Valentine Week Happenings

On Tuesday evening, Teri Johnson, from the Berthoud Historical Society, came to our Johnstown Historical Society Members' Meeting and reenacted Jenny McCarty for us. Jenny was Dr. McCarty's wife in early 1900s and was an influential person in Berthoud. Berthoud and Johnstown had many connections in the early 1900s and Dr. McCarty took care of people's health needs in our area before and during the starting days of Johnstown. It was a very interesting program.

On Thursday, the Johnstown-Milliken Homeschoolers got together to play board games and decorate cookies (our tradition for February's activity). Everybody had a good time. In fact, everybody was so busy having a good time, we forgot to take very many pictures! Here are the three that Emily took:
Some sweet, shy girls playing a game.

Janet holding Honor Peterson.

Kelly and LeighAnna Kaus, Bonnie Peterson

On Friday evening, Rowen and Janet went to the CHESS Homeschool Valentine Banquet.
Beth was a server for the meal. Here are the servers and the young lady who played beautiful harp music during the meal.

This is a picture of us after we got home from the Banquet.

Beth enjoyed being a server.

On Saturday, we went to Cheyenne to shop at Sierra Trading Post. We dropped off Jason and Emily at the M.'s house and when we returned there, we ate supper and visited with their family. We had very yummy elk stew, cornbread, and salad.
Here are Jason and Daniel M., doing what they do best--computerizing! They are both extremely good at Blender and like to compare notes on their creations.

Emily and Amy M. enjoyed their time together and played the piano and violin together. It was fun for them to visit in person, as they usually can only talk on the phone.

Sunday evening, at Federal Heights Sunday School, the story was David and Goliath. Steve Cunningham was Goliath and used these drywall stilts to be very tall. He was practicing walking on the stilts before the children arrived. This picture was taken right before he grabbed the wall for support and the clock got broken!

Ransom Notes CD Release Party

We went to the Ransom Notes CD Release Party in Boulder last Saturday evening. The Ransoms are a sibling group. Amanda, on the left is 22, Michael is 18, and Amelia is 15.
Michael is Jason's cello teacher, and Amelia is Emily's violin teacher. In some of these pictures, Amelia is playing a mandolin. She also plays guitar. This evening they were playing bluegrass music. They are amazing musicians and have been playing together for at least six years. They are teaching our kids using the Suzuki methods.

They also sang with some of the songs.

These are amazing, sweet, polite, talented kids.
We really like them!

Michael's 18th birthday was last week, so his family
surprised him with this birthday cake.

He was successful in blowing out all the candles.
His sister, Amanda, is at his left side.

This is a movie clip of one of the songs they did.
I love it how they have fun while they play and smile at each other!

This movie clip is of the song "Catharsis." It is amazing!

A Visit with a Dear Old Friend

Many years ago now, Rowen and I had the opportunity to have regular short Sunday services at Cinnamon Park assisted living facility in Longmont. Rowen's Sunday school class helped with the services for several years, and at some point, it ended up that our family did the services. Rowen and I were involved there for 17 years. The people who attended the services changed from time to time because when people's health changed for the worse, they weren't allowed to stay in that facility. One very dear lady who was there for several years was Marjorie Mikels. Before we quit going there, she had been hospitalized and then placed in a different facility. It was a while before we got back in touch with her, but somehow we found out where she was moved. We have written cards and letters to each other for several years. Marjorie is nearly blind and can't read what I write to her, but someone else reads my letters to her. Her Christmas card expressed her desire to see us again. We have been wanting to go see her, but were waiting until we were over the colds and coughs that have plagued us since Christmas. Finally, this past Saturday, we went to see her. We were going to Boulder and Longmont is on the way, so we stopped and visited. I had called ahead so she knew we were coming and waited near the door for us. The helpers there allowed us to use a private dining room to chat with Marjorie.

It was so good to see Marjorie again and we enjoyed a nice visit and a time of prayer with her.

Marjorie could not get over how big our children are!

We were all dressed up because of the next place we were going, which I will blog about next time.

Thankfully our friend, Mike Durkee, was with us to take the pictures of us with Marjorie!

Guests January 19, 2010

Finally, Catressa Hamilton brought her boyfriend, Eddie Sweetwood, over to meet us. I had done a sewing job for them remodeling a size 56 football jersey down to a size medium so it would fit Eddie. They came over to pick up the shirt, eat supper with us, and play some Dutch Blitz. It was fun to see Catressa again, and to meet Eddie.

We had fun teaching Eddie how to play Dutch Blitz. Hopefully we can do it again soon!

Fun at Federal Heights Jan. 17, 2010

We have been having a great time helping at evening Sunday School in Federal Heights. Judy Hunt has been in charge of a series on the Armor of God with a different piece of armor introduced every week and a Bible story to go along.

Here Ben Reynolds is modeling the armor pieces: the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of righteousness.

The story was about the 5 kings who captured Lot and how Abraham rescued him, all the other people, and their stuff. Ben was the vigilante who captured Lot, (Jeffrey).

The action was so fast moving, that I didn't get the camera up in time to capture Abraham (Rowen) whopping Vigilante Ben on the head with a big stick and rescuing Lot. Here is Rowen looking calm and innocent after the brave deed!

For a fun activity, the kids played a war game against sin (black balloons) with empty paper towel rolls. It was a riot! Below is a still picture of the war, and then a video of the war.

Enjoy! Notice how the helpers had a great time too!

Rowen's Birthday

Thursday, January 21, was my 52nd birthday. As usual, my family made it a special day by making fruit pies (instead of cake), and having our friends, the Kauses, for supper. I have always told Janet that fruit pies are "real food", while cake is only fluff. Janet used the opportunity to give Beth experience at making the pies...


Beth got to make the woven top on the pie, and it turned out perfectly!


Together they made the best cherry pie, and a delicious pumpkin pie. Thanks ladies!

After eating, the girls and adults played "The game of Things", (we didn't get a good picture) while the boys played Legos.

It was a good kind of birthday celebration for an aging, but grateful man ;-)).

Really old news about the quilt I made for Randy and Joy for Christmas!

I made a quilt for Randy and Joy for Christmas using fabrics that the candle lighters at their wedding in 2006 had their dresses made from. It was a surprise for them, even though they knew "someday" I was going to make them a quilt. This pattern is called "Wagon Tracks" and I found it on the internet after I saw one block one of my facebook friends had made.
We gave it to Randy and Joy at Thanksgiving at the Scoles gathering in Columbia, MO. It is on their bed now and they are enjoying it.

Jeffrey and Jason's room

Jeffrey and Jason's room before:

Jeffrey had to decide what color he wanted to use out of the paint we had available. Jason suggested stripes using all of them, but his motion was voted down.

He used the blue primer we had for the girls' room, but added some white primer with it. Then he did all the cutting in with the green.

Jason did all the taping and "gophering", plus supplied the room with Radio Theatre. This picture shows the new ceiling fan/light, without the shade on it.
Jeffrey let me do all of the rolling of the primer and the green. It was really fun! (We sent Rowen on a mission to hunt down new tennis shoes for Emily, so the painting field was left open for me.) We don't have a color name for the green, because it was a "mis-tint" Jeffrey got cheap at ACE Hardware. But it was very good paint; it was ACE paint.

Next we had to decide what kind of faux technique to use. The one on the left was repainted over with green and that wall was left green.

I got a phone call while I was fauxing.

You can see in my hand the sea sponge I used for the fauxing. I also have a piece of styrofoam that was helpful for getting in the corners and edges.

The west wall of their room after it was put back together. We still need to decorate this wall.

The south and east walls of the room. I need to make curtains that go with the new paint. (A project for another day.)

The entry to their room. This little wall and the south wall are the only ones that are fauxed. The picture was painted for Jason by Russell Richardson, in about 10 minutes, back in 2005.

It was fun painting the boys' room! We called off painting for awhile, until we have more time to do our bedroom...

The Hallway facelift

Before Picture:

The upstairs hallway has been country white since August of 1989, like most of our house. Since we were in a strange frame of mind, (changing the girls' room so drastically), we decided to do a "color" in the hallway. We thought we picked a color that went with the carpet, but when it was done, Rowen did not like it.

So we debated whether to faux over it, or "get used to it." On email chat with Tim, he encouraged us to try the faux. I got to do it because Rowen got busy doing the electrical work of putting up ceiling fans/lights in the kids' bedrooms. I really enjoyed getting to do the faux, and we love the new look. It is Nevada Tan underneath, and Scone, a lighter tan, on top. I used a sea sponge for this, different from the technique Randy used in the girls' room.



Rowen used the ceiling lights from the kids' bedrooms to replace and add lighting in the hallway. It is so much better now! We changed the pictures on the walls to include some new ones we got from our children for Christmas.