John playing "Happy Birthday" for Stephen

The picture isn't the best, but you can still hear John playing for Stephen's birthday.

The boys loved it!

Stephen is 6!

Stephen is now 6, we had a few neighbor boys come and celebrate with us. It was a lot of fun, and he helped me make his big S on his cake! Sarah is holding the neighbor's baby, Jordan, she loves little ones & is very good with them.

Mike & Jaime's wedding

Deborah was the flower girl in a wedding for Mike & Jaime Perelman. She wore the dress that Christy made for Malia in Christy's wedding. John married them at the church building here. The one photo I took from the piano, you could see Deborah through 2 groomsmen, with her big smile!

November Happenings

We are having a little trouble with our camera, so no new pictures this time.
This month has been full of prayer for Stuart Merrill, and we give thanks that he is safe in the Des Moines hospital. Bill Jones, John's step dad is still in the hospital in Cheyenne, he is slowly getting better. We have had several tragedies in the church here, so more hospital trips and prayer. The thanksgiving service at the church was great. I cried thinking about how blessed we are here in America. When you think about what Stuart went through in the Ukraine, and how nice our hospitals are, we need to give thanks. A little sadness about the election, but we will be praying for Obama, no doubt. A lot of praise about Prop. 8 in California passing, that was a big victory.

Deborah was a flower girl in a wedding for one of John's coworkers at UPS. She wore the dress Christy made for Malia in her wedding. It made me think about Christy's beautiful wedding.

School plugs away and keeps us busy as usual. I did get a Facebook account, so I could see my high school's 20th year reunion picture. Can't believe it was 20 years ago!! I now have lots of friends at Facebook, and that is fun to see what is up with peoples lives and reconnect, especially with folks from the east coast!

I think that is enough rambling. God is good, and He never gives us more than we can bear. I am thankful to each of you that has touched my life in some way. You are a blessing to me, and are helping to shape my life into something more useful for Christ.

Stephen & T-Ball

This is Stephen's last T-Ball practice of the year. He even slid into home plate. We wanted to see if we can put a video on screen successfully. It is a lovely day today here in Vegas, 80 degrees, no wind, very nice. John's sister Deb, is visiting us from Colorado. She has been with us for a week now, and we enjoy her visit. She has helped us with different house projects, that we never seem to be able to get done.

Pictures of our front yard

My mom called and asked for some photos of the front yard after LandCrafters finished it. This is a contact through the church and they did a great job for us. The Water District here also paid for 3/4 of the conversion to desert landscaping, which is a bonus too.

New house + New dog

We wanted to include some pictures of our new house & our dog, Madison. Now that we are not renters, we can have a dog! The house was a repo, & we got a good deal on it. It had stood vacant for 9 months, but only needed minimal work done. We love where we live, and our neighbors are great. We believe that God really blessed us with this home. Please come visit us if you are ever down this way.

Preaching Rally/ Sarah's 13th birthday

Sarah is now 13. This is her new hat from Grandpa & Grandma that makes her look like a horse jockey! We had a great time when they were here with us.

Darrell asked Dad to preach for the 30 year anniversary of "The Solid Rock " live radio broadcast here in Las Vegas.

As you can see, Sarah is getting quite tall, 5'3 at this point. Nathan isn't too far behind. They do grow up fast.

San Diego in August

Our family went to San Diego, CA on August 13, 14 & had a great time. It was fun, cool, and good to be together. The animals at Sea World were amazing, and the ocean was so beautiful & peaceful, we loved it. We sat in the splash zone, but didn't really get wet. However, on the River Rapid ride, we got so soaked even our shoes squished when we walked.

Getting up and running!

Hello from sunny Las Vegas, the lovely mountain picture is of Mt. Charleston about 40 minutes NW of Las Vegas. We are hoping that this blog will be set up easily, so you can all view it. We are doing great. We are enjoying our summer, and looking forward to school starting in a few more weeks, not so happily though for the kids! Summer has been busy with camp, and yard projects, and swimming in our 10ft round pool on the patio. Camp was a great highlight as usual for the kids. We took 5 campers, and thankfully Stephen didn't get sick at all this year! John & I taught each day, with John preaching one night. We got to spend time with new & old friends. I was the camp nurse this year, which was interesting to say the least. Just a note, the blog is best viewed with Internet Explorer, Firefox doesn't work very well.