More pictures from our Missouri trip (Part 2)

 Charissa and Janet enjoying the swing on Grandma and Grandpa Scoles's front porch

                                       Brenda

 Wanda Scoles, Janet's mother.  It was such a gorgeous day to sit on the porch swing and visit!

Rex Scoles, Janet's daddy.  He was trimming around their many flower beds.

 At some point, every little 1 1/2 year old girl wants to move porch furniture...

 A really sweet picture of Charissa

 Jonathan, most photographed 10 month old in Joplin...

 Joy and Quil leading the way on a walk to see the progress in a bird's nest they've been watching.

 Joanna, (Joy's sister), Micah, and Jonathan on the same walk.  Emily was along too, but she was taking pictures.

 Micah and Jonathan being sweet!

 The eggs still haven't hatched!

  Randy and his son, Jonathan, having fun together.

Trip to Missouri May 21-27, 2013 Part 1

Only Emily got to go with us to Missouri, because Beth and Jason were working.  Jeffrey met us there on Thursday and came home with us.  This post's pictures are from the evening of our arrival, May 21.  If everybody looks tired, it's because we were!

                                      Randy

                                        Tim

              Grandma singing "Climb, climb up Sunshine Mountain" with Jonathan.

                        He didn't seem to have any stranger anxiety about us.

 

     The bigger little boys and Charissa wanted to color with Emily, Joy, Brenda, and Joanna. 

                                       Micah and Quil

                                       Quil and Joy

 

The Dickinson Family's visit to Johnstown 5-20-13

 We loved getting to meet this precious family, missionaries to Columbia and Argentina, S.A.  We have followed their blog for years, and a couple of our older sons had met them before, but it was our first time to meet in person.  We had such a good time together, although it was too short!  In this picture, Sarah, Mary, Kimberly, Heather, Noah, Phil, and Elijah in our backyard.

 This is what the younger children enjoyed doing the most!

 The older kids had a great time playing together too, with their instruments!  There are videos at the bottom of the post of some of the music.

 Heather joined them on the piano and they did some great music!

 Rowen, Mary, and I were enjoying listening to the music.  I was blessed that Mary let me hold her.  She is 2 1/2, but really advanced for that age.  She can even sing in two languages!  There are videos of the Dickinsons singing at the bottom of the post too.

 Kimberly and her violin

 The girls didn't mind letting Emily "shoot" them repeatedly!  Kimberly, Mary, and Sarah--such sweet girls!

 Kimberly, almost exactly Emily's age (15)

 Sarah (12)

 Little Mary

 Sisters who love each other very much!

 Emily loved getting two new friends!

 Kimberly and Emily

 Our family who enjoyed our company so much.  Besides the music and the trampolining, we had great discussions and several wonderful prayer times together.

                                          God Has a Plan for My Life

                                          Zephaniah 3:17

                                          Just a Closer Walk with Thee

Be Thou My Vision--Heather and Kimberly didn't even "know" this song, but played amazingly.

                                          My Jesus, I Love Thee

Beth's quilt top done!

We finished this on May 7, and it is now at the quilter's place with Jason and Jeffrey's quilts.  Beth  designed this quilt herself in June 2011.  It is truly a unique quilt--never another one just like it because she made it up.  She scanned the fabrics in our printer/scanner, brought them up in Photoshop, and put them together into the design.  After she started making all the parts of it, she realized it would have been easier to use a classic pattern.  The pieces were put in a box for a year and a half, but when we got it out, we mustered up fresh courage to finish it in time to take on our trip to Missouri. She decided to make log cabin blocks for the borders, which were a lot easier and faster. 

We actually added another couple rows at the top, but I forgot to take another picture of it after that.  When we get it back from the quilter, (probably by August), it will appear on this blog with all its finished beauty!

Book Review: Dandelions on the Wind By Mona Hodgson

Dandelions on the Wind was a quick and sweet read.   I got it as an e-book and read it in one afternoon.  Maren Jensen, an immigrant from Denmark, was a helper (in exchange for room and board) for a widow, Mrs. Brantenberg, on her farm in Saint Charles, Missouri.  The Civil War had ended four months before.  Times were hard and money was scarce.  Maren loved the old lady and her four year old granddaughter, Gabi, but was longing to go home to Denmark to be with her family.  She had come to the United States as a mail order bride, but when her husband-to-be found out that she was going blind, he had refused to marry her. 

Gabi’s father, “Woolly” showed up on the farm unexpectedly.  He had abandoned his newborn daughter when his wife died in childbirth and had joined the army.  His mother-in-law is not happy he has returned and she has to decide whether she believes and can live out the wise sayings she has told the quilting circle, like:  “Grace cannot be earned, only given.”   Maren sees Woolly’s arrival back on the farm as a sign that she can now get a job to earn money in order to return to Denmark.  Gabi’s daily prayers for her father’s return have been answered, but she doesn’t want to lose Maren who has been like a mother to her.  Woolly has to forgive himself for all the wrong decisions he made and find God’s light for his future.

This book was enjoyable and easy to read, but not the challenge or spiritual benefit that my more recent reads have been.  I obtained this e-book from Blogging for Books and Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review.

A Matter of Trust Book Review

I had read another book by Lis Wiehl, so I knew she writes a strong crime mystery novel with surprising twists and turns.  Mia Quinn is a prosecutor for a county District Attorney’s office, recently returning to that job after the death of her husband in a car crash.  She is on the phone with her best friend, another prosecuting attorney in the office, when she hears her friend get shot and killed.  The book is spent with her and a police officer investigating this murder and a similar one of another prosecuting attorney that happened four years ago.  At the same time, they are investigating a suicidal death of a young boy, the age of Mia’s own son, who was bullied and harassed at school and on Facebook leading to his death. 

Mia’s father has recently found Christ as his Savior and shows Mia how Christ can transform an absent, abandoning father, into a loving, kind, and helpful dad.  Mia needs all the support she can get because of the loss of her husband and her friend, but also because she finds out their financial chaos her husband had hid from her.  Going back to work leaves her teen son alone too much of the time, and exposed to the peer pressure of students who will bully him if he doesn’t go along with their plans.  The changes and losses in her four-year-old daughter’s life cause her to have night terrors.  How can Mia be fully engaged at work, investigate the murders, be a good mom to her kids, and keep anyone else from being killed?

I enjoyed this book because I love mysteries that are hard to figure out.  This book deals with current issues, like bullying at school, dangers of social media, keeping our kids safe, and pressures of finances in our day.  It is an intense book that I would not recommend for young readers, but is definitely appropriate for adults who enjoy mysteries.

I received my complimentary e-copy from Book Sneeze in exchange for my honest review of this book. 

3rd Annual Johnstown Historical Society Tea at Two

 Emily and I spent Saturday morning making lots of cucumber sandwiches in preparation for the Tea at Two.  We also made almond cakes.  Other people made chicken salad, chocolate covered strawberries, glazed nuts, cream cheese mints, scones, Death by Chocolate mini cupcakes, and lemon poppy seed cakes.

 Emily and I dressed up before the Tea.  She wore a clip-on "fascinator" on her hat which she won two years ago at the Tea.  My hair clip was made by our niece for Emily's birthday gift this year.

 Cynthia Webb was the speaker for the Tea, as she was two years ago.  Since Jason was the piano entertainment for the Tea, she wanted him to be dressed up for the occasion.  It made it more fun for Jason to wear the fancy clothes and the top hat.

 

Cynthia and Jason after she got him all fixed up!

 This is Cynthia in the hat she wore for most of the Tea.  She is a milliner, a farmer's wife, and a Christian motivational speaker.  But she also gives talks and demonstrations about hat styles and hat making, which is what she did this time.

 Of course, I wanted a picture with my handsome son!

 Emily was a tea server for the occasion.

 

How Jason looked while he was playing for about 1.5 hours.  He played mostly hymns and Christian music, plus his own original compositions.  It was wonderful background "noise" and everyone seemed to love hearing him play.

 

This is looking from the Senior Center kitchen out into the Tea before all the guests had arrived.  There was a contingency of 21 Red Hatters who filled three tables.

 Emily was a careful tea server.  When a teapot was empty, she went back for a different teapot.  I think we had at least eight teapots with four in use at a time.  We had a helper in the kitchen making more tea from tea essence all the time.  This picture caught Emily holding her own teapot that she bought at a garage sale last year.

 This shows how the tables were set.  Old fashioned handkerchiefs are the napkins.  The cups and saucers are varied and all beautiful.  Decorated hats were the centerpieces.

 We had serving tables with all the food on them, so that lines could be served from both directions at once.  Lots of the guests wore hats, which added to the fun of the afternoon.

 While Cynthia spoke, after the teatime, she had three ladies who were modeling clothing and hats from late 1800s and early 1900s.  The models were good sports and made it a fun afternoon.

Tea at Two is one of our two main fundraiser events in the year for the Historical Society.  We are glad to have this one behind us.  It was a lot of work, but everybody had a good time.