The Fence!

We've been working on the corral that is in one corner of our front pasture, getting some of it ready for painting and taking the rest down.

Scraping boards. :)

Dad took apart the rest of the corral we don't use.

~ painting ~

Part way through painting I realized some of my brush was missing about 1/2 inch of bristles!

It is finished!!!

~Alyssa

Dad's birthday and a graduation...

Sunday was Dad's birthday, but we had his special meal Saturday at noon since we would be gone all day Sunday. We cooked brats over the fire pit and had coleslaw, chips, fresh lemon aid and Coconut Cake for dessert! Yum! We pulled out some of our scrapbooks and looked at old pictures of past birthdays. That was fun... :)

Then we got ready to go to our friend Kieran 's graduation party which was at 3:00. His family had asked Ana to bake and decorate two sheet cakes for it. So she was very busy with that all day. They take longer to fill, frost, and decorate then you might think!

They turned out really nice and were SO delicious!

Congratulations Kieran!

~Alyssa

True Love!

 

"For God so LOVED the world that He gave His only begotten Son,

that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."  

John 3:16

~Alyssa

Way Back When-sday

This is an old picture of me with Dad taken when we were camping. I think I was about 4 or 5 years old. We lived in town then, and loved to get away from the city and camp out in the woods.
I really like this picture. :)
~Alyssa

Dad and Mom's Trip to North Carolina...

Dad and Mom got back last week from their trip to North Carolina. They went to a marriage conference at the home of Scott Brown, founder of NCFIC.

(I took these two pictures of them as they were leaving, but Mom and Dad took the rest of the pictures in this post.)

They are off!
(Mom drove at first so Dad could rest since they were planning on driving through the night.)

Dad studying the map.


Dad and Mom enjoyed their stop at the Creation Museum!

This is a little clip of one of the dinosaurs.


Dad with some of the Old Testament prophets.

A scale model of Noah's ark.

The museum has beautiful gardens.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then they continued on their way to North Carolina to the Brown's home where the conference was held. They were there Friday evening, all day Saturday, and then they went there for church Sunday.

visiting...

Peter and Kelly Bradrick preparing to share their courtship story.

Mr. and Mrs. Lenz... Dad and Mom were pleasantly surprised to see them there!

Dad and Mom!

To see more pictures from the conference go HERE.

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On their way home they stopped at the Billy Graham training center at The Cove, and got a tour of the chapel by a few older people. They enjoyed that very much.


The Chapel was designed by Mrs. Graham and has an 80' steeple.

Mr. Graham's podium that he would bring with him when he traveled.

The view of the chapel from the prayer loft.

Mrs. Graham's favorite Bible verse hand painted on one wall of the prayer loft...

...and Mr. Graham's favorite verse is on the other wall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On thier way home Dad saw this truck....

... which he thought was neat since he likes coffee!

Mom's notes and the road to home.

We girls were very busy here with garden produce and the usual household chores. We had a fun time together. :)
It is good to have Mom and Dad home again!

~Alyssa

The Weekend....

Dad had to work on Saturday so Ana was able to bake him a Father's Day cake as a surprise. (I think she will post more pictures of it on her blog.) It was a chocolate cake with coffee flavored frosting which we had for dessert Saturday evening. He really liked it!

Willie wishes for cake.

There is a tradition at church to have pies for Father's Day. So we brought a peanut butter pie and an apple pie we had made Saturday afternoon. Then we ended up staying until about 2:00 visiting. :)

Yum!

On our way home we stopped at Mrs. L's house. She had asked Dad to install her window air conditioner.

She also gave me a lamp shade to take home and fix since the lacing is falling apart. This lamp is from 1955!

It rained all the afternoon, but we still managed to grill hot dogs over our portable fire pit!
We watched a music concert on DVD and then did chores.
We had a good day. :)

~Alyssa

Happy Father's Day!!

I love you Dad!!

~Alyssa

Dad's Birthday...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!

Dad's birthday was on Saturday and we made Saltine Meat Loaf, lettuce salad (from the garden!), and Kolaches. Ana made a delicious carrot cake for dessert. In the afternoon we played games and watched a music concert on DVD. We had a good day. :)

Kolaches with poppy seed filling is a favorite at our house! Dad wanted some for his birthday meal so I made a big platter full!

Yummy!

~Alyssa

The Oven is Fixed!

Our oven started malfunctioning a few weeks ago. I was baking a cake and it took the oven an hour to get up to 350. The cake was one of a kind. Kind of a slow cooked chocolate cake - it was actually pretty good. Dad checked the oven out and at first thought it was the lower heating element, but that turned out to be okay. Later he found out it was something in the control panel which cost over $100 to replace. Yikes! We were praying about what to do. While Dad was waiting at the appliance repair store he realized that a soldering joint in the unit was loose . The man at the appliance store fixed that for free, and when we put it back in the oven worked again! Praise the Lord!

The wall oven out of the wall...

Putting the control unit back together.

Fixed!

Putting the oven back.

The happy helpers!
We are SO thankful to have an oven again! We did learn some things when we were without one though. Such as: it is possible to bake a cake in a crock-pot, and cook biscuits in a frying pan! (They were actually very good too.) But now I can bake bread again. That is a good thing. :)

~Alyssa