Summer recap

The second weekend of July, Joellyn and I packed up the girls and we drove to Miles City for a quick over night trip so that we could attend Brandon's big First Birthday party.  Brandon wasn't too sure about the whole birthday cake thing, but his cousins were sure willing to teach him all about it!  Hard to believe he is a year old already.  He was close to walking then and is such a sweet natured fella!

Soon after that, we got to have Amy, Ollie and Henry here for several days while Brad was gone on a work trip.  I had another quick overnight trip down to get Amy and the boys, but Brad came up to get them.  They all came again for the weekend when a lot of my family was here for a weekend.  Henry is growing fast, Ollie is busy as ever, and Amy is still making perfect pies!

I didn't take a lot of pictures when all my family was here, unfortuntely.  I guess I was busy hostessing, but we had a wonderful time together.  It had rained, so the work slowed a bit, and it was just a perfect weather day with fresh, moist air and not too hot, so it was comfortable inside and out. Sunday at the park in Great Falls, we helped Dicie celebrate her birthday, and Anne provided us all a fabulous lunch.

One evening recently, when the combines were working quite a ways from home, and no one wanted to take much time off for dinner, Joellyn and I packed up dinner and took it to the field.  It was kind of a fun change, and we girls all got to get in a combine ride while we were at it....and Abby got to practice her driving skills!  These girls are growing up so fast too!  Yesterday when I accompanied the girls into the school open house, I was shocked to realize that Abby is taller than her teacher by a few inches!

We've had our trials with Frank and John this year, but they are getting the job done, almost....  I rode a round with Roger in Frank while he was cutting mustard....the trouble with Frank though, is he was throw ing a bit too much mustard out the back, but here we are dumping into the truck.  Have you ever seen a truck load of mustard before?  Well, here  you go......... Soon, Roger moved Frank over to the spring wheat field, a job it handled a little better.  Is it a wonder that John is wearing out too, as he gets all the hard fields to cut.

We have had some amazing sunsets.  I love our beautiful skies!

And last, but not least....another big First Birthday, this time for CW.  Where does the time go.  Colter's Mom and Grandma's fixed all his favorite foods and invited in a bunch of family and friends for a fun evening.  The dirt in that dump truck sure was tasty!

Next time I post, I hope that I can report harvest is viewed in our rear view mirror and that life gets back to normal a bit and that these posts aren't so few and far between.  My job of watching the girls and cooking  (and cleaning and laundry and....) is much easier to bear compared to Roger's.  I just hope he beats harvest before it beats him!

Linda

Convention in Latvia and the friends, workers and family

I consider this to be the most important part of our time in Latvia: the family, friends and workers that we enjoyed spending time with.  It was a very special privilege to have nearly two weeks here and we loved having time with family but also getting know others and came to love and value all the dear folks here.  I didn't mean to let so much time lapse before getting another post up because now this time  seems like ages ago already, because we have been so extremely busy since we have returned home six weeks ago.

Wonderful to be all together with my brother Larry and Roger's brother Dale and sister Joanne and her husband and our niece, Elaine on the other side of the world!  We were also so happy to share the time with several others with Montana connections, pictured on the right: Steve W., Jan P., Stephanie T.and Sue G.

On the left are all of the friends who attended the convention.  On the right are the local friends.  Several of these dear souls are three generations from one faithful family and did much of the interpreting. Most of the speaking in meeting was in English and needed translated into Latvian, Russian, and Dutch.  Most of the singing was in Latvian.  We were sitting with several other English speaking folks and we sang in English.  The have a lovely hymn book there with three translations.  When any spoke in other than English, we were able to use the headphones to hear the translation.

In the top left photo are the four other couples that Roger and I worked along side, to take care of cooking, cleaning, and shopping for supplies while the workers were all able to take a much needed break and enjoy the days they had their workers meetings.  Top left: several of the sisters   Bottom right: Elaine, Dale, and Don and Joanne P.    Bottom right:  David and Mary M,(parents of Richard)  Roweanne W., Kathy H.,(Australian sisters) Richard M. and Colin and Naomi A. from Australia, who have been maintaining an open home in Lithuania for several months

A couple of pictures near the river of all the young folks at convention, along with Richard and Paul M.

Top left:  Mary Sarah, an energetic lady who is studying to be a Doctor, with Roweanne.  Top right:  Ro with two British girls, or were they French (0h dear, my memory!) lovely ladies, all three   Bottom left: a young couple engaged to be married   Bottom right: Martin R. and buddies

Any of you who know Elaine, would know that she loves to cook up some tasty Thai dishes whenever possible.  She and a crew of helpers ( taking a little stress relief break in the bottom middle picture :-) prepared the meal while some of us were on our sight seeing trip to Riga.  It was a wonderful and delicious meal!

These pictures are from meal time inside the dining tent in the yard.  Do you see the cards above the girls heads in the top right picture?  There were three of them posted each meal with the graces in English, Latvian and Russian print.  During convention the grace was pre selected and that was posted.  We always waited for Arne to signal that it was time and he would begin the grace.  In the days before Conv. before the cards were up, Arne often chose "Day by day thy children"  That always made me smile, as that is our little granddaughter Eva's favorite too :-) Another of my favorite things about convention was eating and serving alongside the workers,  There was no specific 'workers table'.

Here are pictures of the dish washing crew and the friends and workers working side by side.  Dear Arne loved to pitch in too!  Roger came home from our trip with fingernails cleaners than I have ever seen them!

Top left:  Naomi and Colin visiting with Mary M.    Top right:  Morrie and Jan Rupp from CO.  who have been spending spent several month at a time keeping an open home here, ever since Morrie retired as a school  principal.  I spent the days after convention helping Jan with the noon and evening meal, while Don and Joanne prepared breakfast.  During convention.  Jan and Morrie prepared breakfast and Roger and I helped Joanne prepare the noon and evening meal.  (busy days, yes!)  Bottom left: Richard and his parents (David and Mary have also spent much time over here teaching and keeping an open home.  Bottom right:  Linda and Laurence King and Leon K. (L& L have been keeping open and apartment in Moscow.

We enjoyed some wonderful music while here....several accomplished piano players and Richard's wonderful violin music and a lot of singing!

Top left: Richard and Zina   Top right: Vasalisa, Tama, Karina and Stephanie   Bottom left:  Roger and Larry (I don't think R. was soaking his hand or anything :-)  Bottom right:  the sweet tradition of waving dishtowels as we said good bye's

Top left: Steve, Jana and  Sue   Top right:  Jana, Dale, and Luda     Bottom left:  Richard and Dale   Bottom right:  Aina and Dale (Aina is a retired Dr. who is now in poor health and was unable to be at conv.)

Top left:  Pricilla F. and Kaye P.   Top right:  Paul M. and Martin R.   Bottom left:  Ian S. (laboring in Poland)  and Bottom right:  Kathy H. who reminded me a lot of my Aunt Linda....maybe a little in looks, but a lot because of how she talked or inflections in her voice....anyway, she was a dear lady!

These are all pictures of 'tear down and clean up day' after convention.

I really enjoyed seeing the 'wood brigade' !  They had moved all of the chopped wood out of the woodshed, so that the shed could be used for sleeping quarters.  So after convention, all the wood was moved back into the shed, to keep it dry for next winters use.

These pictures are from dinner time one day during the workers meetings.  All the workers ate in the living room, the same room that had been set up for meeting during convention.  The 'crew' ate in the dining room which was half a flight of stairs down from the living room, and just off the kitchen.  These were days of sweet fellowship working together with these couples while the workers were having their special days of meetings together.  We five couples had an afternoon bible study while the workers were in their meeting in the next building.  One afternoon the same hymn was chosen in each gathering....that seemed like a special sign of unity of spirit!  

Next we traveled to Finland.  I hope to post pictures soon of our special time there.

Till then,

Linda