Thanks Giving Weekend

So it was the day after Thanksgiving and the grandkids were up. I in the Maroon on the left, then youngest, then red is Gianna, then oldest in the light blue, then middle in the dark blue. As usual picture had to be done B's way. This was the 27th of November in Canal Park on a Beautiful Day, as Winnie the Pooh might say, if he so thought. This is the Truck that Andrew found and I promised to help him keep running. On the 29th of November.

Two totally awesome days, rewarding for entirely different reasons.

No Gales in Early November this year

On this date in year 1975, The Edmund Fitzgerald, legendary in Gordon Lightfoot's song of the "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," plowed under the surface of the greatest of the Great Lakes, Superior, also named by First peoples Anishinabe as Gitche Gumee, the "shining, big sea water" of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, The Song of Hiawatha. The Anishinabe knew that of which they spoke.

November 7/8, 2009

Had fun with a friend and made a few new friends this weekend. We roughed up a garage.

Of course the pictures are chronologically backwards, but we started with a bare slab. Don is in the RED, Curt in green, Eric in gray, colorful bunch we were.

New Month - New Rule - New Post

Since snow is coming and it rained today it seemed appropriate to check out my life a little. We have enough wood for a normal winter, I have a job, my wife is getting healthier, my kids are adults, and my grandkids are too far away to play with every day, and I started to wonder what is the reason for living. Is it to just get ready to make it through the next day. That is a struggle for most, but for reasons that are sometimes diametrically opposite. Like some people are driven to distraction because they never get to leave the house, because of illness, money, kids, mobility and various other reasons, while at the same time others are exhausted and wish they could spend just one day in their house so it could be a home. What is that? Are we just by nature dissatisfied with living however it is we are living? Space, my son said. Yes that is it. We need space to move in and basics to stay alive. But what is the meaning? Why do we search for meaning? Is there a God shaped hole in our consciousness? Is there a God? If there is a God how would he contact us? Has God already contacted us? Is there a relationship that will satisfy the deep inner desire to belong and be loved? I have found this, that since I have accepted the historical fact that Jesus Christ died, and the record says the He would have done it just for me, and I have faith that he died for me, and don't lose sight of the fact that he is God Veritas, I have peace and Joy, that deep satisfaction that I belong to God and nothing can snatch me out of His Hand.

I hate pain, I love Healing

I hate Pain.

When family and friends and especially progeny are hurting I always want to fix. It disturbs me that it is the nature of life that we grow stronger with struggles, along with growing in appreciation of what is pleasant and a blessing to the peace of our life.

I am here right beside you if I know of your pain. My supplications go to the highest heaven and the greatest God to be revealed and to intervene. Yet the intervention sometimes comes after the strenghthening work is accomplished, and the dead branches are stripped away from my life. And yours sometimes. That is when I feel impotent. I realize . . . I am. My power is in submitting to God.
Not in myself.

Wedding Anniversary for Flavel and Evelyn

60 years ago today Flavel and Evelyn got married, with plans to leave civilization of Minnesota and be Missionaries in North Dakota.
Today, all of the children and grand children and great grand children know who the Lord is, and most know Him personally. And we serve wherever we are.
Also today, on this anniversay, Brother Chuck and neice Jo are headed for Yellowknife, NW Territiories, Canada for four months of service to a church needing an Interim Pastor, Peggy is filling an Obligation in Kenya, Vangi and family are serving in Japan, and some family members are separated by fewer miles than that in the continental North America.

The legacy is travel. The world is small to the family of Flavel and Evelyn.

Blessings on all who are separated, by 25 miles, 2500 miles or 12000 miles.

Grand Grand Kids

First of all there was a box of playclothes and costume stuff, and the kids got to the bottom before I got the camera!

The pictures speak for themselves.

Back home from the Park and ready for Naps.

At the LAKE Two Harbors.

So I caught Arly looking when we were at Two Harbors. That is Burlington Bay in the background. It was about 80 degrees there, but 95 in Danbury, so we spent the second to last day of vacation at the North Shore.