Family Christmas

Uppermost in our minds this Christmas was Darrell and Jess's trip to Africa this January to facilitate the adoption of twin girls. They will likely be there three to six months. So the girls were definately on our Christmas lists.

Our girls.

Sorry, I don't have a corresponding picture of our boys!
I do have a nice family picture of all of us, so leave a comment if you would like me to email it to you.

The basement still isn't finished, but it was good enough to use. The grandkids enjoyed the playroom.

And it was nice to have room to hang out downstairs.

There was definately enough snow for sledding!

News from Darrell and Jess

Most of you know that Darrell and Jess have been working on International Adoption from Ghana, and that they are one of many couples who were affected by the bankruptcy of Imagine Adoption Agency. They had 2-year-old twin girls referred to them last February and have continued to work on the adoption through a Ghanaian lawyer. They are working on the necessary steps and are planning to go to Ghana sometime in January. This is a huge step that means a leave of absence from their work.

A friend is planning a fundraising dinner for them on January 9th. If you want more information, you can check out their blog and follow the link on the poster above to the facebook site telling about the fundraiser. We would appreciate prayer that God would lead the way and turn the many mountains into smooth roads!

Snowstorm

The storm began Friday morning and Saturday night it's still snowing and blowing, but it's eased up a lot. We had a side door put into our garage, and it came in handy to get out of the house to shovel, since it had blown clear.

Our driveway became a dumping spot for blowing snow - five feet of it! For some reason our driveway was worse than many. As you can see, our siding has only been partially replaced since our August hailstorm. The soffits have been replaced, but not all the trim or eavestroughs. We had stone put on either side of the garage door when they replaced the siding. Our shingles still need replacing. Think it'll happen Monday???

We shovelled out just enough to get our truck out. Mal and I started, then the neighbor across the street helped substantially, and eventually two other neighbors joined us. It took all of us about 2 hours - but then we're only half done! By morning we may have to start all over.

In between the two piles of snow is our sidewalk nicely shovelled out. Not too much of our lamp post showing! Before the storm hit we had no snow at all.

This is our street. All morning trucks were trying to get out, and then backing up because they couldn't get through. About 4 p.m. a grader came through.

Christmas Pictures

We went to Travis and Joanna's (our former neighbors) this week and took pictures of each other in front of their Christmas tree. We always enjoy our time with them and will miss them, although we still get together. Now we have another young couple next door.

She fed us an awesome salmon dinner- she loves to cook and it shows.

Then we played games - the guys got a little crazy!

The Christmas season is upon us. Have a good one!

The Spa

My sons gave me a massage and pedicure at the Spa for my birthday gift.
Today was the day.
Here my hands and feet are getting a hot wax treatment.
Feels great!

Like my black toenails?
Well, actually, this was the lady next to me and she suggested I take a picture of her nails because she thought you might get a kick out of picturing me with Gothic black toenails!

I went for red.
The pedicure was enjoyable, but the massage was the best!
Soft lighting, relaxing music, heated sheets and blankets,
and an hourlong total massage.
Talk about being spoiled!
I don't have a picture - I was too busy relaxing.
Thanks, guys. It was awesome.

Country pics

We were in the country this weekend. A beautiful sunset highlighted these huge silos.

A well-kept barn is always a pleasure to see.

Last summer I frequently saw this heron in a stream near our house, but we were always flying by. The last week before he left I stopped to take a picture. He was very close, but I scared him off and I just got a picture of him landing in the distance. I used 18x zoom, then cropped the picture severely, so the picture wasn't clear. Then I sharpened it like mad, which made it pixelly. However, I thought it kind of looked like a painting and I like the effect, so I kept it and I call it my Picaso heron.

Nature Shots from Radium

These "Bachelor Rams" were all over the place. Didn't seem to worry about us.The mountain ash looked beautiful after a heavy frost one morning with the ice melting off it.

This squirrel let me get pretty close before running away.

Some mountain sheep were wandering around Main Street and this one was determined to taste those mountain ash berries!

I've never gotten a picture of a fawn before. It seemed pretty late in the year to be so young. I hope it survies the winter.