We were greeted, once again, this morning, with a beautiful Montana sunrise. Here are a couple of pictures.  Click on one to see a larger view.

I cropped one of them and made it suitable for use as a desktop wallpaper.  Click the picture below, then right click and select “Save As” and save it on your computer.

- John

Carol and I took a week off from our jobs to work on some unfinished items in our house. We have been in this house for about five years.  The house had a large unfinished area that we remodeled into a nice family room, a spare bed room, and work shops for Carol and me.  We finished most of it several years ago, but as for our shop areas, we did not.  During our week off, we framed in windows and closets, trimmed up the doors and windows, installed closet doors, added shelves in the closets, and finished the base boards around the rooms.  We also decided to move the door in our bed room from one side to an adjacent wall.  Click a picture to see larger views.

- John

Now that Christmas is over, and the new year is in swing, I have had chance to get our photos together from Christmas.  Here they are.  Click the picture to see our Christmas photos.

- John

Alia celebrated her 10th birthday in December. A few days later, she had a small party and a sleep over with a couple of friends.  Click the picture to see more from her parties.

-John

On November 28, there was a party helping Missionary Mary Ballenger celebrate her 70th birthday. Mary is a Missionary to Africa and is the Academic Dean at the West Africa Advanced School of Theology (WAAST).  It was a very nice time giving honor to this fine servant of God who has dedicated most of her life in His service.  Click HERE for more information on WAAST.  We love you Mary!

Click the picture to see more from the party.

I am late getting pictures of J.J.’s 6th birthday up. He had a fun party with a few of his friends last November.  Click the picture for more.

I’m very late posting a fun evening the kids had at a Harvest Party that First Assembly of God church hosted last Halloween.  Click the picture to see more.

Our oldest daughter is “THE” teacher at the East Malt Hutterite Colony. We were invited to the colony before Christmas when we were picking up Heather to bring her home for the Christmas vacation.  We enjoyed a great Christmas performance by the kids, and met several Colony members.  We were treated like royalty and made some new friends.  Our children definitely want to go back and see their friends again.  Here are a couple of pictures.  Click one to see larger views.

- John

Carol was able to participate in the Christmas Choir at our church this past Christmas.  Alia was also able to be in part of it with the Missionettes from church.  They all did such an awesome job.  Now that our children are getting older, we have more time for this type of fun thing. Click a picture to see a larger view.

-John

Katie and Ana participated in the Science Olympiad at their schools before Christmas.  They both went to Bozeman, MT for the state finals.  Ana studied birds, and Katie made a mouse trap car.  Here are a couple of photos of the mouse trap car.  It had to go forward a certain distance, stop, and reverse the same distance, without any human intervention.  It took a lot of brain power trying to figure out how to make it all work, but we did it!  Good job Ana and Katie on your projects.  Click on the pictures to see larger views.

(UPDATE 3/17/10 – Due to the large response on searching for “Reversible Moustrap Cars”, I made a “How To” video showing how we made our Mousetrap Car reversible.   Check it out by clicking HERE. )

- John