Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas to friends and family all around the world! We wish you all the best in 2009 as well. We are so thankful for the time we have had in the US and Canada! It was great to see so many family and friends. Thank you everyone for making our furlough such an encouragement and for blessing us in so many ways!
We are spending Christmas in BC with our friends, the Smids. Ben, Sharla and Chiara have also joined us here. There is lots of snow so many are enjoying the slopes and Oma is enjoying very special time with Chiara.
We miss Shawna and wish she could be here but she is spreading Christmas cheer through the friendly skies as she left Florida this AM, traveled to DC and then on to San Fransisco!(At least that is what she is scheduled to do!) We had about a week together last week as Shawna had most of the week off.
This year we are once again reminded of how thankful we are for Jesus, the reason for celebration and joy!
We hope you enjoy a few pictures from our Christmas, 2008. There will be more to come so stay tuned!

Christmas in the mountains!

It is so much fun to share the cooking with Diane, Sharla and Michelle. For Christmas Eve we had several kinds of fondue and then watched a couple of movies. it is still snowing...skiing is great!


Santa's helper arrived in all her finery this am!! Chiara is adding so much joy to the season...although she is somewhat apprehensive about the hairy Smid faces!

We are having a relaxing time with our friends in BC. Shawna is in San Fransisco and hoping to get a good trip for Christmas. We miss her tons! We are thankful that we were able to spend some good time together as a family in Seattle. The snow kept us house bound for a few days but we enjoyed baking, playing games and doing other things together as a family! We want to wish you all a Merry Christmas where ever you are. Check with us on Christmas Day when we plan to add a fun family photo!

Christmas and so on...

Chiara not so sure about the head gear!




Chiara watching Opa shovel snow!

Shawna and Chiara having a lot of fun!

We left Seattle in about a foot of snow and drove to Canada Sunday afternoon. We are so thankful for safe travels! This picnic table had at least a foot of snow on it!


On Monday we drove with our friends to their home at Sun Peaks, BC where we will spend Christmas. It is cold but beautiful here. It reminds us so much of Switzerland!

Chiara is ready for winter and Christmas and so are we!!

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's off to town we go!

Look at this happy group and guess where we are going??? Today we took my 3 aunts and my Mom on a little Christmas shopping trip. My brother, Dan who has the patience of Job and is so very kind, was the driver. We found a wheel chair for Aunt Liz(95)and Jesse wheeled her all over. She had so much fun! What a hoot to have them choose McDonalds for lunch, Tim Hortons for coffee and donuts, and then Dairy Queen for ice cream. We ROLLED them all home safe and sound before dark. I think we all felt young today and had a blast enjoying time and food together. (Good thing we don't eat like that every day!)

At my Mom's house!

This is my 93 year old Mom. Her hands are never idle. Here she is making Christmas ornaments for the great grandchildren. (They better not be peeking!) She keeps busy with all sorts of projects and when she is at the Senior's Home, where she lives most of the time, she helps others stay busy as well as she patiently teaches them from her collection of crafts.

Excitement in Luseland!

This morning on her way to work, a dear lady accidentally ran into this store. (She stepped on the gas instead of the brake.) The store is the old Co-op grocery store which is scheduled to open as another grocery store. It is fun to be a part of the small town news! By the way, no one was hurt in this smash!

Last photos in Colorado

Jesse's family lives near this twin mountain peak. It is the only mountains for miles around so looks a little strange on the plains.

Winter Wonderland!

I took a picture of the sunrise yesterday am. This is approximately the same shot this am.

Last night it snowed. I wanted to get a couple pictures of the trees before the wind came along.

Some things are quite amazing about the plains...for example, a Colorado sunrise. It was breathtaking this morning!

Although this may not seem like such a great picture, there is something amazing about driving down a highway and being able to see for miles in front and behind you. At night the stars are SO bright and beautiful and sometimes in this area of Colorado/Kansas you can see the lights of towns as far away as 40 - 50 miles.

...and you just never know what you might see. Someone very patriotic took a lot of time to paint this flag on this barn.

Thanksgiving with Jesse's family

Jesse with his mom.

Jesse's sister Etta, husband Steve and 3 children.

Simon, Rachel and Skip...our neice and nephews.

A wild game of dominoes.

Getting caught up!

This is the first day in a LONG time that we have time to get caught up on our correspondance and our blog. We have not been all that great at taking pictures but we did post some this am.
At the present, we are in Colorado with Jesse's family and at his home church. The last two days have been spent splitting logs and getting firewood ready for winter for Jesse's mom.
We want to wish all our American friends a Happy Thanksgiving! We have been invited to more Thanksgiving meals than we care to think about but will enjoy the day with family.
Thanks to all who have been praying for good weather and all for us...would you believe it is about 70 out there today? I was burning garbage, etc in short sleeves this am and enjoying the beautiful sunny AM. Snow is in the forecast so we will see. All for now and we hope to be on here before too long!

It was fun to be able to help load over 800 shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child here in Colorado. The church that Jess's family goes to only has about 30/40 people attending but they got together 118 boxes. How cool is that?




It was a very special surprise to have Sharla and Shawna join us for a few days at our home church in Montana. We loved having Chiara there as well. She loved her snuggle times with Opa.


Little girl feeling like a big girl in a big bed!


Our faithful pastor, who has been at our church for many years.


We got to visit several friends in Manitoba, but I was not all that great at taking pictures. Below are Lu Reimer's four kids hanging in the door frame and then she got them to sit still long enough to have a more serious picture.





Daryl and Cindy Kroeker with Gaven and Abby.


Gaven dressed up for Cadets. I think he looks pretty sharp!