Milk promo

This is Ethan and I on a milk promo - every weekend there are milk or cheese promos in grocery stores in the surrounding area. This picture was actually taken several months ago. But you get the idea.

Obed filming the tractor show in October

I really like this picture of Obed - I was standing up on the hill with him and it just turned out so well ... ok, it looks better full screen - those little dots along the road are the tractors.

James filming the tractors - I snapped a shot of him as we drove by.

Obed and James - on the job

Some pictures of James and Obed on the job from a tractor show they recorded in October. They did interviews with the tractor drivers and recorded them all driving through the country side. It was beautiful - we had a great time driving on 4-wheelers and a mule (kinda like a 4-wheel drive golf cart). I've got a couple more.

Ethan after sledding down the hill ... James after sledding down the hill ... =)

Snow is for Sledding

The Christmas Tree Hunt

Obed, James and I went Christmas tree hunting last week on Tuesday. We borrowed dad's truck then headed out to the Christmas tree farm - it was already dark and we weren't exactly sure if we'd be able to find it. We stopped at a gas station to get better directions - just in case we had missed it. But it was ok, we hadn't missed it .. . it was further . . . We were almost lost in middle of somewhere . . . on a gravel road several miles from the nearest highway . . . we'd almost given up hope . . . but then as we were about to turn around . . . "Christmas Tree Farm . . . " we'd found it! " . . . open Sat. and Sun." . . . it was Tuesday . . . So we drove further into the next town, because it was dinner time. We found a store that had live trees already cut! Sweet! James was being the usual goof ball . . . it was freezing cold! But we got a real tree, which smells really good! The scent of pine brings back happy memories of childhood Christmas' . . . real trees are a great Christmas tradition.

Thanksgiving Day Pics

It started snowing on Thanksgiving Day so it was a bit cold, but we had a lot of fun. The whole family went out for a walk and tried catching snowflakes in our mouths as we walked.

A little more sugar in your life . . .

Our furry little sugar babies . . . Obed can write the story to this one . . . I was just a witness.

And thank you to Becky for helping us get a photo of Ethan . . . he's a little camera shy, unless he's the one taking the photos!

Meet the rest of the family . . .

Dad Mum (yes, that's how it's supposed to be spelled =) James Cathy with her hubby, Josh, hiding behind her

Guitar playing

Obed playing his electric guitar. He's been practicing and is sounding really good. No, I'm not just being biased . . . =)

There's more! She's so cute!

I can only fit 5 pics on a post? ok . . . Well, here's Michael with Klarissa.

Our beautiful new niece, Klarissa Elyana!

November has just flown by . . . and I realized I hadn't put up any photos yet. So let me do that now and get caught up a bit. First, let me introduce our new niece, Klarissa Elyana . . . she's so adorable. Congratulations to her Mom and Dad and big brothers from your proud auntie and uncle in MO!!! Mommy with Klarissa Daddy with Klarissa Little Princess Jonathan - look how dark she is . . . she's gonna be beautiful! Good thing she's got brothers to watch out for her. Peter with his new baby sister

Steph's Birthday

Well, time flies . . . my birthday was actually on the 19th - Obed and I were going out to dinner at a restaurant 40miles away. They had a live Jazz band and really good food - my sister wanted to take us there, but her plans changed. So we thought we'd try to find it anyway. . . . All was going well until we were about just a couple of miles away, when we heard a strange noise from under the hood of the car . . . and then the engine idled down . . . we were cruising to stop . . . "What was that?" We had been hearing some kind of noises earlier, but had just taken the car to shop to get it checked out and we replaced a bunch of belts, pulleys, etc. Obed called our friend who had worked on the car, "What did you do to our car?" he joked. We found out later that it was the water pump that had burst (or whatever waterpumps do when they break), which in turn had hit the timing belt which threw that off and now needed replacing also . . . a friend of ours happened to be driving by and stopped to pick us up - we were going to the same place to eat, so we had a good evening (except that they had canceled the Jazz). Since I was going to go shopping with my birthday $$ the next day and couldn't because of the car . . . I went shopping online at Old Navy! They had some cute clothes. I'm kinda glad the car broke down the day before - or I would have been out on the side of the road without Obed . . . he's good at fixing problems, calling people to fix problems, etc. so he took care of us. Obed's taking a nap right now - he was working long hours all week to get all the video stuff done for Open House, TV show, dance trailer, testimonies, etc. . . he's tired. Until next time . . .

Open House

This weekend we had our annual Open House - lots of busy-ness all week long, but everything seemed to run fairly smoothly. I believe we had a little over 1200 people come visit. There are booths set up in the school classrooms, tours available in the afternoon, then a free steak dinner with local entertainment from the church. This year the 4-5 year old little girls in dance class did a performance for part of the show - they were so adorable! There will be a dance recital coming up (Nov. 17th). Obed made a trailer to advertise for them. He was working on formatting it to upload to the blog. My sister and her boss have been working on some fudge recipes - they're going to open a little fudge shop and call it "Charlie's Chocolate Factory". It's awesome! They sold their fudge for the first time during the Open House and it was a huge success—they got their first wholesale offer. We had two baby goats in the 4H room and Mark told me to put some pampers on them so they could run around the room without soiling on the carpet—everyone enjoyed seeing them in diapers! They had to have their diapers changed a couple of times, but they didn't seem to mind. =) It was fun, but boy was everyone tired when the night was over.

Sugar Gliders..the Movie

HCA Devotions

Obed spoke at the Heartland Christian Academy devotions on Thursday. We found this picture of him (Junior year in high school) behind a baby picture that his mom had given me when we visited them. It was really good to hear him speak again. This is the first time he's ever spoken since he moved up here 2 years ago. I was sitting next to my mum during the devotions and at the end she leaned over and told me "He should speak more often." Then later on that afternoon, I had a meeting and Laurie Sharpe mentioned to me that she didn't know he was 34yrs old . . . and that he did a very good job speaking in devotions. I'm so proud of him!

Milk Promo Adventures

I went on another milk promo last weekend to fill in for my sister. There were 4 of us that went to Peoria, IL. Two girls were dropped off in Pekin just south of Peoria and Casey and I drove another 40min to Eureka . . . Every milk promo has an adventure - Pekin has one way roads everywhere - it's crazy trying to find the store sometimes. I ended up accidentally driving the wrong way down a one way road - only for a block, but . . . talk about freaking out! I was trying to find my way back to the store to pick up the other girls at the end of the day and not only did we have to deal with all the one way roads, but they had the main road blocked off for a concert + carnival! I turned down this road, then asked Casey, "Was this a one way road?" she said, "I don't know, I didn't see a sign" . . . then I saw two cars turn toward us - one in each lane . .. so we cut across the road into a parking lot . . . what a rush! Then we got lost trying to find the hotel . . . but that was more because you had to go into the mall around the back and down a side road that had a tiny sign to the hotel that was surrounded by highways and only accessible through the little road at the back of the mall - and there was a tree growing in front of the sign telling you to go through the mall . . . so we drove on each of the highways around the mall before spotting the road and trying the mall. You can read the sign "Use Mall Entrance" when you're already at the hotel, but that's just not very helpful when trying to find it. But we had a great time - definitely an adventure on this one! While driving around, we also found a Target with a Starbucks inside - so we stopped by in the morning for a cup of Go Juice!

Obed's Birthday

I know it's been a while . . . again . . . but Obed's birthday party on Sept. 3rd was great - lots of people came over . . . sorry, no photos b/c we really need to get a camera. We didn't have all the screws to put together the BBQ - so the guys were hanging out downstairs in my sisters apartment using her husbands grill. Mum, dad, James, Cathy, Josh, and I put together some money to buy Obed an ipod - but I didn't get it b/c the store was out of stock and I was going to have to order it online . . . we ended up just giving him the money and it was a good thing! Two days later the 80G was $100 less and they came out with the itouch. Which Obed says that now he would prefer waiting for the second generation itouch - b/c it's way cooler! Everyone had a great time - we had grilled chicken, rice, beans, hummus + pita bread, deviled eggs, hot dogs on hoagies, nachos and cheese dip, BBQ baby hot dogs, and bread rolls. Thanks to my mum and sisters who helped with the food. Darin and Christy's girls, Taya and Emily, played with their Dora dolls under the table - it was their little hide out . . . we have a counter height square table. They were so cute! I wanted to get an ice cream cake for desert - TCBY was the only ice cream that I could figure he might like - he's an ice cream connoisseur of sorts. But the day I planned to go to town (45min - 1hr drive) without him (we always go together) . . . didn't work out. So since he was right there with me and there was no way I was going to keep this a secret to surprise him with this cake . . . I decided to just let him pick it out . . . then we came to the conclusion that if we bought a couple of boxes of fudge cake and a bucket of ice cream . . . there would be more cake and ice cream to go around . . . and possible some left over. =) So I made him a fudge cake - it turned out really good! There were no left overs. My brother James brought over his Wii, which kept the guys occupied for the rest of the night. If you've never played - you ought to try it. James likes to play video games, etc. so we all tried to convince to him to wait and not buy it for a while - see if he really wants it or if it's just a spur of the moment purchase . . . he got it a couple weeks later and now we all enjoy playing it. We even got mum to race cows with us! I don't usually like gaming b/c all the buttons you have to push. The controllers on Wii are so much easier to understand - some games don't even use buttons, you just tilt the remote - that's how you race cows, tilt forward, left or right, to slow down you just tilt back (kinda like pulling the reigns on a horse) ... so that was really fun!