Pictures 1/14/06
Now I can
finally include more pictures with my updates!
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This Christmas our family had the opportunity to participate with a family
from our church that was presenting a live nativity.
The shepherds looked pretty impressive when the lights came on.
They used a 4 wheeler to hoist "Gabriel" into the air as he
announced his message to the shepherds. I thought this
was pretty impressive for a home-made nativity on a family farm!
"Where is he that was born king of the Jews?"
Herod sure hadn't heard of any king being born!
Samuel's sheep (goat) did a good job for the presentation.
The Zacharias family hosted the event and provided the animals,
including lamas for the camels. :-)
Derrick's work with the chain saw and axe has kept us warm
this winter as we supplement our propane heating system
with a wood stove.
"Well, you need some chunk wood too.", a dear friend from
church told us, arriving a few days later with "some chunk wood."
(A semi load of hardwood logs.)
Replacing a gauge and airing up the bladder tank were a
couple projects to get our well working well again.
(No pun intended.)
Christmas Eve at the Gallus's home carried on the tradition
of the Waller orchestra playing some Christmas carols together.
By the time
11 people buy small gifts for each other, we end
up with
quite a number of items under the tree. Years of
practice
have refined the efficiency of opening gifts on
Christmas
Day.
Even
Derrick tried a carol on his trumpet this year.
For our
southern friends, yes, there really was snow outside
for our
Samuel opens
a gift as Sarah looks on.
art set
this year.
Although we
miss Isaac, it was great to be together as a
family for
Christmas.
Well, it
was going to be the biggest snowman we ever built...
After
rolling somewhere around 50 three-foot snowballs, we
were well
on our way with the top of the second ball towering
over twelve
feet before we went inside for a meal.
We came out
to find that the hundreds of pounds of snow had
split and
crushed the bottom ball, leaving us to rethink our
engineering
techniques.
Lacking the
time and energy to do another snowman, we
settled on
building an igloo with the remaining chunks.
This
picture does not give much impression of the size, but
the right
side was made from the remains of our snowman
as seen in
the previous picture.
"Been traveling long?"... Matthew was finding creative ways
to enjoy the trip out to the east coast.
Stopping to
visit our dear friends, the Glick family, we spent
a few days
at their home. Here Sarah and Deanna look
at a
scrapbook together.
A skilled craftsman, Mr. Glick helped Derrick (not pictured)
to build a wood chessboard.
Visiting another family, we had the rare treat of seeing some
video footage of our family taken some 8 years ago.
I will leave it to you to guess which Waller this is...
As I described in more detail in my update, the Lord allowed
us the
opportunity to see Nell Pryde in
after brain surgery and amidst everything she was going
through, Nell shared words of faith and comfort as we
talked about Isaac's homegoing.
Sarah got to try playing a harp while visiting the White
family in
Now, that's a family sized table! The Martin family hosted
us for a
meal as we started on the trip back to
Stopping in
we looked at
pictures of
time in
Did you know Asian beetles like chocolate cake? I was
amazed at how much that little guy ate!
Driving through Amish country, we passed a few horses
and carriages.
Back home at the farm, we were surprised one evening by
a knock at the door. It turned out to be the UPS driver with
a surprise package sent by some friends.
Samuel and Matthew showed special interest as we put
together our first radio controlled model airplane.
The airplane came with a video explaining how to put it
together, and some basic flying instructions.
I tried flying it a couple days later. It is harder than it looks,
and I made a few hard landings. (i.e. soft crashes. :-)
Everything was repairable, so we might try it again next summer
when our family is home for a few months.
Out in the field, Derrick was excited to see the corn harvest
coming in from our fields.
Looks like they had a good harvest inside too!
The final rays of sun disappear in an array of colors as
David captures this photo from our roof.
The conveniences of modern technology allowed me to
work on some e-mails in the dentist office lobby.
season in our family with a deeper confidence in the
all-sufficient
grace of our loving Savior.
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