June Activities - Part 1

On Friday, June 1st, we had a family get-together with Rowen's sister Esther's family, our niece Shirlene's family, and all of us Johnstown Albertsons. 

Albertsons, Mendezes, Manoharans, and Kazmaiers (photo by Jeff Kazmaier)

...and the rest. (photo by Jeff Kazmaier)

On Friday, June 8th, Rowen and Janet got to go to an ice-cream social at the Hinkles' home.  Jason and Emily were not feeling well, and Beth had to work too late to come, but R&J enjoyed it!

Our friends' beautiful clamatis!

Ladies visiting at the social.

And the children looking sweet!

...and the men.

June 9th was Mike and Carmen Durkee's wedding reception.

The happy couple!

Looking at the quilt Janet made them as a wedding gift.

Handbell Choir Concert

We went to hear the Wesley Bell Ringers play on Saturday (June 9th) evening in Longmont.  These teens are really good at what they do!  We enjoyed the music.

Fashionable Hairdo!

How Janet's hair looks this month.

Photographer's View

Emily's been pretty excited about having a new camera!

VBS this week at Joplin

This is a cell phone picture of Jeffrey giving the sermon/story at VBS tonight.  Please pray for this VBS to be used by God in these kids' lives.

2012 Garden

 We planted our garden on May 21, late for us, but after our Cincinnati trip.  Rowen had so much to catch up on after being gone 10 days for work and the Historical Society, we decided to bless him by getting the garden planted while he was at work.  We had an extra helper, since it was Monday, Lincoln Brown.  He even went to the garden center with us to buy the seeds!  Jason and I talked it over and decided to arrange the garden differently than we ever had before.  The zucchini would go on the north, then the tomatoes, and the beans on the south.  The spaghetti squash and a couple cucumber plants on the east.

First Lincoln helped Jason plant the tomato plants.

He was almost big enough to dig the hole!

Beth and I planted the cucumber plants.

Beth, Lincoln, and I planted the green bean seeds.

 Beth gave him a stick to use for measuring the distance between seeds.

It was much faster not to measure.

A week later, we all, including Lincoln, were happy to see the beans coming up.

And up!

Unfortunately, the weed seeds also enjoyed the watering and came up too.

Today Beth and I weeded the beans on our hands and knees.

It looks pretty good now.  I hope it will stay that way for awhile!

So far, we only had pea sized hail for five minutes, so we are thankful.

Most of these pictures were taken by Emily, who didn't get pictured when she was planting.  (The life of a photographer!)

Finishing up May, 2012

 Beth and Emily wearing look-alike clothes and looking sweet!

 Eating peanut butter cheesecake for dessert on the last Sunday in May.  We didn't have our pavilion up yet because some friends had borrowed it for a wedding.

 Memorial Day tradition of washing windows.  So thankful Beth and Jason have Mondays off so they could help us.  What would we do without our helpers?

 And what would we do without Emily taking pictures?  She has a new camera so she is having a lot of fun with it.  She also helped with washing windows and blinds, etc.

 The curtains had to be washed and ironed.  Standing, ironing was a welcome change of position from kneeling at the bathtub washing windows.

 Rowen takes the windows out and cleans the tracks and puts them all back together.  We like to do this job before the bugs get bad because we do have the windows completely out while we clean them.

We are always thankful to get that huge job behind us for the year!

I saw my sisters on our trip...

 On our way to Cincinnati, we stayed the night in Columbia, Mo.  My sister, Marlene, took us to Cracker Barrel to eat, and then we went out to "The Land" and saw my brother, Lyndell, Sharen, and Austin.  Lyndell had sawdust all over him, because he was cutting and framing in bedroom windows, and I didn't even get to hug him.  We didn't have our camera with us, because we had jumped into Marlene's car, so these cell phone pictures are all I have.

 Rowen, Sharen, and Marlene were watching Austin and Emily having fun on the 4-wheeler.

 Austin was pulling Emily on the magic carpet ride.  She loved it!

On our way from Cincinnati to Joplin, we stayed the night in Wentzville, Mo. at my sister, Brenda's house.  We got to visit a tiny bit with Charley, Leah, and Andrew, but Rebekah was at work.  Rebekah did allow us to stay in her apartment, and we appreciated the good sleep.

Thursday night before we came home on Friday, my other sister, Sherry, came over and spent the evening visiting with us at Tim's house.  I am so sorry we didn't get a picture of her, or her husband, Tim, and newly graduated daughter, Tasha, or her boyfriend, Griffin, who I had a fun time visiting with!!  I was glad we got to see all of them.  I love my family!

Anniversary of the Joplin Tornado

We were in Joplin a week before the May 22 anniversary of the tornado that killed 161 people and damaged so much of Joplin.  We took Quil and Micah to Cunningham Park, which has been rebuilt from its total devastation.  We didn't take many pictures, but just these few.  We are looking at pieces of miscellaneous debris from the tornado that have been embedded in three stones of memorial.

 Rowen and I drove around the main streets of the tornado devastation.  So much has been or is being rebuilt, but so much is still vacant.  A few ruined houses are still there, not taken away, a stark reminder of what happened.  I didn't want pictures of it; it is still very sad.

We saw this memorial in Cunningham Park, but I got this image off of Facebook, as we didn't take a picture of it that night.

I copied the following from Facebook, from Ozark Christian College's page.  This made me cry a year ago; it still does.  

NATALIA PUEBLA had just finished her first year at Ozark Christian College. A 4.0 student, Natalia often flashed her mischievous smile. She loved to flick the hat off her grandpa's head or offer her hand to shake, only to pull it back at the last moment with a grin.

Most of all, Natalia loved Jesus. She could not have known she was making her last Facebook post that Sunday afternoon, but she could not have chosen one more appropriate: the lyrics of 'In Christ Alone.' "In Christ alone my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song. This Cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm."

Natalia was in church when the tornado hit. She covered a seven-year-old child with her body and began to pray out loud. Her pastor said later he could hear her praying and then suddenly came silence. She died talking with the Lord she was preparing to meet.

After hearing of Natalia's passing. OCC professor Doug Welch returned to his home and glanced at a stack of final paper's still waiting to be graded. Natalia's paper happened to be on the top of the stack, and the topic of her paper: the resurrection of Christ. He wrote, "It's a good paper, deserving of an A . . . but she knows this truth far better now."

Copy from the OCC Publication: "In the Midst of the Storm."  Natalia is center in this picture.