SEASON'S GREETINGS AND A WONDERFUL START OF THE YEAR FOR ALL FRIENDS AND FAMILY!

Hello all,

This morning's -27* sure feels sweet after the last night's -47*. Last week we had several days of -45 degree weather; the temps warmed up for the weekend and long enough for us to go caroling in relative comfort before dropping down again.

Since it was rumored that the temps would drop to very cold weather for our traditional Christmas Eve caroling, we did that the day before Christmas eve, good thing too since we've had -40 weather ever since! A good time was had by all, Rob even got to ride the proverbial "jingle bell sleigh", complete with one horse. Thanks Amaris for getting him on the ride! And Thanks to Hannah Mason for staying in the Tab and getting all the hot choc and goodies ready for the cold carolers!  :)

Sarah and Mark took some good night shots, which I was not able to capture very well with my humble set up. We've had a few days of between -40 and -50 degrees.  Today there is a slight breeze which is steadily bringing the temperatures up.  

The Buongiornes spent a quiet Christmas dinner evening with Floan at her cabin. A nice dinner and some simple gift giving at the end.

Pat and Bethany and the twins, came out for Thanksgiving and stayed for a week. It was a very nice visit. The girls are as cute as can be, sociable and very vocal. Such smart little poppets! They will say their name and also their color, Ella-Purple, Esssie-Pink. So sweet! Had a wonderful time with them.

Proud parents Pat and Beth are now home owners having closed on a nice house recently. Pat is getting it up to snuff before he leaves on his Prudoe Bay job on the slope. He will be gone for  2 weeks and back for 2, an arrangement which will enable them to plan family activities with more  accuracy than when he was out on the fires. God speed Pat!

GrammaGri was able to visit Beth and the girls TWICE, this past summer/fall. Driving down to Palmer with Wenda Lawrence and Janice Blohm was a treat, such lovely scenery at that time of the year. Both times Pat was on a fire though.

 Some  farm news:

Our last day of school was Tuesday.  We will start school again on January 6th - because of how the weekends fell, we have more off time, sorta.  I'm not complaining!

Wenda has been gone for a couple of weeks visiting Stacey and her family in Kansas.  I can't say that I'm not a little jealous - I had such a good visit with them last March.  Jarred and Jennifer have taken off for a couple of weeks to visit family in New York.  Kevin and Kelly have gone to visit Kevin's family in Montana for a little bit of time.  Jo has gone to Vegas to see her sister, Sarah; plus some other family members are there too. Jessy is spending some time in Canada, mainly at Headwaters or Evergreen.  

We are sure happy that Steve and Judy returned home.  It was like we were missing an arm or maybe even a leg. 

Sis Millie is doing well.  She only comes out on Sundays for service.  She sure enjoys any mail that comes her way.  

We spent three nights in the past couple of weeks putting up our beef meat.  Thank you, Tommy, for that!  

Bro Andy is looking into some second opinions concerning his condition.  We are hopeful about that!

Val and George are spending some time in North Carolina with their children.  I'm praying that in every way, this is a healing time for them.

Tony's horse calendar is ready to buy if anyone is interested.  I also have a few more of mine, if anyone failed to get theirs.  

Saturday May and Gri are leaving for 10 days with the Tesis, Karenza and Ani. Also will try and squeeze a farewell to our sis Alejandra, who is moving to Chile for work for a bit. 

All in all, it has been a good year, very busy and many changes. The biggest for us as a family - The Buongiornes - is that our youngest daughter Annie - Anne Marie - Ani - has been living in TX for about 6 months already. A big adjustment for all of us but I think a good one, new opportunities and goals. God is good.

We thank each and every one of you for staying in touch and reaching out. Closing this short Christmas-news-blog-end-of-year, with the prayer and the wish that 2014 will be a good, peaceful and prosperous one for us all!

God bless you,

Gri

Dec. 9th. 2013

Hi!  We've had zero or above weather all week.  For the last two days, it seemed that the thermometer was stuck at 8*, but I notice that this morning, we're at 15*, so the thermometer is not stuck.  :)    We received just a smattering of wet sleet on Friday; it was enough to pack down the remaining unblown away snow and to make the roads slick.

We had an excellent service yesterday - Paul Basalyga was here visiting - he led worship.  Sis Margaret preached on roots and the importance of the roots drinking from the right sources in order to have healthy plants and fruit - of course, she was likening the roots to us being planted in the right place as stated in Ps 1:3.  Sis Wenda shared as well.  We had our usual prayer requests for Bro George, Bro Andy, Sis Millie, Ralph Horender, Dora, Christine, some unspoken, and more.

I noticed that Tommy killed some beef cows this week so we'll have some beef meat coming up soon.  We are really enjoying the pork meat that Seth provided for us by getting and caring for the pigs till butcher time.  We are selling some of our eggs at Alaska Feed for $3.50 a dozen for cash or $4/dozen for in store trading/buying.  That's pretty cool, I think.   Tony and his boys have been madly selling hay and straw to all sorts of people.  I think Tommy sold some sides of beef to Delta Meat and Sausage too.

Pat, self and Rob managed to get in some Snowshoeing this weekend. Went for 2 miles to the Lynx trap, so named because it used to be...well...a lynx trap :)

Jo Cox and self have gotten in 2 trips down the backside of the sawmill trail, kindly opened up by Brad Cox. This leads either up the Horn Mountain or to the Alaska highway. We just take it for about  total of 45' a nice little workout. Amazing how dark it still gets so soon! By 4 pm it was getting dusk.

 A few folks are taking some time to visit family and friends during the holiday season. May and I are leaving for TX on the 28th. for a couple of weeks. Can't wait to see my girlie Annie, my sister Karenza and meet all the folks there. Hope to be able to get in a drive to Springfield MO to visit my sis. Alejandra and her family. She will be leaving for Chile in March so if I want to see her - now is the time. She will move to Chile for 2 years completing an academic Fellows position and responsibilities,  at the research university in Coyhaique. This research branch is part of the Universidad Austral of Chile. I am sure Alejandra will do admirably although she will be far from all of us for a while. Here's a link to the place.

http://patagonia.uach.cl/

The Aurora has been amazing the past few weeks. This taken by Delt photographer Sebastian Saarlos. Neat huh?

I'd love to run my mouth more, but I've goofed around too long writing other messages and now I must get going to devotions and school.  Have a great day and a great week.

THANKSGIVING 2013 AT DRY CREEK, ALASKA

Good-morning! Thanksgiving's come and gone and Christmas is peeking around the corner…wow…already??  Where has the year gone to one wonders?

We had a most excellent Thanksgiving Day and a wonderful weekend filled with family and friends.  Kathryn and May and the high-school students did a superb job on the Thanksgiving food.  (I was pretty worried because Bro Andy has done it for so many years that he probably writes his to do list with his eyes shut!)  Bradie wrote and directed a skit for the high school and jr high students to perform.  That was well done.  Brad had a poem to share, but I forgot to get it from him.  Oh, we called Andy and Sarah Jane with speaker phone and had a big group sharing of hellos and such! THAT WAS SO COOL TO HEAR THEIR VOICES!

We had many guests that swelled our numers to about 130 folks:  Ella and her parents; Lizzie; Jake & Phanta & family; Don & Liz Werhonig & family plus their babysitter plus one of Charity's boys; Sam & Marki & family; Penny Clark; Meghan plus a couple of friends; Marki's dad; Pat & Bethany & the twins ELLA N' ESSIE; Toby & Marie; Paul Trotzke with Katie, Tom, and Eli Steer; Koehlers; Stephen & Melissa; Jewel & Lee & Vanessa; Kylin & the kids (Andrew had to work); Peter & Stacey; Joey; Kenny Chartier who is up working in Fairbanks for awhile; I think that's all of them.  And, Sis Millie came out to the meal too!   

During Thanksgiving Day, the kitchen sink disposal decided to quit working - not a good day for that.  The kids dealt with that superbly.  Rich has since purchased a new disposal, and Garth kindly installed it.  I sure miss Steve Squires in times like that; he usually has a spare stashed away somewhere. 

Dan Ricciardelli preached on Sunday morning; Ben led worship. Bro Dan spoke on how obedience and faith go hand in hand; you cannot have one without the other.  He gave several great examples, but my favorite was the example of the centurion with the sick daughter.  

We had a sweet sharing meeting last night with Rose, Tommy, and Gri as speakers.  The theme I saw in the sharing was praise and thankfulness to the Lord and appreciation for each other.  Gri led worship; I loved that. She does not get up too often any more so it's always a treat to have someone different.

I haven't heard from the Trotters in awhile; I assume Bro Andy is diligently taking his chemo.  Bro George is going to and from the hospital for his chemo treatments this week.   Christine Jepsen, Rich's sister,  is done with her chemo for now; her platelets are low at present so that is a matter for concern.  I haven't heard from Rachael Williamson concerning Shane, their little boy who has a rare form of melanoma - last I knew he was recovering from his chemo and radiation treatments.  Part of his side affects were bad sun burns, chapped lips, and sores in his mouth.  Samuel Wenger was recently diagnosed with some sort of blood disease.  The Drs feel it is treatable; they are presently figuring out a treatment plan.

Jarred and Seth F are diligently applying themselves to building and installing the tabernacle bathrooms.  After three years, we might actually be getting somewhere.  Merlin had to re-route the tab water heating system since it ran on the floor where we were putting the door to the new bathrooms. It's pretty exciting.  

Olivia (and Wendy sometimes) has been doing an impressive job with Sis Millie's physical therapy.  She is improving and gaining strength.  Olivia, mostly, goes to the Basalygas twice a day - in the morning they do arm and hand therapy.  In the afternoon, it is the leg and foot's turn for therapy.  Wendy makes sure all their day to day things are taken care of and fills in whenever Olivia needs to be gone (she's our Basalyga coordinator).  Everyone pitches in.

Pat & Gri had a wonderful time with their grandies and lovely parents. The cabin was full and busy but the girls behaved themselves admirably and were sociable with everybody who approached them. Such sweet things! Talking up a storm and stealing the show at every turn. They stayed for 8 days and then had to leave since they had medicals in Palmer. PatLou filled his time being a very good daddy and also working with his uncle Ben Mehaffey at Alaska Blacksmithing to produce a very nice ornate metalwork lamp stand which will look very nice in their new home that they have recently purchased in Palmer, Alaska. 

It will look something like this when finished:

But right now it looks like this:

PL also did some felling of trees for those who needed that done around their cabins. Spent some quality time with his Grams Floan. He even squeezed in a Snowshoeing trek up the mountain with his uncle. We miss them already! PatL is soon to start working for a French Canadian Oil Servicing Company as a slick liner. He will no longer do firefighting. I am sure he will sorely miss firefighting and the friends he's made down trough the years, however this company offers much better benefits coverage, which is a big consideration when one has a small family to consider. He will work two weeks on and 2 off which will be great since he can spend more time with his girls. GOD SPEED PAT! 

Here is a link to the company, a giant conglomerate multinational organization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlumberger

http://www.slb.com/services/well_intervention/slickline.aspx

Pat Sr. left for a week of piano work up in Barrow.

And now a few thoughts on the season from The Most Important Christmas Choice by Tracie Miles

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Tis' the season to be merry... and stressed. Although it should be a season of peace, this month can often make us feel more tangled up inside than a messy string of Christmas lights.

Some people dread the hustle, bustle, and emotional rustle this time of year brings, knowing that irritability, loneliness, or depression will threaten. While there are others who may love the Christmas season, but worry, busyness, family conflicts, and unmet expectations take their toll.

In either case, we have a decision. We can choose to get bogged down with stress or we can choose to bow down in worship.

Scripture gives us a beautiful picture of praise in Luke 2:13-14. When Jesus was born, an angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds sharing the good news. Then many other angels joined together and praised God.

"Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.'" (NLT)

Keeping Christ in Christmas is more than just a cliché. It is an intentional act of worship. It requires a heart of adoration, much like the angels had. When Jesus is the focus of our holiday, we're centered on His love, peace, and joy. The holidays can bring a flurry of heightened emotions and can often result in an unhealthy level of stress which can prevent us from engaging in worship and praising the One we are supposed to be celebrating.

There will be lots of choices to be made during the month of December. The most important choice we can make is to worship and sing praises to our Lord. For His gift. For His love. For His peace. And when our hearts are at peace, our holidays can be too.

Have a great rest of the week.