Iceburng Theme!

Thought I’d switch it up for a little while – finished with Christmas and in with the iceburgs!

Christmas Updates…

Greetings to you all! I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! Sam and I were in Grand Forks, ND with the Coleman Clan. It was a great Christmas as there was at least a foot of snow on the ground up there. It was a very “White Christmas” indeed! I did want to show you a few pictures from our trip up to Grand Forks! We had a grand ole’ time –

 This is my brother in law, Judah in front of the world’s largest Crane. That would be located in the world’s smallest town of Steele, ND!

 This one is Judah wishing all of us a very Merry Christmas from the great town of Steele – As you can see, we were driving around this town for a reason no need to share, and decided to use up some time and Judah is such a great sport!

 And now – you may ask – why does Judah look so cold???? Well, here’s the answer!

HA! That sign cracked me up! Of course, everyone thought I was crazy to get Sam to stop on the side of the road to take that picture out of the car window – but how often do you see that? It was great! When it changed, it actually said 16 degrees. So that wasn’t so bad – but priceless – I just had to post it for kicks and giggles! That was in Jamestown, ND. As you can see – I got my camera up and working and so now you have to drudge through all my random pictures!

Anyway, Christmas was really nice. We had a Coleman Christmas Eve on Saturday night and headed up to Grand Forks on Sunday after church. It was actually really cold there but there was lots of snow and so we went sledding quite a bit, ate a lot of food, played a lot of cards – it was great! We came home on Wednesday morning and Sam’s been working on art, and I’ve been working on whatever it is that I do.  We took engagement pictures for Katie and Mike on Thursday and then on Friday, we headed out to Minneapolis for a wedding. We got there just in time for their rehearsal dinner and Sam treated me to a night at a hotel! That was quite the treat since we are usually tucked away somewhere in a random parking lot sleeping in our car! 🙂 This way we had time to ourselves, it was so nice! We went and sat in a hot tub and then went back to our room to watch TV! As crazy as that seems, this is what we were really in the mood to do – watch whatever we wanted on TV! So there was a 3 hour special on “Man Vs. Wild”! HA – we are kind of crazies! Anyway, we watched that fella hike through the desert! It was very entertaining. We got to sleep in and get up and run errands. Then we did actually go and visit a family that Sam was good friends with in College at their home. That was really nice. As we were visiting, Mr. Newhouse had some very enlightening stories about how he and his wife met and some of the adventures they’ve had – he said that really stuck with me –

 “We are safe in the arms of Jesus. Don’t play life too safe or you’ll get too comfortable!”  

This is right after he told me about a time he was on a boat from Panama to Peru and was taken over by some pirates who had come on board to get some loot that the captain had picked up in Panama! Crazy! Anyway – an interesting thought for the day – if we are safe in the arms of Jesus, we don’t have to cautiously live each day – live it to the fullest! Great!

Anyway, so we came home right after the wedding and reception and got in on Sunday around 1:30am. Long drive, but a nice little getaway! Sunday, we took the day off as usual and went down to the river to find the most wonderful suprise! The back waters had frozen so perfectly that we could skate for miles along the river – here  are some more pictures! The great thing was watching Tonto try to stop running on the ice – he did knock me down a couple of times!

 Oh this one, you’ll notice, we fill our thermos with coffee and take it with us wherever we go this time of year! I didn’t get any pictures of the both of us – so you’ll just have to believe I was there too!

For those of you wondering, the ice was thick enough for us to skate on – 3 inches in some places was probably the thinnest, but Sam kept assuring me that was good enough. I heard some cracks and groans, but we survived. In some places the ice was so crystal clear, that you could see right through the ice and see little minnows down below swimming all around! I tried to stay on the thicker, more opaque ice! I felt safer! 🙂 Whenever I did hear groans, I’d just rush up to Sam, I figured, if I fell in, I was taking him with me! Poor thing! Anyway, it was such a beautiful day! I think we might try to go back again today – but it snowed last night, so I don’t know that the ice will be quite as clear as it was! Oh well.

Our plans for bringing in the New Year? Just hanging out with some friends! Kind of low key – hopefully not a sign for the year to come. I’ve been so busy, I haven’t even thought about sitting down and making some goals for the new year, but I think I want to go into it with Mr. Newhouse’s comment in the forefront of my mind. Why live so cautiously when Jesus has us safe in His arms and He came that we might have life abundant!!! So I pray an abundant life for each of you this New Year of 2008 – that you would find Jesus in a brand new way! Happy New Year!

 

 

Christmas blues…

Well, it’s darkest before the dawn, right? Poor Sam, he caught a bug – an ugly one – This is his third day of being out of commission and that’s so hard for him, but I hope he can sleep and rest today and be back to normal by Christmas. But on a happier note – my Christmas baking is nearly done and although we were going to have the Coleman’s over tonight for a Christmas Cookie Extravaganza (that’ll have to be put on hold – we don’t want John exposed to anything that he might catch from Sam), we are well on our way to being finished for Christmas and I have been enjoying most of it, especially since I’ve taken the time to realize what is most important. I made a priority list and just so you know, Christmas cards didn’t make it on the list – so know that we are wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a super blessed New Year! There  you go. I’ve posted a picture that maybe would have normally come on a Christmas card! maybe not that one, but similar – you get the idea! That was in Washington this summer.

Other than that, I did want have everyone pray for my brother, Wes. Nationwide is experiencing some restructuring and Wes and Cindy both work for them. Nationwide is going to be making some changes at the beginning of the year and we’re not sure if they affect Wes and Cindy yet. So be praying for them as they are waiting to find out. May God’s will be done either way! But if you could pray, it would be appreciated….

 Well, I don’t know if I’ll be able to write any more before Christmas – so blessings to you all! I pray that you have a wonderful holiday remembering Jesus and his sacrifice for us as we begin this season of his birth to death in the next three months! Happy Birthday Jesus!

Do you know what is so amazing?

I’ve always known that when you put the Lord first, He blesses your socks off! And so I don’t know why it always suprises me so much to experience that! I don’t have a lot of time, but I got so much done yesterday and feel so much better about Christmas. I spent some time with the Lord and even though connecting with Him is sometimes difficult, it’s so good. So I got my 13 Christmas presents started anyway that was hanging over my head. And got my brother and sister in law’s box ready for mailing today and did some more cleaning – what a good day! Just wanted to testify to God’s goodness in my life! Praise Him!

Christmas time is here again….

I was just thinking on my way to work this morning about all the things I need to do before Christmas. Then I got so irritated with myself… I told myself I wouldn’t do that this year – by the way, it looks like I talk to myself a lot, doesn’t it? Anyway, I’m a very interesting person to talk to! But that is besides the point. So I need to clean the house, finish some homemade Christmas presents, do some baking…blah, blah, blah… Then I feel rushed to do it in the next couple of weeks. I told myself that this year, I was going to enjoy every minute of Christmas. What is kind of hard is that it hasn’t gotten above 20 degrees since we’ve been home from T-giving, so no outside lights or decorations have gotten up. This year, for those who waited till after T-giving, it just hasn’t happened. There really aren’t that many light up anywhere. So even though it’s super cold and there is  snow everywhere, for some reason, it doesn’t feel like Christmas. We finally got our tree up and we have been enjoying that so much. I have a real annoyance and it has to do with all the local radio stations. There is not one single one that plays non stop Christmas music – we only get this season once a year – come on people – you would think they could play a little Christmas music! So that really irritates me. Probably because we spend so much time in the car and so we are subject to the radio. So yeah… This Saturday, I’ve got probably 20 high school students coming to my house to start the Progressive Dinner. It’ll have to go like this. Appetizers in the Kitchen, main course downstairs and dessert in the living room – we have no families opting up to host us. How’s that for a progressive dinner! Oh well. We’ll see. But I do need to get my families presents off in the mail so that they receive them by Christmas. We got Aunt Gayle and Uncle Jim’s to them at Thanksgiving, half of mom and dad’s to them at T-giving, now I’m just waiting on a couple of things and then I’ll have to mail those boxes. Why do we do this to ourselves – rush around thinking there is so much to do that we don’t even enjoy the Reason for the Season!

Last night we had Sam’s Staff Christmas party! It was great! First we had to write out our own menu – All the menu items had to do with something Christmasy and in no way described the food. We just had to write them out. Even our silverware was on the list. So out came the first course! I think I had potatoes, Peanut butter Pie, salad, ham and pasta salad. No drink, no fork, no spoon, not even a knife. Do you want to know how hard it is to eat peanut butter pie and green salad with no utensils? It was quite the experience! It was great fun! Then came time to exchange presents. Now, just so you know – we are suppose to collect presents at our Annual Church Rummage Sale. So to make a very long story short, our Maintainence person got the Administrative Asst. a gigantic nutcracker. We are talking a telephone post cut down to about 6 foot and painted like a nutcracker. It’s heavier than anything and extremely hiddeous! It comes complete with a fuzzy hat and everything! So it’s solid and about 6 ft high and a foot in diameter – solid and HEAVY! Anyway – when we got home last night, guess who was sitting on our step – you guessed it, the Nutcracker! So at 9:30 last night, we got the great idea to drop it off at our Music Director’s house! So we piled it in the Blazer and drove back over to Bismarck. Well, the only problem is that they have windows all across the front of their house and Beth and Brad told them they were going to drop it off at our house. So as Sam stepped onto their front porch – there was this huge crack – and they heard it inside. So we were busted! Then we grabbed it again and took it to our Administrative Pastor’s house. We were so excited about it! But then I guess Scott wasn’t quite as excited to see it this morning as we thought he would be! Oh well! It reminded me of the time Lori and I delivered her “Science project” to Larry before they were married! That will have to be another story!!! Well, I guess I should get back to work… Enough about our crazy ventures! Have a great week just enjoying every moment of this Christmas season – don’t worry it away like I have been doing!

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

I suppose we are definitely done with Fall and ready to move on to Christmas. To tell you the truth, I have had a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. I don’t know why. Perhaps, we lost all our leaves early and so it looked like Christmas outside, then we headed down to VA where the leaves were nearly close to their peak and so we reverted somehow. I don’t know. But on Saturday night, we went to Lorie Line in concert! Have you ever heard of her? She’s great! She’s this amazing pianist and she puts together a Christmas show every year and takes it on the road. PS. Wes! She’s coming to Orlando on February 29th. You should look into it and take Cindy! I know you would love it! Anyway, last year, her show had a little to do with the birth of Christ – but she had such a great response that she made Jesus’ birth her whole theme this year! It was really great. That sure helped get in the mood for Christmas and then to top it all off – it snowed about 3 inches on Saturday also! Since we got back to ND from VA – we never had temp’s above 20. But yesterday and today, it’s beautiful! But now, I am in the mood for a little more snow! I know that in a month or so, I’ll be so ready for the snow to go away, but as long as Christmas is on it’s way – let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Well, another reason I started getting in the mood for Christmas – we had our annual Advent Family Fun night on Sunday night! We had a cookie exchange and silent auction. There were all kinds of crafts downstairs for the kids and most of the population here is German and Norweigen, so they make lefse (an ethnic dessert).  It was great fun. Then we have supper and Sam was in charge of doing the entertainment, where we had the kids do a bunch of talent. Well, first of all, the kids kept dropping out and we didn’t think we’d have any talent, then the kids we had left kept doing multiple songs and so we ended up with a bit too much talent! But the church folks are great to sit through all of that! I think we are going to skip the talent next year! 🙂

Anyway, we are wrapping up all our gifts and making sure that we have everything we need for everyone. Maybe once I start wrapping presents, it will be more festive too! Oh! I almost forgot! We got our tree – it’s the biggest and prettiest tree we’ve ever had! In fact, we had gotten some new furniture last Valentine’s Day, so a tree wouldn’t fit in our normal placeso we put it upstairs this year in our front living room! We’ve got the front door there that we never use, so we put it right in front of the door. The craziest part is that we got it for $20 – pretty cheap for a Christmas tree. We looked through all these trees and they were all kind of sketchy but we found one that looked pretty good! So we bought it. Then took it home and set it up and the branches started spreading a little and the tree we noticed, was getting bigger. Then we put the lights on it and went to bed, the next morning we got up and the branches had lowered even more and so it’s the fasest growing cut tree I’ve ever seen! After the ornaments got on there, our tree sticks out a foot on either side of the door! It’s huge – but it smells so good and it’s so pretty! We are slowly but surely getting the rest of the house decorated too! We missed out on getting the outside done, now we have to wait for a warmer day! Oh well, we are ok with the idea that it may never get warm enough for us to decorate outside. But now, it’s already 22 degrees outside, so it’s getting warmer! But Sam is desperately working on a painting commission that will hopefully be done by Christmas. It’s beautiful!

 Well, I suppose, I should get back to work! Happy Tuesday! and Merry Christmas!