Today was another great Sunday! It truly is the best day of the week for our family. We had Tracee and Zoltan and their four adorable children and Zoltan's mom all over for dinner last night and the evening flew by. We were all shocked when it was 10:30 p.m.! We said our good-byes and our family went straight to bed. I got up at 6:00 this morning so that I could fix all the food I was supposed to bring to our Parish meal. Today was my Sunday to play the piano for church and one of our Koreans, Joon, joined me for most of the hymns playing his trumpet. Another one of our Koreans (our church calls all of the Koreans in our congregation "our Koreans" quite affectionately), Jay, who is attending seminary, preached for us. It was an excellent sermon on Job's three friends. Only the three friends that Jay taught us about this morning were God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It was such an encouraging sermon and one that I know I will carry with me all week and reflect on time and time again.~The people in our church absolutely LOVE to get together as often as possible in one another's homes and today Tracee and Zoltan had us and two other families over for the afternoon. We ate appetizers, sipped on rum and Coke and Merlot, had a great meal, fellowshipped, laughed and laughed, sang together for quite some time, had a time of prayer, and then ate dessert! And as usual, on the way home, we all agreed that we love our church and that Sunday is the BEST day of the week!

Claire, Isaac, Natasha, and Seth are all enjoying a great meal!

What a cute batch of kiddos! From left: Gabriel, Elijah, Noah, Abby, Katelyn, Titus, Elisha, and Aria

Ezekial was happy to be held by Isaac most of the
afternoon...

Our hostess, Tracee, with her Great Dane, Zephy.

Every time any of the people in our church get together, there is lots and lots of singing.
Nobody wants it to end!

...Except for maybe Travis who is getting a little sleepy from all of the good
food and restful afternoon.

So, I'm really not much of a winter person. In fact, I'm not a winter person at all. The only thing I like about winter is the Christmas Season and I LOVE that! But once Christmas is over I tell my family, "Spring is coming. Yay!!!" Unfortunately, we had a cold Fall with two windstorms and one northeaster which dumped 20 inches of snow on us in blizzard conditions causing lots of snow drifts. Since Winter has begun, we had another windstorm, and now, last Wednesday, we had another northeaster which dumped 15 more inches on us. Laura is trying to be happy . But Laura is NOT happy . Here are some pictures for your enjoyment or unenjoyment, whichever the case may be.

Our flowering cherry tree, birdbath, bird feeder, etc. getting swallowed up in snow.

One of my favorite flower beds. I could just cry...

Will my brave rhodie and Japanese Lacyleaf Maple survive? They look brave don't you think?

Natasha's ever faithful Mercedes and our ever faithful van.

Brrr....

And, of course, no post is complete without sharing a photo of Pumpky! Here he is oblivious to the snowstorm outdoors and has instead found himself a most comfortable (?) bed on the piano keyboard.

Love you all! Laura

Our pastor sent out this quote to the congregation and I would like to share it with you:

The whole life of Christ was one continual passion; others may die as martyrs, but He was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha even in Bethlehem, where He was born; for to His tenderness then, the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as His cross at the last. His birth and His death were but one continual act, and His Christmas Day and His Good Friday are but the evening and morning of one and the same day.

John Donne: Christmas Sermons 1626

It looks like I have been tagged by Isaac so I now need to tell you all five things about myself that you never knew before. I'm sure that you all are just holding your breath in eager anticipation so I'll not make you wait a second longer...

Did you know that ~

1) I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii?!!! I don't remember a thing about living there though because I was only 10 months old when my Dad (who was in the Air Force) was reassigned to a base in California. I've never been back, but hope to go someday.

2) I began playing the piano when I was six years old. I also took two years of pipe organ lessons, one year at Pacific Lutheran University and one at Dordt College. I know some of you may not be able to understand this, but it really and truly was an awesome and thrilling experience to produce so much sound out of an instument! I loved it!

3) I have collected apples since I was in the 7th (I think) grade. My kitchen and dining room are decked in apple decor.

4) My dream vacation would be to spend two weeks sightseeing all over Australia. There is such a variety of countryside there not to mention wildlife (kangaroo, koalas, and Komodo dragons!) I especially want to go to a concert given in the Sydney Opera House.

And last, but not least,

5) When I was three years old I was the proud owner of the coolest Mary Poppins carpet bag that one could ever dream of. Life was good...:)

I'm home and oh! so happy to be here! I got to sleep in my own bed, in a nice, warm, woodheated house with all of my kids safe and sound. Twelve hours ago Jim and I were wondering if we would be sleeping in the car on I-5 in stopped traffic with nothing to keep us warm but our rather light jackets...

You see, Cassie came home for Thanksgiving and we had an absolutely wonderful time with her although it went way too fast. We were supposed to have her back down to Seattle yesterday afternoon after church, but we woke up to 3 inches of snow and the forecast was for continued snow throughout the day in our county. We decided to forego church since it is 20 miles north of us and the snow was forecasted to keep falling in that direction, and opted to leave early and head south to bring Cassie to her ride. The storm was supposed to be easing up a bit south of us...First we hopped in Natasha's 1980 Mercedes 'Old Faithful' and got a mile down the road before we called her and said, "Can we take your 2004 Ford Taurus instead? Old Faithful isn't going to make it!" She cheerfully agreed (she is an incredibly sweet girl ) and we headed out again feeling much safer. ( It's so convenient having a daughter with two cars! ) Well, it took us an hour to get out of town (normally a 20-25 minute trip) but then things cleared us substantially and we were able to have Cassie to her ride by 3:00. The first leg of the trip home wasn't too bad; quite a bit of wet snow, and slower travel conditions, but we still thought we could be home by 5:30 or so. But, in listening to the radio, we discovered that a semi had jack-knifed about 25 miles ahead of us and a tree had fallen over the freeway. We were very surprised when several miles later we were in stopped traffic. It had backed up 15 miles in such a short time! Of course, I'm sure it didn't help that it was a holiday weekend and everyone was trying to get home. Traffic was very heavy already anyway. Most of the sideroads had there own share of problems so we just kept crawling along on the freeway at 1-2 miles an hour until we were finally able to exit to get gas, chain up, and stand in a 45 minutes bathroom line. That's where we heard about an alterate route which we decided to take. It was pretty creepy and dark even with the line of cars that was going that way, but we were able to make it without any snowladen branches fallen on us or our car sliding off of the road. It was nice to be able to travel at 20-25 miles an hour after the slow progress we had been making on the freeway. It was compact snow and ice all the way from the freeway backup to our front door. I'm so glad that Jim was driving because he's a pro at handling those type of road conditions. The wind is blowing up here, so we were very thankful to make it home before our roads drifted closed. The boys had shovelled the 15 or so inches off of our driveway before we arrived so we had a nice parking place to pull into at 8:45 p.m. (only four hours later than it would have normally taken us!) While we were gone, the kids had kept the fire going in the woodstove and made sugar cookies that we will decorate today. The wind is still blowing although the snowing has stopped. All the stores, schools, and businesses are closed so we are going to have a nice family day playing games, drinking hot cocoa, and baking Christmas cookies. Wish you were here, Cassie, to enjoy it with us!!! I should say too that Cassie's ride was a piece of cake. There was no snow or inclement weather other than a few rain showers as they headed south. They actually got to there destination ( a five-hour drive ) before Jim and I got home. We are very thankful!

Anyway, sounds like this storm will last a few days, so we are gearing up to ride it out. We are just so glad that we are here instead of stuck in a snowdrift somewhere! Hope you all are doing great and that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Last November 27, our family came home from church to find a stray kitty in our garage eating our cat's food. We felt so sorry for this little kitty who was less than a year old. He was very skinny and absolutely starving. But even in his sorry state, he purred and purred if one so much as looked at him. We didn't let him into the house much, but on especially cold days we would let him come in if he stayed in the living room in a little cardboard box. He was quite obedient and wouldn't budge from that box. In fact, he would sleep in it from 7:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.! Anyway, he seemed to decide that he had found THE home. We had him fixed (or more accurately, broken) in May and now one year since his arrival he is very much a part of the family. Here are a few pics of Pumpkin Cheesecake or Pumpky for short.

Here we have Pumpky sporting nothing but a dogtag which was loaned to him by my son, Seth, for this picture.

This is Pumpky catching up on a little news, er, I mean snooze.

An ever thoughtful kitty, Pumpky is here helping my husband, Jim, to keep his head warm.

Isn't that sweet? Everybody needs a place to call home...even a kitty.

Bye for now!

Laura

I can finally drive into our driveway and see Natasha's car without getting all teary-eyed. http://www.xanga.com/tiggger9/529502571/item.html The day before Natasha's accident, I had been thinking about a statistic I had heard several years ago about most car accidents happening within a mile of your own home. ( I think now that it actually said within five miles, but that day I was thinking it was one.) Anyway, I realized that one mile would be at the two corners where her accident did indeed occur and I couldn't recall any accidents at those corners in the eight years that we have lived here. I kind of marvelled at that because we have so many highschoolers that use our road and drive recklessly (thankfully, Natasha isn't one of them!) and we also have a lot of big farm equipment and milk trucks that frequent our road at all hours of the day and night, especially in the spring and fall. It was just one of those things that I was pondering for awhile which looking back now, I think the Lord was preparing me for Wednesday...

 Just moments before Natasha's accident I had spoken to her on the cell phone while I was on my way home. We hung up and then I saw a three-car accident that had happened just a moment before. Traffic had already backed up a bit and as we drove slowly past, I saw a car that had been smashed in the front and my heart leapt into my throat. It looked like Natasha's car. I thanked the Lord that I had just spoken to her and knew that she was safe and sound at home. I prayed again for all of my family's safety on the roads. I told her about the accident immediately when I got home and we decided that she had better go the other way to town. She left just a moment later...

About two minutes after she walked out the door, our power went out. I thought it must be related to the accident that I had seen on the way home. But two minutes later Natasha called on her cell phone and told me that she had been in an accident and had hit a telephone pole. I am so glad that she called and not someone else. Just hearing her voice was a comfort. But still, I was immediately feeling anxious and concerned. I asked her where she was, was she okay, and told her I would be there in a minute. I couldn't think on my way to her. All of my thoughts were a jumble. When I saw her car, my heart started pounding so hard. It was such a relief to see her walk out of the neighbor's house and to hold her in my arms!

I have thanked the Lord hundreds of times since then for preserving her life and for protecting her from more serious harm. We have thanked Him over and over for keeping the road clear of other cars, farm equipment, walkers, etc. at the time of her accident. We know that He is sovereign over all of these things and that the accident happened exactly as He had ordained. We see His abundant goodness and mercy in this. The whiplash was pretty jolting and has caused her substantial soreness, but she is getting better and the doctor thinks she shouldn't have any longterm problems arising from the accident. She told us that the side-to-side whiplash is much easier to recover from than the back-to-front.

Two verses that I have been pondering that have been a real comfort to my Mother's heart are: Jeremiah 23:23,24  "Am I a God near at hand," says the Lord, "And not a God afar off?Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?" says the Lord;"Do I not fill heaven and earth?" says the Lord...The Lord is everywhere, which ought to make the wicked shudder and give comfort to the Lord's children!

The second verse is Psalm 90:12 "So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." None of us knows how many days the Lord has ordained for us. As His children, we need to treasure our days and not fritter them away. We need to walk moment by moment, step by step, in His paths, realizing that our days are numbered. That is true wisdom.

Thank you all for your love and prayers. What a blessing to belong to the household of faith!