathan at the plate.

This is Jonathan at second base in the field.

This is that wild pitcher. There were a couple of old guys in the stands tonight offering a ton of advice on how to pitch better. Needless to say the comments didn't help my arm feel any better. I need to be put on a pitch count or something. :)

A special outing

I had promised AllieRose that she would get to go golfing with me when her potty training was officially over. She has done really well for quite some time now and we no longer have pullups on our Wal-Mart list every time we go to Grand Forks. So yesterday, I was at the course and realized that the time was perfect to make good on the promise. Amelia drove her up to the course and I took her around for nine holes. I meant to get a photo of her on the green "putting" but I forgot to do it. I do have a couple of cute photos from the outing however, courtesy of my camera phone.
The first picture is the two of us in the cart.

The next two are her sitting in the cart. Which she had already attempted to drive before this picture was taken.

Summer?!?

Well, my parents just headed out for more southward climes an hour or so ago. We miss them already. Jonathan went over to the spare room where my mom was staying right after they drove out. He stopped in the doorway and stared in with a mopey look. He put his head down and walked toward the kitchen. I gave him a quick hug as he walked by and let him know that I missed them too. It's usually hard when they leave after a visit, but they were here for two weeks and we all got used to having them around a little more this time. Unfortunately for mom, the weather wasn't too warm. Everything is finally in bloom, but it is more like spring here than summer. Even as I write this it is 56 degrees outside. Yesterday, Jeremiah's game was canceled mostly because of the cold and wind. Then they canceled Jonathan's league for the night and the rain started about the time they would have been on the field. We actually got a pretty good rain last night.
I am going to be starting my first classes toward my master's degree in another week or so, and I am looking forward to it. The rest of the summer will be somewhat quiet until we get to August. Right now, we just have the boys baseball games to worry about. Amelia is recovering well. She is feeling better every day. We are so grateful for all of the help that my parents and her mom were here to give us. They kept an eye on the kids and helped me focus on taking care of Amelia. Last night we fixed chicken fettuccine alfredo for supper as a thank you to the both of them. We had a really good visit with them. The extra room in this house really makes it easy to let everyone have their own space when they need it.
As for the title of this post. I have a feeling it may be hard to talk my parents into coming up here in any months but July or August in the future. : ) I know it isn't officially summer yet, but we are just getting a good dose of spring the last few weeks. I personally wouldn't trade it for anything. We love it here and look forward to seeing what God has in store for us.

Family update

I know that some of you are wondering how Amelia is doing after the surgery last week. I just wanted to give you a quick update to tell you that she is recovering well. She is feeling much better, but we are careful not to let her overdo it. My parents are still here helping out, but they are planning to head out later this week. It has been such a blessing to have them here with us. They have helped in so many ways and I don't think they know just how much we appreciate it. I have told them several times, but words don't completely convey the gratitude we have for them and for Amelia's mom's help as well. She was able to stay in the hospital with Amelia and take care of her when I had to be doing a half-dozen other things all at once.
Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us and for Amelia in particular. Your prayers have been felt and answered. I will try and get a few pictures and some more news up tomorrow(or later today since this is after midnight).

Update

Amelia was able to come home today. She is doing really well after the surgery. Thanks to all who have prayed and sent well wishes our way. God is good. Jonathan's baseball team had their first practice tonight. I am one of the coaches, so I spent the majority of my time hitting balls to a few of the boys to field. My arm is hurting pretty good right now, but I took some ibuprofen so it should get better. We are getting a lot of rain here lately, although not as much as some areas around us.

Crazy times

Well, this is going to be a fun and hectic weekend. We are going to the airport tomorrow to pick up another grandparent and then Allie will have two grandmothers to entertain and play with. She has been putting on quite a show the last couple of days with my parents here. I am not sure who is enjoying this more. The kids, the grandparents or the proud parents who get to revel in the show.
We have the time for Amelia's surgery. She has to be at the hospital early in the morning on Monday so please pray for us. We have to leave the house about 3:30 AM or so because she has to be there at 5:45 AM. Please keep us all in your prayers. The folks will be holding down the home fort here with the kids while we are down there. I will be doing a lot of shuttling back and forth probably(maybe not too much with gas prices where they are). I am preparing a sermon on the Biblical calendar. I have been writing a lot about my studies into Hebrew roots of the Christian faith at my other blog, which I recently migrated to a new address. You can check it out at http://jeofurry.wordpress.com. In the meantime, I will try and keep updates on the surgery and recovery and other family happenings.

Important Dates

It could be because of my newfound fascination with the Hebrew calendar and my new awareness of it. It could just be that we all attach ourselves to certain dates like birthdays and anniversaries and such. Maybe it is because we have a babysitter to watch the kids for a few hours on Saturday. Whatever the reason, I am looking forward to our anniversary this weekend. This will mark 12 years of marriage for Amelia and I. It isn't one of those milestone numbers(except for a baker maybe), but I am amazed at what God has done in our lives in these years. There are a lot of changes on the horizon for us as well. Please continue to pray for us as you think of us and our ministry here in the great Northland.

Homeschooling

Every once in a while, I have someone ask why we homeschool our kids. There are lots of reasons really, but here is another good one.
Under the question, what do kids do in school all day is this little tidbit

Well, several recent research studies have shown that for every 50 minute class period, only 28% of that time is spent in engaged learning. That means that for every subject in school, the students only spend about 14 minutes being taught or involved in learning activities. The rest of the time is wasted on lining up, changing classes or rooms, taking books out, putting books away, dealing with discipline issues, answering unimportant questions, handing out papers, handing out assignments, giving homework assignments, explaining what is expected, and lecturing on topics unrelated to actual academic learning.
The subjects covered in school are math, social studies, science, physical education, language arts, foreign language, health and arts. Generally, arts and physical education alternate, as do science and health. Thus, in a typical school day, the students only have 84 minutes of actual learning time, that's less than an hour and a half each day. They are gone seven hours to receive less than an hour and a half of instruction and actual learning.

I think back to my academic career in public school and this probably rings true for the most part. In fact, we prided ourselves on ways to distract and sidetrack our teachers in school.

Odds and Ends

Just a bit of catching up for those who follow our family goings on here. Things are getting ready to get really crazy. Amelia's surgery is in just two weeks and we are trying to prepare for that. We have help on the way for that time, so that is a good thing. I have registered for my first two classes for my master's degree. I can't remember if I posted that I have my Bachelor's Degree now hanging proudly on the wall. It feels good to have finished. I will admit that I wondered if it would ever happen. I have been blogging more on my other site as well. I am getting more and more energized by some new studying and insights on our Hebrew roots.
We have some flowers blooming around the house and a new patio set in the backyard that I bought for Amelia as a mother's day/anniversary present. Our anniversary is less than a week away. It will be 12 years since our wedding day. 12 years, three kids, countless moves and three states later, we are excited at all that God has done in our lives. Thank you to all of you who read here and have contributed to our lives and ministry. We are so blessed.

Springtime

Well, it is springtime and some days it actually feels springlike here. On Sunday, we had a picnic/cookout at the home of one of our deacon's family to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. It was a lot of fun. The sun was shining and it was in the 50s. Felt warmer to me with the sun shining. Actually, we all ended up a little bit pink from the time spent in the sun with no sunscreen. The kids loved running around playing in the yard there. One of the familys brought some lawn games and they played Bocce and then later Croquet. It was fun watching the kids play croquet. It reminded me of playing it as a kid. I don't know if that old croquet set is still in the basement at mom and dad's house or not. It may be missing a few parts if it is. It was a lot of fun though. We are preparing for a busy summer. It is hard to believe that May is already almost half over.
I got me degree from Liberty in the mail yesterday. It feels a little more real now that I have it in my hands. It is hard to believe that I finally did it.
Please pray for us as the next few weeks will be very hectic and crazy. I am trying to sell my scooter since I really don't need it anymore. Please pray that it sells here. I listed it online as well, but that would be a bit of a hassle to do I think. There have been a couple of people who have asked about it here so I hope that pans out.

Picture Time

I need to catch up the blog with a few pictures. It is hard to keep up sometimes. I always seem to be doing something all the time. I know I am not the busiest person. I know this for a fact because I know busier people. Even still, time does get away from us all. Here are some pictures.

This is game time at AWANA. You will recognize Jonathan in the line. The young girl looking at the camera with her arms crossed is one of the girls in Amelia's class. She is the girl that prayed to receive Christ as her Lord and Saviour earlier in the year.

This is a picture of Bro. Mike the day we went to Canada for a brief whirlwind sightseeing tour. He is standing at the border marker directly north of here.

I thought Dad would like to know how to take a picture where you can see the squirrel. Amelia took this one for us. She might be willing to give lessons when you come to visit next.

This is the cake that Amelia made this weekend for our church potluck. She loves to be creative and the idea of making a piano cake was simply too good for her to pass up.

AWANA

Well, my first year of work with AWANA has come to a close. It was a good year. I am still amazed at how many lives are affected by this program. We have seen several young people make decisions for Christ this past year. The program tonight went really well. I know the kids enjoyed the slideshow DVD. The young lady that put it together has a real gift for working with photos and media. I know how much work goes into those things and I am just impressed with the great job that she did. This month will be kind of a lull in the action before the summer schedule jumps into full swing. Kind of the calm before the storm if you will. Be praying for us as we jump into summer. We have a lot on our plate. In the meantime, we are continuing Thursday night Bible study as well. Right now I am taking the group through the Way of the Master foundation course. Last week, I gave out some of the million dollar icebreaker tracts to those that were there. It was a lot of fun.

Baseball

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. It seems like things just get really chaotic and nothing gets done some days. We signed the boys up for baseball this week. Jeremiah is going to play Tee ball and Jonathan is going to be playing Pee Wee. And through a strange twist of fate, I have been volunteered to be a coach for Jonathan's team. A couple of the homeschool families were talking about it last week and voila; I'm a coach.
In other news, keep praying for Amelia's upcoming surgery. We are now just over a month away from the surgery date and my parents and Amelia's mom are planning to travel up to help. It is going to be quite a time.
In church news, things are going well. We have had two people make personal decisions to ask Christ to be their Lord and Savior so we are starting to see the fruit of preparing for a harvest. AWANA is over as of tonight. We have a parent night planned and one of the girls who helps with Sparks has put together a DVD of pictures taken at AWANA. She did an exceptional job and it looks really great. We are going to use my laptop and a projector to show it to the parents. I will try and get some of the pictures that we took up in the near future.

Catching up

It has been a busy week or so. We had a guest here at the house the last few days. Bro. Mike, our former pastor in Arkansas, does a Bible teaching ministry now and we scheduled him to come here to our church. It was such a blessing for us and for the church as a whole. Our whole group really enjoyed the studies and I believe the Lord will use this as a springboard for us in our ministry. We had a lot of fun spending time with him these last few days as well. We took a side trip into Canada yesterday just for fun.
The kids are really doing well. I will post some more pictures soon. We were taking pictures tonight at AWANA to put together a slide show for parent's night in two more weeks. It is hard to believe that we are done with AWANA for the year after just two more weeks.
I am trying to get more involved in things around the community. I have been trying to sign up for a Tuesday night golf league (it will give me a good reason to play regularly) which will be good for excercise and getting to know more people.
It is definitely starting to warm up here. Yesterday we hit the 70s for the first time in a while and the snow has almost completely melted from around town. Only the really big piles have any snow left now.

Allie's Birthday party

I am late getting this put together, but better late than never as they always say. Here are some pictures from Allie's party at the church. We have another lady in our church with the same birthday a few years before. She came to the party and wore a crown with AllieRose. They had quite a good time playing games and laughing. Here are the pictures.

Here is a picture of Allie next to her princess cake.
It turned out quite good I think

This is AllieRose and Violet, the two birthday girls, together.

Anyone who knows my wife, knows that she is very creative and resourceful.
Here is a game of "Pass the Poison Apple". It is kind of like Hot Potato, but with a Disney princess twist

Another of Amelia's very creative ideas. Pin the {something} on the {someone/thing} has become a party staple. I am always amazed at what new version she can come up with for each party theme our kids choose.

Curling update

I got another crack a curling last night. I had a lot of fun and one really embarrassing moment. I also remembered to take a few pictures of the club before I went out on the ice. Practice really does make perfect. I was able to make the shots without falling over now and I am starting to learn how to make different shots as well. Unfortunately, I will now have to wait until next season to do anything more. Last night was the last night for the men's league. Oh, well. I am really looking forward to November. : )
Here are some pictures.

By the time I started taking pictures there were only two games still going. The other ones had ended a little early.

The guy in the foreground of this picture with his back to the camera is the one who is helping me to learn the sport.

I should have taken some more pictures, since this game went to an extra end. There were some really good shots in the last two ends of this game.

These teams played one of the wildest games I have seen. They left a lot of rocks in play and scored a lot of points on several ends.

Thawing out

Well, we are beginning to thaw out here. For the last week or so the temperature has mostly hovered just over the freezing line so things are melting. Of course, we also have snow in the forecast in some small amounts for the next few days. There are actually quite a few winter weather warnings and advisories for the areas well south of here. We won't get much snow from the look of it. But it is possible that we will have a "white Easter". : ) I am excited about my first Resurrection Sunday as a pastor. I have a couple of special things planned for Sunday, so please pray that God would speak and that people will be receptive to His voice. We have now been here for almost six months. I have learned so much in that time and I have also realized that there are a lot of things I didn't know and still am learning. God is good and faithful and true. And the truth of the matter is that I am excited to belong to Him and to trust Him with all that we are doing. I look at my life and ministry as being a work in progress and like the old song says, "He's still working on me!" I pray that this early Easter season finds you blessed and well. Thank you to all who read this and pray for us. We love you more than we can say.

Birthday Roundup

The birthday party was a smashing success and the cake looked really great. Jonathan said it was his best birthday ever. Below are some photos from the event.


This is Jonathan surveying his result in
the pin-the-helmet on the astronaut game.


Here he is with his cake.

College Finale

Well, it is all over but the final grades. I have finished my Bachelor's degree at last. It is a good feeling really. I am glad to have it done with finally. I know I have one B and probably 2 A's for my final term, so it is basically unofficially official. Amelia asked me if I wanted to do something to celebrate and I am still pondering what I want to do. I guess it is appropriate to do something, I just can't decide what to do. If anyone has any thoughts let me know.
P.S. If anyone wants to send money as a graduation present, I would understand. :P

Birthdays

This is a busy time in our church for birthdays. We have four people this week I think that have a birthday. One of those of course is Jonathan. He is getting very excited for his upcoming birthday on Sunday, and I am having a hard time realizing that he is turning nine. I talked to Dad earlier today and he said they were having a snowstorm in Arkansas and might get 5-8 inches. It took me back to that weekend after Jonathan was born almost nine years ago when a storm dropped up to a foot of snow in the NW Arkansas and NE Oklahoma region. We were snowed in at the hospital in Tahlequah with a tiny baby who was very jaundiced. Now nine years later we are sitting here in the great white north with about a foot and a half of snow on the ground(not much of it new). It is amazing to think of how far we have come in just a few short years.