Our week's happenings

Good Morning! I hope your Christmas was delightful! Ours was very nice, simple, peaceful and joyful..... Our family invited another family (friends from our home school group) to join with us for brunch and Christmas dinner. They have four children one of whom is Judah's best friend. Those two boys are peas in a pod and a great deal of fun to watch - their minds work very similarly and they come up with numerous capers!!! Sandy brought her guitar and we enjoyed singing Christmas carols together in the evening as apple cider with cinnamon simmered on the stove. Is there anything as wonderful as a hot cup of cinnamon cider to end the day?? It truly was a wonderful day.

Our friends returned the next day for leftovers but we found that the dog had found our turkey!!! I was reminded of that old movie with the father who craves turkey every year and the neighbor's dogs break into his kitchen and carry it off. Although it was highly disheartening, we didn't have to visit a Chinese restaurant to have smiling duck (thankfully!). We pinch hit and had deer steak. Again a nice evening together with our friends.

We have had a bout of some kind of bug through the end of this week - fever and headache. Fortunately only my little ones had any further symptoms so I suspicion that their little bodies just couldn't handle the fevers yet.

Josiah turned eleven this week - I can't believe how quickly time flies. We had some fun family activities but his "party" will be next weekend after family and friends return from Christmas traveling. Since Josiah is now eleven he also gets to joint scouts - he is VERY excited as they are working on a 50-mile hike in January and a snow camp sometime during the next couple of months also.

Tim continues to work on the new house with every spare moment - I THINK we finally have a slide show here to share with you. We were disappointed that we cannot add captions - maybe when I learn to work the links better I can figure that out. I will add another one of our Christmas pictures later this week.

Elijah is furiously working towards his "frost points" for Scouts. In short, they get one point for each degree below freezing that they spend the entire night outside. So for example, last night when he left for his friend's house it was 20 degrees, if the temp stayed at 20, he would get 12 points. He has to get 100 points for his patch for the year. He has somewhere around 52 and he has to be finished by the 31rst.

Gabrielle has been working this week, helping one of our neighbors do some catching up. She has several big ticket items that she is saving for so having some extra time on Christmas break to work has been nice for her.

Well........ I think that is all the "news" from the Montana Walker Clan. I am excited about the New Year -- it is full of promise and hope as it is always is. My friend Tyna sent me a very neat article from Doug Phillips regarding closing the year and preparing for the New Year ahead. It was well written and a good reminder that we need to thank those around us, harbor no unforgiveness or bitterness and it encouraged us to journal so that our children can look back to see where God has brought us.

I need to scoot - Judah is looking with great frustration for his gloves so he can "go work" with dad. In addition, all fun events leave remainders of dishes, laundry, and for this occasion fir needles which need to be handled. That is definitely NOT the fun part of the holidays :) I hope you have a marvelous day!