Grammy Donut

Today is the funeral for Helen Severy, known by her grandkids as Grammy Donut. Friday morning she passed away at the age of 96 and went to be with her Heavenly Father. She had no relatives left here on earth other than her three grandkids, Lincoln, Helaine and Kendrick. Her name was Grammy Donut because she was known for making donuts as a special treat for her grandchildren when they visited. We will miss her but at the same time rejoice in a life lived for her Savior. She lost both of her daughters, her husband, her sister all before the Lord called her Home. Helaine has done a wonderful job of taking care of so many details throughout this whole time - as a family we are very thankful to her. We also appreciate the people in the church family there who are taking care of Helaine now, and have taken care of Grammy Donut for years.

Meat

Monday evening, while Monica and Zach headed into town to play games with a group of teenage homeschoolers, Matthew and I and Logan took on a quite different task. After coming back from Chile to an empty freezer (Ok, so it was empty before we left), we were really feeling the drawback of having missed out on hunting season. However, about 2 weeks ago, our neighbor across the street pulled his truck into our driveway and unloaded not one but TWO deer for us! Praise the Lord! We initially took some meat off and cut up a couple roasts and ground up some hamburg but then the weather was so cold that the deer hanging in the garage were frozen and it was hard to even cut off a chunk of meat. But, the last couple days, temperatures finally rose above freezing so last night we tackled the big deer and got it all skinned, cut up, ground up, wrapped up, and froze up=) Matthew did 95% of the work and Logan and I helped when we could.

Logan has enjoyed this process from start to finish....

Matthew's creative pulley system....

Getting the skin off....

Alana helped the first time around....

It takes a lot of work to keep that grinder working right....

Logan got to stay up late to help Daddy, his job was to cut the meat into a smaller size to fit into the grinder....

The deer are from inside the city limits of Hot Springs, fed off of nice juicy lawns and have fattened right up for winter. Because there are soooo many of them in town and they are safe where no one can shoot them, the city has hired some men to safely shoot some of them to cut down on the amount that have become a real nuisance. Our neighbor was one of those men - so despite missing hunting season we still will have some meat!

Christmas....and other stuff

My husband reminded me yesterday that I hadn't written anything on the blog in a week...well, I guess the blog was just one more thing I've been taking a break from right now=) Although, as the kids enjoy time off school I spent most of the day yesterday doing the lesson planning for this upcoming semester. It's actually one of my favorite 'home schooling things' to do and I feel a great sense of accomplishment when it is done and another semester is planned and organized.

We have been laying low and not doing much of anything too drastic. We've passed our time this last week going sledding, rearranging and rehanging lots of pictures (Matthew's favorite job), and doing other odds and ends around the house.

Christmas was a really fun day. Unfortunately the pictures I took aren't even worth posting so you will just have to imagine the faces of the kids as they unwrapped their presents. Matthew said his favorite part was watching Alana open her stocking - she exclaimed with great enthusiasm over each and every item, even those that she didn't know what they were! (Side note- I plan to use that in the future as a bargaining chip - you see I went against a Chamberland tradition this year....The tradition that has carried over from Matthew's childhood and with our kids is this - late Christmas Eve when we finally head to bed the stockings are placed at the foot of the kids beds. What happens next is usually a 2 or 3 am wakeup by the kids and they open their stockings and then TRY to get back to sleep, hopefully this all takes place without waking up their parents. Well, I put in my request and it was granted so that we could do things the way I always did growing up and we all open our stockings together first thing on Christmas. After having so much fun packing the stockings and getting little things that I think each specific child will like I HATE missing out on watching them open it and discover everything. Back to what I was saying....) We enjoyed a yummy and QUICK breakfast after stockings and then opened our presents. The kids all had their favorite gifts and Uncle Chad and Uncle Kendrick made things fun for them as they usually do.

For lunch another family joined us - Phil and Charlotte Shively. They are new to our church and have come to the area, after several years on the mission field in Papua New Guinea, to work at Cornerstone Bible Institute. We had a great time of fellowship and fun with them and our kids had a blast playing with their 3 boys. My parents are coming up in a couple weeks and we will have another 'mini' Christmas with them so our fun isn't quite over yet!

Sometimes lying on the floor is all you can do after so much time spent having fun!

Christmas Eve we also enjoyed a service at our church - we sang some carols and had communion, a fitting 'celebration' since this time of celebrating His birth we can also remember the reason that He came....to sacrifice Himself on the cross, taking our sin upon Him, to give us the precious gift of eternal life. I hope you enjoyed your Christmas as much as we did and I hope you, too, can know the true meaning of happines because of a life given over to God.

Enjoying the Break

It is sooo nice to have a small break to enjoy right now. The kids are taking 2 weeks off of school and it is a nice refresher for all of us to be able to enjoy days without schoolwork. I'm sure by January 5th the cabin fever will be getting to all of us and we'll be ready to start back again. And while we are 'taking a break' there is still a LOT going on right now.

First of all I'd ask you to pray for a family situation - Grammy Donut (Lincoln, Helaine, and Kendrick's grandmother) is in the hospital and we don't expect it to be too long before she joins her Savior. She is 95 and has a brain hemorrhage she is not expected to recover from. Related to that is a request for Helaine - she flew out to Maine to be with her for Christmas and has had to deal with all of this as the only family member that is there.

Last night we all piled on our winter wear and walked around to our neighbors with a plate of cookies and a Christmas, gospel message to hand out. It was COLD!!!! But we hope to have a positive testimony and desire to make an impact on the unsaved people that we are surrounded by. After that we headed to the Georgeffs house, a church family, since church last night was canceled. We enjoyed some fellowship and cookies and watched the movie 'Expelled' about the debate between Intelligent Design and Evolution being taught in our schools and colleges. It was worth the watch but very aggravating at the same time - there are so many people that are going to be held accountable for their own actions as well as the hundreds they have taught and led the wrong way!

The kids, of course, are counting down the days to Christmas with much anticipation. Once again the Lord has blessed us abundantly and we thank Him for His gift! We have invited another family to have lunch and spend the afternoon with us on Christmas Day. The Shively's were missionaries in Papua New Guinea for years and are setting up home here in the States for the first time in a long while. They have three sons - ages 15, 13, and 11 - and we are looking forward to the fellowship and getting to know them. They will be working at Cornerstone Bible Institute starting this coming spring semester. It should be a fun day!

Guess I don't have a whole lot to write about or pictures to post but I wanted to update you on a few things going on this week in our lives. As usual with the holidays here there a lot of you that we are missing even more right now! Maybe someday....

A big day!

Yesterday was quite a big day in our house - it went by uncelebrated but it still deserves some attention. Monica finished 10th grade! As most of you know she is doing her 4 years of high school in 3 years so a year and a half ago she started 9th grade, and in another year and a half she will be done 12th grade. Graduation should be somewhere around May of 2010. She has worked hard at it and been diligent, most of the time, to get it all done - her school days are often very long! But after getting an A on 3 out of 5 finals she is enjoying Christmas break, along with the rest of us, and on January 5th she will start her junior year of high school. Way to go, Monica!

Handsome Little Man

The day before we left for Chile we finally got these pictures from JCPenney, where we have the kids pictures taken. Since there were a few other things going on then (!) I didn't take the time to post them. So, here they are now....my cute little baby....two years old!

Time sure has flown since this picture!

Never-ending projects.

Once again we have done a few projects around the house. They seem to usually come about because of something that we finally get around to fixing or spur of the moment decisions or something suddenly gone wrong that need immediate attention - as long as we think we can get away with doing it for free or almost free=) So here is a project update on the Chamberland house....if you actually are interested=)

When we moved into this house it came with a washer and dryer that worked fine so we loaned ours to Chad and kept those in place. Now that Chad has moved out of his place we put our original pair down in the new bathroom downstairs - they are much nicer looking! Anyway, all that to say that we found yet another disaster hiding in the wall behind the old set. So Matthew fixed what he could and covered it with some sheet rock - the boys had fun helping.

As you can see, they were a BIG help=)

The other thing was an endless dripping that has worsened - it comes from our master bathroom down into the boys room downstairs. Matthew took out the toilet and found some more stupid (sorry, there is just no other word) stuff that has been done in this house. It's not like someone just did a poor job on the framing, or a homemade job on the electrical wiring...it's the whole house that continues to shock us with each thing we uncover. Anyway, he fixed the problem and in the meantime we tore up the rotten carpet and unveiled a not-so-lovely wood floor.

While I am at it I will post a couple pictures of the new bathroom we put in downstairs a few months ago - another project we did because of something we had to fix=) Not such great shots but I love this bathroom, it is officially the prettiest room in the house....at least it will be when it's done!

Matthew did some pretty incredible tile work in the shower. It looks really cool!That's it for now until we decide to replace the next thing....which will hopefully be the furnace!

It's the most wonderful time of the year....and it's really cold!

The last few days we've been waking up to really coooold temperatures. This morning it was -18 when we got up and yesterday was similar to that with the wind chills down into the negative 20's and 30's. We have 1/2 thick frost on the inside of most of our windows and we've also tacked up a blanket in front of the least insulated door - it blows as the winds seeps in through the cracks. This house isn't exactly well insulated! There's no need for anyone to write and tell me how much colder it is where they are - I spent many winters in Canada and Maine and I know it can get much colder, but this is the coldest it's been in SD since we moved here. Here's a couple bad pictures as proof=)

Matthew stayed home from church yesterday with our two youngest who are quite sick, Chad stayed home for the same reason. Matthew himself is not feeling well either and if things go as usual, it will run it's course through all of us - just hopefully not start back through again like it sometimes does! Anyway, after the rest of us got home from church we had lunch then set up the Christmas tree. I'm much later than usual decorating this year. After getting back from Chile I just didn't want to deal with the chaos of another mess....it's taken a while to get in the Christmas mood when I'm still longing for the warm, sunny days we enjoyed in Lican! But we put on the Christmas music and began the process....Some more willing than others!

Matthew, we'll rate him as not very excited about it but willing just the same, was in charge of getting the tree up and the lights all functioning.

Logan, helped for a while then disappeared to make his own homemade ornament.....very special!

Alana, definitely very excited and put on the most ornaments of anyone, often all on the same branch=)

Zachery, same as Matthew, but he did what he was told ~ although he acted like quite the goofball!

Monica, the usual willing helper, and not to mention 'creative'.

Chad and Kendrick, completely useless.

And me, well, I was in my usual role of 'chief coordinator', telling everyone else what to do=)

TAG

I've been tagged.... Here's what I know about being tagged:

1- You go to the 4th folder in your 'My Pictures file.

2- You then go to the 4th picture in that folder.

3 - Post the picture on your blog with an explanation.

4- Then tag 4 more people to do the same.

Here's my picture - it was taken in June of 2006 at Zachery's 11th birthday party. A friend of his gave him a 4-pack of rootbeer and he was showing it to the camera.

The four people I'm going to tag are:

Tarin at http://5hearts01.blogspot.com/

Danny and Liz at http://gringochilenos.blogspot.com

Greg at http://thompsongw.blogspot.com

Melissa at http://wherewillshegonext.blogspot.com

Have fun! Thanks, Steph!

I'm a big boy now

Since coming home Jesse has made the transition from crib to toddler bed ~ things are going.... OK.

Yes, I was traumatized when we took down the crib for the last time=(

Our trip home

After some minor issues at the bus station we got on our 'sleeper' bus and started to get comfortable. For about $35 you can get on a bus with seats that recline almost all the way with a foot rest and it is usually very comfortable and we sleep quite well. But, there were a few differences on this particular bus since it was a different line than we usually have and things did not go well. It was very bumpy and wind-y to begin with and about 3 minutes into the trip I was sick. Over the course of the next few hours things deteriorated but I will spare you the details! We got into Santiago the next morning and spent about another hour and a half on public transportation getting back to the mission house. In the following 2 hours all 7 of us sped through the showers and then headed to church. It was really fun for me to see so many of the people I had grown up with still serving there faithfully....sad at the same time to see those who were no longer there.

For the rest of that day we relaxed and caught up on some sleep and visited with the Kunnari's. The next day was the missionary prayer meeting and we spent the day doing laundry and visiting and ordering Domino's pizza....times have changed!A flattering picture of the Kunarri's ~ it was soooo good to see them! Left to right - Christina Steward (MK in Chile), Logan, Timmy and Noemi Rea and their dad, Jonny Rea, GMSA missionary in Santiago. He was teaching Logan how to play 'Snakes and Ladders'.One of the most special parts of the day was getting to visit with one of my best friends from high school, Stephanie Garcia. We have kept in touch over the years but rarely have the opportunity to see each other face to face. They are also missionaries in Chile, with ABWE, and are in the midst of adopting 2 little boys from Haiti!

Thanks, Steph and Pedro, for making the effort to come and see us!Different shades of skin is one of the few differences these two little rascals had=) Most of the time they seemed to be on the same page!Here are Isabel, Jesse, Alana, and Owen. Stephanie's oldest, Eva, was outside with the older kids. Pray for them as they would desire for little Ian and Alec to join their family very soon!Once the pizza was eaten preparations began in earnest to load up three vehicles with all of our luggage and all the people heading to the airport to see off the final batch of the NTI team, our family and Brett Kunnari.And so the last 24 hours of traveling began....one 10 hour plane ride, one 2 hour plane ride, and one 6 hour truck ride later and the thousands of miles would be behind us. Some were more excited about that than others....=)Thankfully the plane rides were mostly uneventful....No sooner had we pulled in the driveway and unloaded the luggage than it started to snow. From 85 to about 25 degrees in just a day - the next morning we woke up to the white stuff and Logan headed outside and did this! What a welcome home=)

Travels....

Like I have already mentioned, our last two days at camp were a bit hectic. Friday was supposed to be a day of continued clean up for the upcoming wedding, as well as the camping season, but it poured most of the day. The kids were allowed to watch a movie... and we tried to start on the packing and collecting of our stuff spread all over the campus. We had turkey leftovers for lunch and then decided to leave the kitchen free to more cooks than I could count that showed up to start on the wedding preparations. We went out to eat (thank you Kunnari's)... and then all gathered together in the caretakers cabin, the place where Dan and Liz will stay until the house is finished. It was just a fine time of fellowship - some checked their e-mail... and some of us played games. I did my usual evening ritual and held onto Sam, the guinea pig, for a couple hours=) I miss him already! Just to give you an idea of what the house is like that Dan and Liz have to stay in for a while - look over the pictures, they have no real furniture in there and everyone sits at a kids table and chair to get on the computer, the couch's were mattresses on the floor, and here is a look at the kitchen.... She is cooking on the equivalent of a Coleman stove you would take camping with you. There are no table and chairs, but I did just hear that they brought their fridge from home over to the house so there is a place for cold storage. I don't say this for you to pity them, nor would they want that, but just to help understand what this time will be like for them. A young family with a busy camp schedule to keep up with and their living conditions not at all what we are used to - so just continue to pray for them.

Saturday was the wedding of Teresa Thompson, a missionary kid that I knew growing up. She married a Chilean pastor, Marcelo. Having the wedding at camp was especially meaningful to her as she spent many years living there in the old administrators house that we traveled down to replace. Like I had said before, as a result of a communication mix-up, Diana and I were asked to take pictures of the wedding. Mine turned out as I expected - some OK, most of them not OK. But, thanks to Diana, we had several good pictures and were able to give her a CD with 450 photographs on it of her wedding day. Here are some of the OK ones....

The bride and groom shortly after the ceremony

The newlyweds and Teresa's familyTeresa and her mom, Aunt EarlynneWe finished up with some pictures on the beachImmediately after we were done with the pictures we went to start packing. To make a long story short in about one hour we packed the seven suitcases of our clothing, the two duffel bags containing all our sheets, towels, pillows, and shoes, the bag with all Matthew's tools, and then the 'extras' bin for all the other odds and ends. Counting the stroller we had 12 pieces of luggage! Curtis Steward, the GMSA field director in Chile, graciously agreed to take all of our luggage back to the mission house in Santiago for us which was a HUGE blessing. All I had to do was get a Sunday outfit ready for each of us and we hopped on the bus with one bag and our carryons.... but that is another story all together! I will also save the Saturday adventures of Zachery for another time as well.