Christmas Day at the Johnstown Albertsons

Christmas 2008 at our house was different than any other in recent memory. This is the first Christmas with our two oldest sons married and living out of state. Both of them and their precious families were here for Thanksgiving this year, at which time we exchanged gifts like most people do at Christmas. Randy, Joy and their son Quil went to South Dakota to be with Joy's family for Christmas. Brenda and Tim went to New Jersey to be with Brenda's family for Christmas week.

So we were 'all alone', with just the six of us current Johnstown Albertsons. We wish that we could have spent some time with each of you, but I suppose you were all busy with your own family activities... Maybe next year!

I (Rowen) am off of work from Dec. 25 - Jan. 1, so we have plenty of time to just be family. We have a minimal agenda each day, only that we please the Lord with our attitudes, actions, activities, and words, and that we try to be a blessing to one another.

On Christmas Day, Janet decided that each one of us should choose and prepare a dish for dinner. Some had help, but were primarily responsible for that particular food. It was kind of fun.

I (Rowen) got to carve the pre-sliced ham ;-))

Janet helped Jason with his salad project.

Jeffrey made yummy green beans, but here he was making salad dressing.

Beth made our favorite potato casserole, in which she used frozen french-fries rather than the hash-browns that the recipe calls for. That turned out really good!

Jason chopped up several different things for the fresh lettuce salad

Emily made brownies

Here is Janet rinsing stuff out along the way...

Ready to eat!

This is how they looked:

After we ate and cleaned it up, we all went on a 2+ mile walk in the 40'F, sun-shiny day.

Christmas Carol Sing with a String Quintet

Last night we were privileged to participate in a seasonal event that was a blessing to our family.

Our friends, Mathew, Nicole, Phoebe, and Ethan Hinkle hosted a Christmas Carol Sing with a String Quintet in their home. There were 17 of us, one of which was a baby. The string ensemble was: 2 first violins, 1 second violin, 1 viola, and 1 cello. The rest of us sang as they played. The Host and Hostess wore their Victorian costumes, which was special.

Thanks, Hinkles, for making our Christmas Holidays extra special!

Host of the event, Mathew Hinkle


A pastor and his wife from Arvada, CO


Part of the string quintet...


Part of the string quintet...


First Violinists Melissa and Alice taking a break...


Janet was thrilled to get to babysit Ethan while his mommy played her cello.


Hostess Nicole helping Phoebe with a snack...


Examples of our singing with the String Quintet

Old Friends

This year I have gotten back in touch with several old friends from my high school graduating class of 1979 through Facebook. Christi Wells is one of these friends. She lives in Texas and has traveled to Colorado several times lately. This past week, we were determined to get together, as it may have been the last of her business trips to Colorado. The weather was atrociously cold and snowy this week, but Rowen was willing to drive me to south Denver so I would not have to "brave" the winter driving. Tuesday evening, we met at the Hilton Garden Inn lobby in Englewood and talked for 2 1/2 hours straight!

It was such a delightful evening, getting reacquainted after all of these years. I was so glad to hear of Christi's journey and how God is real in her life!

Rowen scanned our senior pictures from the yearbook and added them to the picture below. We really haven't changed THAT much. I think anyone could tell we were us! However, I agreed with Christi when she said, "I don't miss anything about high school but my body!" But thinking it over, I would have to add that I do miss the friends that are so far flung now. It is such a blessing to be getting back in touch with some of them. Maybe we can be better friends now than we had the capability of being back then!

Four more pictures from Thanksgiving

Beth wanted a picture of Randy and Quil in front of the stitchery she made for Randy: "A Careful Man I Want to Be, (a little fellow follows me)". Quil is even dressed to match the little boy in the stitchery.

Quil will grow up with this stitchery, like Randy did. I made one just like it, (except I put a beard on the dad), for Rowen's birthday January of 1987.

A couple of days Lincoln came and was babysat while Quil was here. He is from February to June older than Quil.

They seemed to like each other.

December happenings, so far

Kara's mother gave me an Amish friendship bread starter and Kara happened to be here the day I made it all into bread. She likes to help by pouring things in.

Another day, Kara, her sister, Alia, and some other friends, Sam and Lily, were here being babysat. Beth was reading a Woof book to Kara, Sam, and Alia.

On December 6, Emily and I babysat our neighbor's granddaughters, Reece and Riley. We took them with us to the Johnstown museum, The Parish House, for cookies and tea at the Christmas Open House. Here they are swinging on the porch swing with Emily.

Reece is trying to decide which cookie she wants! It was a hard decision!

Linda Young is serving the tea and cider.

Here are some of the miniature Christmas trees that were decorating the Parish House and were being raffled off that day. Many people had decorated them for the occasion. The ornaments on the 3rd tree from the right were all made out of paper and it was called The Recession Tree. It got the most votes.

Here are some of the trees in the living room. People put their names in the bags beside the ones they liked the best. Then if their name was drawn out, they got that tree. We didn't buy any chances, but we enjoyed looking at the trees.


This past Saturday, we went to Parker, CO to Alan and Betty Durkee's house for their Annual Christmas Party. The following are pictures from that.

In the foreground is Michael Durkee and Emily. In the back is Alan and Betty Durkee and me, having a yummy snack!

Almost everywhere we saw was decorated for Christmas. It was beautiful.

This is Beth feeding Kirk Barnett his bottle.

I was trying to get another burp out of Kirk! He is a sweetie!

This is Kirk's mother, Cara, daddy, Ben, and brother, Luke Barnett. I don't know if it was Luke's first time for candy canes, but he sure loved them!

Betty Durkee, laughing, during the Bible Outburst Game we were playing. She, Teresa Jeffries, Beth, Rowen, and I were the winning team.


This is part of the opposing team. Cleta Jeffries was keeping score. Ben Barnett, his brother-in-law, Doug Jeffries, and Michael, along with Jeffrey and Jason, who are not pictured, tried their best, but lost by a few points. Lorin Jeffries was watching and lending support to the guys' team.

Rowen having a cup of coffee. The tapestry above him was part of Betty's Christmas this year. It is a Thomas Kincade piece which lights up with tiny pinpricks of light. Beautiful!

Some of those Albertson kids snacking! The cookies, covered pretzels, and fudge was on that counter! Michael tried to keep an eye on them, but they still ate too much! :)

We had a great time and enjoyed the fellowship!

Working at Operation Christmas Child Processing Center

Last year I wrote a post about Operation Christmas Child (click here to see it). We (Daddy, Mother, Jeff, Jason, and I) just went to the Processing Center in Denver on Thursday (Dec. 4, 2008) and worked for four hours. This year we took a camera with us (Jason's new one). So here are some pictures.
-Beth

This is the break area, where workers can rest/eat/drink during their work time.

O.C.C. has two gifts for its workers: a new t-shirt every year, and an ornament with the logo and year on it. Here are Mother and I displaying the backs of our shirts, prior to our training and working.

Mother working (I think she was an inspector right then).

Jeffrey was putting shoes boxes into the shipping containers.

The lady in the green shirt was our 2nd Supervisor (Line Leader).

Me (Beth), searching each box for money.

Jason taking out money at a different line. At the bottom-left of this picture you can see a hole in the table for the contributions to be dropped into, after we removed them from each shoebox. The money ($7/shoebox) pays the shipping costs for the gifts.

Daddy inspecting the boxes across from Jason.

Jeff, Mother, Daddy, me, and Jason after working for four hours.

A map, with us working in each position. Other people were working right around us, whom we did not capture in these photos. One of the fun things of doing this is the fellowship with complete strangers from all over the country, young and old (mostly retired folks, when we've been there). Click on this picture to make it larger.

The Tan squares on the ends of each side are the beginning of this process. They are full of un-sorted shoeboxes, just as they came from the various regions all over the country. The ones that we worked on were from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Colorado. When we started they had already processed over 218,ooo shoes boxes, and will do >600,000 at this processing center before Christmas.

M: Money seacher / remover

I: Inspector, who must remove banned items, which cannot be shipped, so are saved for local ministries.

T: Taper, who tapes each inspected shoebox tightly shut with Samaritan's Purse tape.

The Tan squares in the center are where the shipping containers are filled with at least 14 shoeboxes. They are sorted here to go into shipping cases for Boys or Girls, and for different age groupings.

The Colored squares represent bins that had candy and replacement toys in them. If we had to take out a banned item, we would replace it with a donated toy. Every box was supposed to have candy in it, so we added candy if there wasn't any in each box.