Ladies Overnight

 

A few weeks ago some of our ladies were treated to an overnight at

Warren & Sandy's wonderful B & B.

We felt like queens sitting at their lovely table and being served such a scrumptious meal.

 

Sorry Sandy.  She must have moved a bit.  Oh, it was probably the photographer!
 

This is the super delicious pumpkin cake.

Yummy!

(I have the recipe!)

 

 

This is the view from their deck.

When we have gone there in early June, we had our coffee and tea

out there in the morning before breakfast.

In October it is a bit chilly!

 

 

Here's the crew.

 

 

And here is Sandy's homey antique room.

She has so many cute things which are arranged so nicely.

Jennifer thought it looked like Wheaton's (a very nice furniture/gift shop)

and she expected to see price tags on things.

VISITORS!

 A week ago today we were in the midst of one BUSY week.

Just within the two previous weeks, we found out that Dwight & Cheryl would be able to attend 

the 50th Anniversary of Fundamental Baptist Church in Saint John.

 (I had been praying about this for weeks!)

The day before the anniversary, we met them and took them to the farm.

Here they are on the ferry.

 I can't believe we didn't take any pics while they were at the farm.

We did, however, get this one of a coke bottle hanging on a tree when we took 

the truck up into the woods.

Neat, eh?

Wonder who did that...

maybe our resident deer hunter.

 

On Sunday we started meetings with Gary Gillmore.

On Monday Cheryl & Dwight came and provided music through Wednesday night.

Relaxing

 Here's Dwight trying to find out if their flights were on after Sandy blew through.

They made all their connections even though they flew through New York's LaGuardia.

Cheryl is sitting in my living room talking to Kari.

This is the packing process.

Since Cheryl's suitcase went to San Fransisco,

REALLY!

Cheryl had to do some shopping.

Consequently there were additional clothes and another suitcase going home.

They landed in Bangor on Thursday.

The suitcase caught up with them on Tuesday night

and they flew out on Thursday.

See the tag that says SFO? and RUSH?

Later on Thursday, after they left, the sun came out and the lake was beautiful!

30 Year Singspiration

At the end of May we traveled to Minneapolis so that Paul could lead a singspiration at
Berean Baptist Church. It has been 30 years since we left Minneapolis!
Berean Baptist and their pastor, Carey Flinck, also invited us 5 years ago,
and now they even invited us back again!

Here are our kind hosts, Carey & Nancy.
They really spoiled us!
And their church was very kind too.

Some old timey friends came to the house...
Chatru & Wendy

Steve & Michelle were kids in our youth group back when...
Now they are grandparents, I think.
Very young grandparents!

I can't believe I didn't get a pic of Roy & Jan!
But then I knew I would be too occupied with talking with people to take their pictures.
I didn't even get Dave & Maxine (Paul's brother)
who traveled all the way from Missouri by way of Iowa to be there!
It was special to spend time with them.
The Flincks treated them and us to dinner on Sunday at a wonderful place.

Here's a sample of the 30th Anniversary Singspiration:

Meeting with old friends

Some of our friends of long ago Minnesota days have moved to Sara and Dave's area.
We had the pleasure of meeting Diane Bookman, Jane & Tom Zempel, and Larry & Linda Pettegrew for dinner. We barely had time to eat! :)

Afterward we went to the Pettegrews' lovely home for delicious apple pie made by Diane.
We missed Doug who was in Israel. We did get to see him last January.

Before we started for home, we met Roger and Jo Peterson at a cozy lunch place.
It's a good thing we have a GPS,
or finding Roger's restaurant would have been impossible for us! :)

Once again we had a great time and hope we can DO IT AGAIN!

More Thanksgiving Pics

No guests this year but...
what's Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie?

This is our first American Thanksgiving celebration in Saint John.

This is 1985 or '86 and that's Amy Lownes.

We would T the tables out into the hall.
John & Christopher Lownes,
Pat & Murray Miller
Rachel Miller, our Sara, Rosalynn Miller
(left to right)

Danita Miller, Andy & Paul

Ernie Miller on the right

Joan Lownes between John and me

Playing games after we ate

Rhonda, Betty & Mel Reed
A good time was had by all and if anyone went away hungry,
it wasn't for lack of food!

Thanksgiving 1997

Oops! This first one is back to 1980.
Uncle Dwight is getting some hearing help, I guess.

Back to 1997 - we stayed overnight in Minto the night before Thanksgiving.
That was before we moved to Minto. The next day we were to have Thanksgiving at the
Millers' in Fredericton. It had snowed quite a bit during the night and continued to snow during the day. We pushed snow all the way to F'ton and figured no one else would make it for our celebration. We were right, but the day was not wasted on the guys. They must have spent hours plowing and pulling cars out of snow banks. You can see how happy they are! We did finally get them in for our meal. I think by evening things had cleared enough for us to drive home, but I am not sure about that. I do remember staying overnight one night with Murray and Pat.

Murray with his steamed up glasses
That looks like a rolling pin collection behind him which he without a doubt made himself.
He is a master carpenter and has a special love of Birdseye maple.

We miss all those who have scattered and our Thanksgivings together.

Thanksgiving Memories

We are very thankful at this time of year and all year long for God's many,
many blessings to us! Our Thanksgiving Day plans fell through, but we celebrated together anyway. Since then I have been shuffling through old photos especially looking for pics of Thanksgivings past. For years since moving to New Brunswick, we gathered all the Americans in the area for a celebration. They were very wonderful times! We will never forget Pat Miller's dessert buffet and Mel Reed carving the turkey and washing dishes! (Canadian Thanksgiving just ain't the same! But then we did get to have TWO THANKSGIVINGS!!!)

Right now we are stepping around photos in two rooms AND the hall. I hope to rectify that soon. I may, hopefully, come up with more photos, but here are a few
and I'll warn you, some go REALLY FAR BACK! Mel and Betty Reed were almost always part of our celebrations, but they are not in any pics that I have located so far. I am hoping to find them and also a special pic from years ago in Minneapolis when the kids were set up at a table in our hallway. At that time, we always had Thanksgiving at our house because it was the biggest. We had a church service at about 11:00 AM and that was a very special service.
We had the benefit of my mom coming in to work on the dinner while we were in church because her service was on Wednesday night.

The Green family

The Warner family

As far as I can tell, the two previous pics are from 1998 at the Millers' house in Frederiction.

1996 at the Millers' (building & renovation going on here)
I am sure the Reeds were there that year.
I'll keep looking!

1995 at our lovely home in Saint John
I can say that because God gave it to us to use for Him!
Left: Paula and Shane Belding
Right: Judi Coats' brother and sister-in-law from Connecticut

Paul, Danita Miller and Jennie Coats
Danita is married, has a little girl and another one on the way, I think.
Jennie is married and has 2 children, a boy and a girl!

Coats' cousin, Jon Coats, Heather Belding, Jennie and Danita
By this time Andy and Sara were grown and gone. Sara was at Maranatha BBC and Andy was living in British Columbia. If I'm right about that being Heather, she was married last summer!

1980 in Minneapolis
I said, "Is that Kari or Mari?'
Paul says Kari, but...
what do you think, Cheryl? I never thought they looked that much alike!??

1970 It looks like people must have been coming and going because different families are represented in each of these two pics, but it is obviously the same year.
One the couch from left: Kirk and Kristy Carlson, Mari with Andy taking care of her, Kari
On the floor from left: David and Stephen Refsell, Steve and Susan Kahler

From left: Duane, Barb, Jeanine & Eileen
Roy and Judy Vasquez, Raquel and little brother whose name I don't even remember
Orris, Louise Refsell and their boys
Cheryl, Dwight and Kari Turbett
Andy and Mari must have been napping. Paul was the photographer.

Some years we went to the Refsells'. I was always a little disappointed there because Louise was so organized that the turkey was cut when we arrived and I didn't get a taste of the skin. After eating ourselves under the table, the guys would go across the parking lot to play in the gym...
and almost die.
Last winter Louise went home to glory. She was a wonderful person and I sure should have learned a whole lot from her about organization!

Look who popped in!

Dell Johnson had a meeting in town,

called us and came for a brief visit.
Funny thing is, he didn't know we lived in this city, just that we were in New Brunswick.
We had lots of laughs!

Then came the BIG, LONG AWAITED visit of Dave (Paul's bro) and Maxine.
Lots more on that later. We had a GREAT time!



We had a Thanksgiving dinner at the church on Oct 10th with an afternoon service and no evening service. Later on the Schell Family stopped in hoping that we were having an evening service. We got to have a nice visit with them. We had not seen them for at least 5 years.
Only 4 of the kids were with them.
Another funny thing: the others grew up!

I tried to keep this one, but it didn't work! She LOVES doing dishes!
What a cutie!