Today was a special day around here.  My niece, Ashlie, was baptized down at the river that runs behind our church.  Awesome on so many levels!

How exciting that Ashlie has made public, her saving relationship with Jesus.  How thankful I am that I was there to witness the occasion.  How wonderful it is to attend the same church as so many of my family members.  How special that her Papa and her Daddy led her through the baptism.  And what a treat it is to live in such a beautiful place as this.

Beautiful day.

Last Sunday, we were in for a treat because my daughter, Jennifer, played a duet with her teacher, Judy.  They played "Be Thou My Vision" and I think that Jennifer played beautifully.  It makes me stop and remember a conversation that we had a few weeks ago when I asked Jennifer why she wasn't practicing as much lately.  I truly think that she thought that there was only enough room for one "musician" with our children.  I was heartbroken when she told me this.  We have always been so careful to never label our children.  That can do so much to stop a child right in their tracks before they ever discover their true potential. 

 I never stopped to think that kids can do their own labeling.

I reminded Jennifer that she is a musician, too and that God has a plan for her gifts.  She just has to keep working and using her gifts so that she will be ready for whatever opportunities that the Lord plans to set out for her.

She got right to work on her songs and I am so proud of the progress that she has made these past couple of weeks.

James' second match- a victory in 34 seconds!

  James' final match of the day:

He was up against a kid that was pretty tough on that final match, but I think James had a great day!  We made it through with no injuries until Jennifer's foot got trampled by two wrestlers that flopped out of bounds.  So she's the one hobbling around on crutches with her leg in an aircast.  From the x-rays, it doesn't look like anything's broken, but she's swollen and hurting quite a bit.  Poor thing!  And she has been a great helper for her Dad.

Wow!  What a blur was the month of December!  It was full of excitement, adventure, close calls, cabin fever and lots of snow!  I would have written about it sooner, but I will be honest.  Every time that I had spare time on the computer, I have been addicted to catching up with my friends on Facebook.  I've got to start pacing myself there, but it has been so fun to catch up with people that I haven't heard from in years.  For some of them, it's been more than 25 years!  If you haven't registered on Facebook, it's a hoot.  Just be careful with your time..

So on to Adventure December.  Business had been pretty slow around here, for many of the businesses that depend on winter weather to hit.  We had been praying and watching the weather forcasts closely.  The day before our company Christmas dinner, it hit!  We got what we prayed for, in a big way.  The shop was supposed to be closed for the day of the dinner, but when you own an auto and tire shop, you better be open when the snow hits.  The crew worked hard all day and then we went into town for a fun night of dinner and bowling.  I'm glad that I had just done some major grocery shopping because from that night on, I rarely left the house for about three weeks.  The whole last week of school (exept for Tuesday) school was shut down, for most of the greater Portland area.  There were areas in town that got almost as much snow and ice and more snow as we did.  It was crazy!

Chris put in some amazing hours over at the shop, not getting home until at least 9:30pm on many nights.  Those guys were out in the freezing weather all day, every day.  But I do have to say that the weather was a huge answer to prayer.  We were able to get the business caught up financially and that is a really good thing for us and those who work for us.  Now we just have to make sure that we go into 2009 wisely.  Things could still be weird, for quite some time.

Because of the weather and business, I never could go to town to finish my Christmas shopping.  So instead of getting upset about it, we just had to let it go.  Who says that we have to celebrate when the calendar says to celebrate, anyway?  We spent Christmas Eve in the dark, with no power.  My mom and dad were without power and they were frantically trying to get their water system up and running again for 35 families once the power came back up.  Our power came back on just before dinner time and the house had been all ready to host Christmas Eve dinner with all of my extended family.  My brother couldn't make the drive up because of the roads, but my sister and her family just made it and decided to camp out at Mom and Dad's.  So we had the rest of the family over.  It wasn't our traditional dinner of Lefse, sausage and clam chowder, but I did manage to pull off a great meatloaf with all of the trimmings before we lost power again.

Christmas Day was relaxing.  We had Swedish pancakes up at mom and dad's, then lounged around at home for the afternoon.  That evening, Mom put on a turkey dinner that was wonderful.  We sure missed Tim and Wendy, though.  But that's okay, we had one more family Christmas get-together a few days later with everyone.  So instead of Christmas being postponed, it just lasted longer than usual.  It was great and because we didn't get caught up in the shopping rat-race, it was easier to keep it a more Christ-centered Christmas.  We did our gift exchange a little late and it was still a great time.

So after some more snow storms, came the warm-up and inches of rain at a time.  Rivers were flooding,  Creeks jumped their banks.  Even our creek did and that really takes alot.  The problem was all of the debris in the rivers.  It was clogging everything up.  We hadn't seen anything like it since we've lived at this house.  Some really good friends of ours were afraid that they might lose their house at one point, but they got through the storm reasonably in tact.

We were coming home from a day of goofing around in town and catching a movie.  It felt so good to be out of the house (although I still can't get my car through the driveway).  We caught a movie with my Mom and Dad and then stopped at the store for some groceries and a pizza to throw in the oven when we got home.  Just leaving the store, I suddenly remembered that we had forgotten the pizza!  James dashed back in to grab it, taking about an extra five minutes.  We were driving up the mountain a little after 10pm or so and I was just commenting to Chris that he’d better watch the road carefully because this seemed like prime mudslide weather, when my cell phone rang.  It was my Dad who had headed up the mountain just before us.  “Where are you?!  Are you in the mudslide?!!!”  I didn’t even have time to process the question when we had to come to a sudden stop behind a few other cars.  There was a big, dark shadow stretching completely across the highway and we could see two cars up on top.  The smell of freshly overturned dirt was overwhelming and it made my stomach do flip-flops to realize that if we hadn’t gone back for the pizza, that might have been us that got swept up in the mudslide.  There was so much running water coming down of the mountainsides, that I was scared just sitting there on the highway, waiting to see what the emergency workers would do.  Was the road completely blocked?  Was anyone hurt?

          After it became apparent that the highway was completely shut down, we had to backtrack all the way to town.  We were going to have to take the backroads to get home and the idea of that seemed just as dangerous.   Chris decided to go back to the store and stock up on emergency supplies before making the trip.  We had ten minutes until closing, so we raced up and down the aisles, grabbing flashlights, batteries, gas cans and even a chainsaw.  We had no idea if what we would encounter on the way home!

          After gassing up, we were off.  It wasn’t too bad at first, but about halfway home, we were driving through areas of significant standing water and creeks that had jumped their beds.  It was a little scary because you couldn’t always tell how deep the water was.  How fast was it moving?  Was the road still in tact underneath it all?  Thank God, we made it home safely and then again, I was housebound for a few days.  The highway was completely shut down until Sunday. 

          I know that God’s protection was with us that night.  I don’t think it was coincidence that we were just minutes from being hit by the slide.  We did find out later that no one was seriously injured in the slide.  That was great news. 

          So the holidays brought some excitement with them for us.  We are all safe and sound and expecting another round of big rain, potential flooding and mudslides for tomorrow.

   

 

   

 But I will tell you this..I was certainly not brave enough to try to help the dummie. He wandered around banging into anything in it's path, while my hound dog ran from window to window in hysterics.  I have been trapped in my house all morning, afraid to go out because I'm not sure where the skunk is at the moment.  The last I saw of him, he was underneath my car.

So.. this morning, I woke up really fast!  No need for coffee to stimulate this girl.  I just hope the kids make it in the door without getting skunked this afternoon...