Beautiful Damage...

Sorry about the absence - we just got our cable/internet back up today. We only lost power for a day and a half - but the cable was still out. The kids missed three days of school. Life just kind of stood still for a few moments. Church was cancelled, the theater guild play was postponed, everything just stopped. I did go to work though (lucky me!), but Beth was off for two days.



As for our house and yard - the house is fine. I have some limbs to cut down, and there are some big ones that went down on the carport - but thank the Lord, it doesn't look like there was any damage to speak of. (Whew!) Our back yard, however is a disaster area! It's going to take some time to clear out. I borrowed a chain saw, and I will probably work on it Monday (I am taking a couple of days off before year end.)







Our play is going well. Tomorrow is our last show. It has been fun! Cameron and Austin have really enjoyed it.It was neat to kind of do something like this as a family.


We are up now wrapping presents. Bye for now!

This just in...

I went back to our house to walk our "wonderful" dog, Candy and grabbed my camera cable so I could upload some pics. As I mentioned earlier, there was quite a spark going on out front.
You may also notice a tree limb sticking straight into the ground - it literally stuck like a spear in our front yard - remember, the ground was frozen too...



I also got a little carried away with the artsy-fartsy photos of icicles and frozen beauty. Enjoy this one - I'm sure there will be more...

A few thoughts from the Frozen Chosen

Just a quickie - we are currently displaced by a winter storm. Church was cancelled, and of course the play at the theatre guild as well. Everyone here is fine, but pray for our house! There are limbs crashing down all around us - the power is out - so far so good but..... more ice expected tonight.

Our day was filled with togetherness. We spent a good amount of time huddled in front of the fire and watching the tree limbs crash down. Lunch consisted of roasting weenies in the fireplace. I heated water for hot cocoa on a kerosene camp stove in the mudroom. Kind of fun, but way too cold to stay - we are now with Tim and Lynn for the night. We'll see if they get the power up tomorrow.

I will have some interesting pics to share - a line came down in front of Grandma and Grandpa's (Ron and Gale) house and was sparking for about 20 minutes before they got it cut. That was exciting. We had a few near-misses as far as damage to the house. Like I said, so far so good.

More to come...

Snow what?

We had our first snow yesterday afternoon. Pretty isn't it. It will all be gone soon. We went out last night and got our Christmas tree - we were just about the only people out. That should have told me something.... Anyhow, Merry Chistmas!

Proud Papa!

Sooo...,

(Have you noticed that many, many of my posts start with the word "Sooo..."?) (Oh, you have? Well, ......Soooo What!?!)

Sooo..., as I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself... I am a proud father of some talented kids.


I haven't posted much lately because we are in the midst of practicing and performing "A Christmas Carol" - the cheesy musical version. You can catch the movie version on Hallmark this season - it's the one where Jason Alexander plays the part of Marley's Ghost. (I haven't been able to rent it yet because I haven't broken down and started a Netflix account yet - and everyone else in the cast has been perpetually checking this video out - and we've been out at night practicing - so we can't catch it on TV.


Cameron has a couple of parts - he dances with a "real" girl - and he is also a drunk in one scene.
He's proven to be a great performer!


Austin has a small part playing "Ignorance" (As in the two children "Want" and "Ignorance" that belong to every man) and he sings with the children's choir for a few numbers.



I am playing electric bass in "the pit." I only had to learn 105 pages of music for this one! But, I'm getting paid, so - I'll put up with the torture. Actually, I'm having a blast! Musicals are always a challenge for my limited (8th grade) music education but I keep getting asked to do more, sooo... what can you do?

Neat thing - Lots of the folks in "the pit" are from church - John our youth pastor is conducting and playing trumpet and Linda (the Pastor's wife) is our AMAZING pianist/vocal coach, also one of the flutes goes to our church.
Tim Sellers (Beth's brother) and Priscilla (our niece) are also in it. Priscilla has a great dance number with some other young girls- they are all so cute! Grandpa - (Ron Sellers) also has a couple of small parts and is singing in a lot of numbers. Marley's ghost is played by David Rain who was a friend at Jacksonville Assembly. There's a bunch of others too.



The awesome thing about it is that so many of the players are brothers and sisters in Christ - and we are all able to have an effect on the community in such a vivid and tangible way. Trust me, we are definitely in "sharp" contrast to many of the "characters" involved in our local theater. (Ahem.)


That's it for now, enjoy the pics - the lighting was bad and they were taken with digital zoom so the quality suffered a bit. They are from our "friends and family" night dressed-rehearsal.