What do you do....

...when you've been without power for 72 hours, your siblings would love a yummy dessert, and you don't want to make pudding?

MAKE BROWNIES!!

How, you ask? Well, come up with the brilliant idea to use the roaster! Plug it in, warm it up, mix up your brownies, put the pan inside and...see the lights in the next room start going out and hear the blower on the wood stove putter out and die. Oops.

Well, maybe we can just leave the roaster on, finish cooking the brownies, and THEN try to fix the power problem. Hmmm, nope. Mom would rather keep the house from freezing. Understandable. What do you do with slightly warmed up brownie batter? Eat it with a spoon? (I can hear Tyler cheering that idea!) I rather think not.

So here are the brownies...obviously cooked. How, you ask again?

TA DA!!!
When you can't bake 'em, GRILL 'em!!!

And besides the sliiiightly charred edges, well-browned top, and crusty crust...they really weren't half bad, so the family said. Nobody turned them down at any rate, as my dear father pointed out. HA! But I think I will have to practice my dessert grilling skills over the next few days and redeem myself. Or better yet, maybe the electricity will return!! Hurrah!

Snow, Ice, and Scripture

Psalm 111

Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.

Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.

He has caused his wonderous works to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and merciful. He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.


He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations


The works of his hands are faihtful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy, they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.


He sent redemption to His people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name!


The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!

Naomi Peak hike

This is my very last Logan visit '08 slideshow. Michelle and I hiked up Naomi Peak, about 3.3 mile hike with an altitude increase of about 2000 feet. The first half wasn't bad...but towards the end we were climbing (and panting) up a very steep peak. Boy was it worth it! We shared a mountain-top lunch, took pictures galore, and then, about an hour later, headed back down. A neat bonus was that all the aspens were turning! They just set the mountains aflame with their glowing light!! Oh for believers to have lives like those aspen leaves, letting the light of Jesus Christ both reflect off and shine through them to such a dark and oppressed world! And if you would, please keep Logan in your prayers. The lost are many, the true believers few. But God has always delighted in using a few to overcome the many, so there is always hope, even for such a spiritually-oppressed place!

My Sojourn in Logan

And I come to the conclusion of my September 2008 slideshows.

Michelle and I were really busy running hither and yon during my two weeks at her house. We really didn't get many pictures, but it was neat just to "live life" with Michelle for a little bit. If we weren't sleeping in, we were at the local Christian bookstore cleaning and organizing (or re-doing the store window! FUN!!), helping with campus outreach, attending Bible studies, or running to Michelle's piano students' homes. Really, anything's fun when you can talk. And talk and talk and talk. Oh, but one morning we got up and hit...HOW many garage sales, Michelle?!? It was really fun, but started to rain later in the morning. So we picked up some chips for lunch (ha ha!) and ran to a consignment store to bargain shop. :)

Another evening we went star-gazing up near a camping site in the mountains. Soooo amazing! Saw several shooting stars! At home, we enjoyed spending time with Michelle's little sister Abbie, curling each-other's hair while watching Cranford.

We also tried to make ice cream. Had great-looking recipe for lemon-blackberry ice cream that we wanted to try. So one Sunday afternoon we decided we'd get it going and then just enjoy some down time, reading and talking. Michelle's brother Dan ran out to get our ingredients for us, since we also had double-duty of watching Abbie (Mr. and Mrs. Shook were out until about 9:30 that evening). So once he came back, we mixed up the lemon ice cream recipe, as well as some vanilla ice cream...might as well, we figured, since we had the ice cream mixer going.

Let me repeat...SINCE THE MIXER WAS GOING. It died. Dan, again, was pressed into service. He worked on it for a good long time, attempting to do what engineers do to breath life into something that doesn't work (mysteries). But the sturbborn and rather old machine only worked for intervals, making HORRIBLE squealings and grindings, and finally stopped dead again. So here we were stuck with a LOT of ice cream mixture and no way to freeze it.

In the meantime, a couple of Michelle's brother Jon's friends came over to ride bikes. So we were trying to find room for the ice cream in freezers, freezing what we could in the squeaky machine, fixing dinner for 4 hungry boys and little Abbie, and washing our multitude of dishes. Just enough of the ice cream had frozen sufficiently for the boys to have a vanilla ice cream slushy for dessert, and then Dan again ran out to see if he could find another ice cream maker. Guess the stores don't carry them in late September. Huh.

In the end we gave up on the ice cream machine, stuffed all the mixtures into the freezer, and hoped it'd be edible on the morrow. I don't think the lemon stuff ever did freeze solid.

Finally, we made some popcorn and sat down for dinner...at nearly 9pm. What was that I said about down time? Why couldn't we have just made...brownies?

Ben and Maxwell

At lunch the other day, I suggested to the girls that they write a story for me to post on my blog. Now, I KNOW what kind of stories Grace and Abbie come up with, and I honestly am not sure what I was thinking.

Prepare yourself.

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Ben and Maxwell
and the Digital Camera

One day Ben’s mom bought a new digital camera. Ben couldn't wait to show Maxwell Rock, his best friend. As soon as Ben’s mom wasn't watching the camera (or Ben), Ben pushed it into his mini backpack. It took up all the backpack space. He then headed out the door. As he was walking to Maxwell’s house the backpack became heavy (because of Ben's small size) and fell off his shoulders. He heard a *CRUNCH*. "OH well," said Ben. "I will just have to tell Maxwell about it, instead of showing it to him." He ran to Maxwell’s house, since there was no more need to be careful. He left his backpack behind. As soon as he got inside Maxwell’s house he burst into a gleeful song. (??) Maxwell was also excited even though he didn't know what was going on. They danced in many circles as Indians would do. Then Ben came to a halt. "I have something to tell you. It is great news. Mom got a new digital camera and now it is no longer. I broke it on the way here." Maxwell burst into tears. "How could you be so smart. That’s wonderful. Your mom will be so pleased." (??!!) Ben ran home and said, "MOM. MOM. Guess what? I broke your new camera. Isn't that great? Am I a hero?" Mom said sadly, "Is this true?" Ben smiled. "Yes mom. It is really true." Mom said, "You go to your room and wait for dad."

Note from the authors, Grace and Abbie van der Hoeven:
"Ben and Maxwell are dwarf paperdoll kids. They are around half a foot tall (in paperdoll world). We like them a lot. They are the main subject of our paper doll play."

You thought I was kidding. You thought it would be a cute, if a bit sappy and flowery, story by the 2 sweet little girls most of you know. But no. My little sisters aren't content to make up stories about princesses and castles. They make up stories about naughty little paperdolls!

This picture shows just a portion of the paperdoll community that lives in the girls' closets. And they ALL have names. And they pretty much know ALL of them by sight. AND each one has a unique personality (I think that's what comes of being hand-drawn and colored.)

Day 7 (the Tetons!)

Day seven...the day we leave Yellowstone. Our last drive down the 6-mile bumpy driveway (hurrah! says Daddy!). Our last drive through the Northern Yellowstone entrance. Our last view of the beautiful beautiful park. On to the Tetons! We spent a couple hours at Jenny Lake, but couldn't stay long because we were planning to get to our dear friends, the Shooks, before it got too dark to see our way. Um....is 11pm too dark? We conveniently blame Bossy Betty, our GPS for taking us the long way. Wow what a twisty, dark road that seemed to go on foreeeeever!! But we did get there at long last, and had a lovely visit with our friends the next day. Then, that night, I said goodbye to my family as they drove to their motel room. They were leaving me BEHIND and driving the first leg home the next morning. I stayed on with my friend Michelle for about 2 more weeks. :) It was very strange to see them drive away without me though. The family got home safely, and everyone, I've heard, slept in until nearly 11am the next day!! What a vacation!! And what an amazing place!! We all would do it again, long days of driving and all, in a heartbeat. :) It was so neat to see a different part of the country. The Lord is so full of variety! Even in our own USA the landscape varies so much! We saw so many glimpses of His awesomeness in all the beauty. Such a GREAT God He is!!

Day 6

And this is our last full day in Yellowstone. We drive through it one last time on our way out, but this is the last "real" sightseeing day. *sigh* It was a really great day though. We drove down to Norris (see map here), dropped the boys off for a bikeride, and kept going, visiting all the paintpot/geyser stops along the way (boardwalks! Mom LOVED the boardwalks! You could get right up to the geysers and walk all around the paintpots). We saw the most adorable coyote on this drive! And lots of buffalo. Met the boys down at Old Faithful, and then made a big loop back up the eastern side and to our cabin. Stopped several places along the way, including a beautiful place by the Yellowstone lake that also has lots of paintpots and hot springs. The highlight was coming around a turn in the road on a more desolate part of the park, and seeing a GRIZZLY! He was just lumbering along, not paying any attention to us. It was SO NEAT!!! He was the one animal that we all really wanted to see, but hadn't yet, so it was a special "last day" present from the Lord that we got to see him.

So we got home pretty late that day, and did our best to pack up what we could. *sniff sniff* Everyone was car-tired and sad that this was our last night in our cabin. But had no trouble whatsoever falling asleep!!

Baking memories...

I never did get to posting these pictures, but we did a LOT of baking last month! And everyone got in on the fun.

My friend Bekea and her daughter Ainsley (who though 1 year old, did her best to bust out of her livingroom and playpen confinement to help us out) came over one morning to have a cookie day. Traditions are so great! We made lots of cookies, as you can see.

And then there was Tyler. He usually "lets" me make the dough for his Cookie Dough Truffles, to avoid using the mixer...but this year, I made him do it. Look at the face of disgusted resignation.

This part was more fun...getting dough balls and self covered in chocolate!


Grace and Abbie started working in the kitchen together this year, and so wanted to do some Christmas cookies on their own. They might look innocent, but boy can they turn out some COOKIES! It makes us downright nervous sometimes, though, hearing all the giggling coming from the kitchen while they're in the midst of a baking project.

"You ARE remembering to follow the recipe, right?"

"OF COURSE, Hannah. Don't worry."

"Well....just make sure you do! You remember you're doubling the recipe...um...right? I...I'm always here if you need help! You don't need HELP do you?"

"NO! Of course not!!"

*gulp*

Day 5

I am ashamed. I should have had these done long ago...and yet I still have several days to go! Oh well. There's nothing horrible about having to go back through the pictures yet again!!

So this is day 5, September 13th. A Saturday. Today was our half rest day. We only ventured a little ways into Yellowstone, in search of a river to play in, since that had been the highlight for some on the days we had lunch by a stream. :) We'd noticed on previous outings a river that seemed to have a path beside it, and so went searching for that one. As it turns out, the river we ended up at was indeed one for wading in. Well, swimming in, as a matter of fact. People were walking by (in the breezy, 50 degree weather mind you!) in swimming attire, with towels! We finally discovered that the river we'd found was near where a boiling stream ran into the cold river. Arrange a few rocks to hold in some of the warm water in pools, and voila, a warm bath tub! Pretty cool. :) And provided some neat pictures of the steamy-ness. However, because of all the people, we weren't able to skip stones, and so left the park in favor of a river closer to home that we could play in. The Gardiner River runs right in front of our "driveway" entrance, so we ended up there, playing "bomb the ship". Daddy would throw a stick into the river from a ways upstream, and the kids would watch for it coming, rocks in hand. Once somebody spotted it, all rocks let loose! We did it until we noticed some fishermen getting ready to head out into the river for a fishing expedition. We wouldn't have been very popular if we kept up the racket we were, so Daddy called a ceasefire, and we went on home. This was probably pretty much the first day we actually were home in time for a normal supper time. :)

Good Pleasure of His Will

My mother found this quote:

"Grant me, O Lord, to know what I ought to know, to love what I ought to love, to praise what delights Thee most, to value what is precious in Thy sight, to hate what is offensive to Thee. Do not suffer me to judge according to the sight of my eyes, nor to pass sentence according to the hearing of the ears of ignorant men; but to discern with a true judgment between things visible and spiritual, and above all, always to inquire what is the good pleasure of Thy will."

~Thomas a Kempis

Checkers

Sam carefully decides which man to move. Which move to make! Pippin keeps an eye on him, making sure all is done lawfully.

Hope skillfully conteracts Sam's scheming ways.

And waits patiently as Sam debates his next move. As you might see from his face, he is quite chagrined that he only has 4 pieces left on the board.

And look at that face as the girl in pink makes a move that astounds her opponent!

Did I mention that playing on the red squares is sometimes allowable? Usually avoided, but when you're cornered, you do what you gotta do. ;)

Good and successful servant?

An encouraging and challenging word from a daily email devotional I just started getting from http://www.opendoorsusa.org/, called Day by Day.

"The building of the ark is the longest test of faith recorded in the Word of God. For one hundred and twenty years Noah was a preacher of righteousness which included God’s impending judgement. He persevered in his faith though all the circumstances were against him. He did not receive any confirmation that he was on the right track, neither did he get any outsider on his side. What faithfulness: to preach, to evangelise for a hundred and twenty years and not have one convert.

"Faith does not look for signs or confirmation. It simply follows God’s direction and instructions. To those who walk by faith God says: ‘Well done!’ Not: good and successful servant, but ‘good and faithful servant.’ God does not look for success, but for faithfulness. Then those faithful ones may hear the most beautiful words, ‘come and share your master’s happiness!’"