All three of our oldest children earned degrees in December. Isaac had actually walked with his class last May, but had one class to take in the Fall to earn his degree. Cassie earned her degree in December, but will be walking with her class this coming May. Complicated, huh? But anyway, all three of them were completely finished in December so on February 28th we had a joint Open House for them in their honor. We are so proud of them!

Here are the three graduates: Natasha (Accounting Degree), Isaac (Associates Degree), and Cassie (B.A. in General Music Degree). Congratulations to all three of you!

There was lots of fun and fellowship happening all day long. It was good to see so many friends from both far and near.

We don't have a large house, so there were people pretty much wall to wall. The crowd in the kitchen rotated every so often.

As did the crowd in the dining room...

Never did get any good pictures of the rotations happening in the living room. And so many people were not captured on camera even though we tried to get everyone. It was a fun, busy afternoon!

Had to keep replenshing the sherbet in the punch bowl!

We had to take my dad into emergency the night before and he was admitted into the hospital for nine days and then the Christian Health Care Center for another seven. It was pretty hard to keep my mind on the Open House, but it was wonderful to have so many people here helping our family to celebrate and also showing concern for our circumstances right now. My mom was able to be with us for the day. She's sweet and dear.

It seems like just yesterday that Beth and I were graduating from high school. Now three of my kids graduated from college. Time sure flies!

My dear sister, Gail.

And Jim and I.

It was a good day and we, once again, feel so very blessed by the Lord!

As you know, the past 8 weeks have been very busy and stressful for our family with taking care of my dear, aging parents. It has been a joy and we have been happy to do it. But it has been tiring and stressful as well. How in awe of God's goodness we were when a few of our dear friends and Jim's mom gave Jim and I the opportunity to go to Whistler, B.C. for two nights and three days to just enjoy each other without all the stresses of life. We had such a wonderful time!

It's not easy to take a picture of oneselves! We tried several times, and this was the best one we could come up with.

Here is the view from our room. The photo doesn't do it justice. It was gorgeous!

If you will look very closely, you can see some tiny dots travelling along a line hanging in the sky. That is the Peak 2 Peak gondola in Whistler. It just opened up in December and Jim and I decided to give it a try...

First we rode the Whistler Village gondola up the mountain. It went up and up and up. It seemed like we would never get to the top. I think the ride was close to a half hour. We know it was over twenty minutes, but we forgot to time the trip going either up or down until we were already on our way. Anyway, it was a tall mountain!

You can see Whistler Village behind Jim. By the time we got up to the top, the village looked like a small dot.

This is at the top of the mountain, taken from the Peak 2 Peak gondola right after we had begun our journey across. These gondolas hold 28 people. There are only two towers and the entire span between them is just cables. The gondolas travel 2.7 (!) miles from peak to peak. There is no way to describe how incredible it was!

This is just past the first tower. All you can see up ahead is cable disappearing into thin air and little tiny specks (those are gondolas). There are a total of twenty-eight gondolas travelling back and forth all day long. Two of them even have glass bottoms, but we weren't lucky enough to get one of those. On each mountain top (Whistler and Blackcomb) there is a very nice ski lodge as well as several restaurants to eat at and some gift shops.

It had snowed 6 inches during the night before we went and, as you can see, the sun had come out and the sky was clear. It was amazingly beautiful!

Can you see Whistler Village?

And a view from the halfway point. Above the creek here, we were 1,427 feet from the ground! All the trees looked like little toy plastic ones even though many of them are 70-100 feet tall. It was so incredible! You just have to try it if you ever have the chance!

After that excursion, we headed for The Old Spaghetti Factory and warmed up while eating a delicious meal.

The entire getaway was perfect in every way. We feel very blessed indeed!