10th Day of Christmas - Friends and a Truck

We headed to Anchorage today and picked up Don and Beth. Don was on staff at the Bible College we attended. Beth and I were freshmen the same year. She is one of my dear Sister Friends. It is so rejuvenating to have time with them. 

We had some errands to run. We stopped by Mike's neurologist for a new prescription. We headed to the VA clinic to turn in the script at the pharmacy. We had lunch. We picked up the meds....and along the way we also picked up this.

There's been a lot of talk that I can't drive the truck....but Michael assures me it's all teasing. Be that as it is, he is loving the truck. We still have a chunk left in the money we've set aside for cars...and so we are now looking for a "family" car.  We are considering a trip to the bank to pull out the remainder of our car budget in CASH....and then go shopping and fan out the cash we will offer and see what they can find us. ::snort:: 

Michael, Don, Beth and I spent the evening visiting and laughing. The kids played Flash Point. 

They haven't done a great job of saving the structures at this point. 

9th Day of Christmas - A Fun Evening Out

Krista and Nolan went to the library and feed store for us. They also stopped at La Fiesta....running errands together wasn't enough to count for their one on one time. LOL

We worked here at home while they ran errands. Michael is getting a couple of gifts packaged and ready to ship. The kids and I dismantled the gingerbread villages and and moved tables and such back into place.

I  canned another 14 pints... I made 9 pints of veggie soup starter (6 with beef broth and 3 with ham stock). I had room left in the canner and threw in 5 pints of pinto beans.

I've written  about Biblical hospitality: here, and  a bit here. It is a subject God impressed on me during our time in Misawa, Japan.

We have experienced many forms of hospitality here in Alaska. We sought out a church which seemed welcoming, where we saw people talking to one another when we visited. This was as important to us as the other "big" things on our list.  The community/hospitality offered to us has been stunning at times. We are blessed. We have been invited out to lunch after church, been  taught how to  dip-net and invited to join a family trip, been loaned fishing equipment,  been invited for coffee and play dates, had help with projects (sewing and woodworking), airplane miles given to us, cars loaned to us...all forms of amazing hospitality....but we are rarely invited to someones home. Intellectually, we know this is probably because our family seems "big," and intimidating. You should have seen us when there were 9 Gherkins at home. 

Before someone messages me that we should create the community we want to be a part of and reach out to others - we have and do! We recognize and are blessed at the variety of hospitality offered to us. I'm being real here. Being invited "inside the gates," confirms a level of intimacy and community we desire in our lives. It's also hard. "Having someone over" requires time, transparency, and vulnerability.  It also adds a richness to our relationships. How else would I know my 80 year old friend loves John Grisham and Joel Rosenberg novels?

Invites to homes are rare everywhere we have ministered, in many neighborhoods.   It's a comment made to us by parishioners who long for closer relationships. We understand. I suspect most of us have the same longing to know and be known.

 This church community - according to Greek terms in the Bible - is  fellowship and not the word for hospitality at all. Yet, we crave it.  Biblical Hospitality may start in our church community - but is meant to be our stance to strangers. Now, most in our church are still "strangers" to us, but I am convicted  I need to keep reaching out to neighbors....when they turn the other way, when they tell me they are progressive liberals (not sure why that matters), when they obviously want to avoid getting to know us, when their lives reveal a vastly different worldview than mine....we are still called to be a people who extend hospitality. It's what God has done for us.  I don't let myself off the hook. I'm not whining about not being invited to another's home, and ignoring the fact I need to keep making an effort in our area and church as well.  We feel blessed to have been led to our church community and to have gotten to know so many, so quickly. 

It's simply that in an odd moment, one asked, "Why do you think we aren't invited to anyone's home?"  As parents, we gave the right answer.

Yet, those insecure thoughts do linger from time to time, don't they? One begins to wonder, in their most insecure moments, do folks simply not WANT to get to know us?  Is one time in our house enough for them to decide they'll love us from afar? ::wink:: ::snort:: ::grin::

I believe Holy Spirit surfaced the question, and our insecurity, so we would be more committed in our efforts to include and love others....and so we would be taken with joy when we were invited to someone's home!!! LOL

We went over to Carl and Brenda's for snacks and games tonight. Their son, Daniel, is Nolan's age. Brenda and I wanted to be sure they get time together while Daniel is home on break. A bonus was being able to get to know their other son, Joel. 2019 has started out well!

We played Balderdash - which is a very serious business, indeed. 

Carl, Daniel, Joel and Brenda

Why did we line up with Gherkins on one side and S family on the other? ::snort:: 

Krista, Nolan, Stacia, Alex and Michael
 (I am on the bench between Krista and Brenda)

Joel and Brenda

We were offered great snacks, laughter, conversation, games - friendship.  It was a fun and refreshing evening.

What are some of your favorite ways to extend hospitality to others?  How do you extend hospitality? I am guessing usually outside of your home? Do you often have others inside your home? Do you have some simple menus or ideas that work well? Maybe I should collect answers and write another blog post compiling easy tips and ways to reach out to others. Our neighborhood has stumped me.

8th Day of Christmas - Amazon "Prime" Comes Through

Amazon Prime in Alaska means the things ordered weeks before Christmas will be shipped early on the 26th and 27th and arrive on the 1st of January. It doesn't matter for most of what we've ordered. We'll not have our immediate family gift exchange until Epiphany, actually thinking the weekend after.

I did hope this little cup would arrive before the Christmas Adam Tea. Isn't it darling. It's PLASTIC. I bought one to keep here for Bella to have tea at Granna's house. I will get another for her sister and future grand girls.....I ordered one to give her for Christmas, along with a book. They arrived and we'll take them over soon.

The boys' Christmas gifts also arrived. Since Benny lives in the house....we went to their apartment and delivered his gifts.

It makes me happy that Benny has a reading corner and loves books. He headed off with his book and we had to call him back to open the "real" present. 

We got him a couple of little tractors. What we wanted to purchase said it wasn't good for children under 3 years old....maybe we'll rebel next year. LOL  He liked these. Here, he discovers the back moves back and forth on one of them. 

Krista and Alex headed out for their one on one time fairly early in the day.  She sent a photo!

I processed ham stock, asked a question on Facebook and with the help of my friends came up with a plan. I processed 15 pints of beans in the ham stock.

Alex led the way in getting all the kids outside to move the mounds of snow that had slid into our parking spot.

Alex, Krista, Stacia, Nolan

Nolan has two days off....I'm hoping he rests. He's looking run down with the many hours and the cold he was fighting.

Krista took Michael and I out for dinner. It was fun to spend time alone with her sharing our heart and hearing hers.  We stopped by Walmart before heading home. I LOVE Christmas shopping after Christmas.  We stocked up on wrapping paper (some of which will be used this year)....  $.20 - .60 a roll. We picked up 12 little stockings and 12 mantle hangars at 75% off....next year I will just have stockings for all at our home. No need for them to bring them here to be filled. I also picked up a few yard signs which will work the whole winter at 75% off. Michael got all new lights for our house at 75% off. He won't be able to install them until spring....so we limp along with new strands dying after each storm. LOL  Our plan was to leave the lights up until the last dog reached Nome (from the Iditarod), instead we'll see how many are left by that time.

They rounded the night out with snowboard kids. 

We forgot another day of scavenger hunts. Ugh.....the days are full. 

Winter Chickens

The girls (16 hens) complain loudly and insistently when it's too cold for them to go outside. They seem to think  *I* control the weather and should be able to remedy the situation.

Bit windy....I can almost feel her cringing...up on her tip toes

 I shovel out about 1/2 of the chicken yard and put shavings down so it's warmer for them to be out and about. I hope to have 1/2 the run covered and be able to put up a wind break before next winter. We've had no frostbite yet, really cold weather is predicted for this weekend.

We have had "cold." It warmed up for several days. The warmth and the rain caused all the snow to rush off our metal roof. Not a bit of snow left on the roof.  A good share of the snow landed in big mounds in the chicken yard.

So much came down at once on the fence it broke the ties holding the link to the posts. 

When it warms up, I clean off the "poop shelf" under their roosts, and change out all the shavings in the coop. I put the shavings down in the yard, after it's all shoveled. I knew I had some work cut out for me with all the snow in the yard.....the warmth meant the frozen poop on the shelf could also be dealt with.

I opened the chicken door for them to get some air and come visit while I worked. They were not impressed.  They did, however, give us 15 eggs.

There was so MUCH snow, I couldn't make much headway. Michael came out to shovel a spot. clean the coop, the poop shelf and make the gals more comfortable. He spread shavings and they were happy to enjoy the warmth.

I worked on canning.  Together, we get it done! We're settling into a winter rhythm.

7th Day of Christmas - Hello, 2019!

I started the day by putting a couple of roasts into the Instant Pot. They'd cook all day and I'd add BBQ sauce to the meat before dinner. BBQ Beef sandwiches, potato salad, green salad, chips - a simple dinner with all who are in town. There was also a mountain of munchies and 100+ pigs in a blanket. 

Nolan worked from 0500 - 1300 (1 p.m.). 

Michael worked, busily in the garage

We have had our own unique way of celebrating New Year's Eve for about 7 years. For all the details you can read this post.  The Reader's Digest version is that we plan activities for every hour until midnight. We wrap the clues or instructions in a brown paper bag, and open one each hour.  Things kept changing this year. Usually, everyone is visiting us from out of town and Michael has the day off. This means we start earlier and have  way MORE activities. This time the guys were working and we weren't able to meet until 7 p.m. We realized toddlers may not make it all the way to midnight and so we wanted to get the gift exchange and the Gingerbread Competition done early.  We finally threw out the bags, listed what we wanted to get done, and Michael and I played it by ear. It worked.

Benny isn't feeling well, but he was ready for dinner with "his people." 

Before we got busy on the Gingerbread competition, I wanted to grab a photo of Bre. It may well be her last of this pregnancy. Papa photo bombed. ::snort:: 

Bre - 37 weeks; Michael 58 weeks

 I won't show much of the Gingerbread happenings. It worked well not to reveal which team made which village last year. There was a concern  some were voting out of sheer gender loyalty. I'll post those pictures after the voting is done this year.  Last year the girls had two nursing babes and an 18 month old helping. It was agreed the boys would go with the men this year. We joke the kids were the chaos factor - but they all did incredibly well. And they're totally adorable when they sneak some frosting, or a snowman or two.

Cory had to work this evening. Benny sat in his chair and offered his advice to the male team. 

Gideon is happy to help. 

 Next up was the gift exchange. Things happened fast. As the Gherkins have grown up, the sheer amount of gifts to buy each year became overwhelming for budget-minded folks. This is our 2nd year where each of us drew one name. Some gave extra gifts - and that's ok.  Michael tried to catch a photo of each one opening their gift....but I don't think we got everyone. Here is what we do have.

Auntie K gave Gideon a set of blocks

BreAnne gave Nolan a t-shirt, mad libs, candy and more

Josiah gave Krista an Ulu knife

Izaak gave Josiah a tip up for ice fishing

Auntie K gave Bella a doll - "Anya" 

This little gal loves her daddy! So sweet to watch. 

 Izaak wanted practical gifts. I gave him a gas card and lb of bacon.

Alex had my name and knocked it out of the park. 

I love socks.

 "Home is where YOU are."

Auntie K gave Benny a wood sheet with a zillion kinds of locks on it.

Michael gave Bre a Coca Cola calendar and some coca cola socks.

Krista had Stacia name and wow...she got a couple of Adventures
in Odyssey albums, patterns, yarn.....

 Everyone received a gift...but I don't have any documentation for Alex, Arielle, Jamin and Michael. 

Alex helped Michael bring in one last gift for Bella and Gideon. A toy box. He'll round the corners, add some end pieces, and varnish it before we take it over to them. 

They were impressed! 

Bella shows Benny. 

Papa made them a pirate ship..... LOL 

 The paper began flying in and out of the box...pirates must lob shots. 

Gideon found it was a protected place to play with his new blocks.

 Uncle Jamin is great fun. 

Stacia gave 3 of her projects away. Didn't they turn out darling (the shirts)?  Bre's even fits her baby bump. Well, Larissa is sure to know she is the recipient of the 4th project....but she won't know the pattern.

Group hug! Worth the hours....thankful for the lifeline who saved the project. 

Krista (31), Arielle (21), Stacia (13), BreAnne (33) - we miss Larissa 

 Another hour of working on the Gingerbread followed gifts. We make a time capsule each year. Each person puts something in to represent the year. Usually, we pull out an old year and look at it... BUT it was getting late by now and the kiddos were hanging in there - but ready for us to speed things along. (I usually take photos and share what each person counted - it's a great way to recap the year. We were rushing this year and I didn't think to get photos).

We decided to have our prayer circle at 10:30, rather than waiting for midnight so that BreZaak and kids could go home as necessary.

Before BreZaak left, Bella was happy to try on the hat and blower and pose for us.

Benny is getting tired....

But he's doing better than Uncle Nolan. He missed the countdown - but he is o.k. with that. 

Next year we plan a bonfire and fireworks in the yard. These were our neighbors. Josiah has a vision for making the fireworks great. 

Cory didn't make it home until after the New Year; we fed him a sandwich and gave him his gift. A Cabella gift card from Nolan. 

Hello, 2019!