Highlights of Christmas Vacation...

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Rick and David are preparing to head back to Florida this evening - the time always flies WAY too quickly over these school breaks!

We made a lot of fun memories while they were here... sometimes driving places and other times just spending time together at home.

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The latest family picture

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One day we went to town and took a whole
bunch of pictures... such a blast!
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Our two "visitors".
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Rick, teaching a 3-4-5 year old class at church.
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David and Lizzie playing duets on Sunday - it was beautiful.

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Visiting with Mrs. Hartman, a friend and neighbor of ours!

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David and Luke, enjoying the unusually warm weather last week.
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College buddies get a snapshot together.
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Jack just obtained a new cell phone, so everyone was anxious to

see the new features. LtoR: Emily, Jack, Rick.
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The oldest and the youngest.
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David, Liz and I accompanied Rick's solo on our instruments.
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Just playing around with the camara again.

Doesn't this look like a CD cover or something?

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Merry Christmas

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Just wanting to wish everyone a lovely Christmas! Enjoy this time with family & friends, as we remember the greatest gift ever given, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hope you have a wonderful day. God bless each and every one of you!

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Kaitlyn, for the McDonnells

A Chinese Supper

David Chin, a friend of Rick's from college, is here over the Christmas holidays. He is from Malaysia and it has been a pleasure to have him.
This afternoon he went shopping, and tonight he made the most delicious Chinese supper for us. It was incredible!

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Some of the sauces that were used in the meal.

David, testing the main dish.

Eli was the official "dicer"... he chopped up almost all the vegetables and meat.

Meal preparation.

Getting ready to enjoy the food.

After supper, David made these awesome "Frappuccino smoothies".... they are made with milk, ice cream, oreo cookies, hazelnut flavored instant coffee (from Malaysia) and ice cubes. Mmmm.... so wonderful!
Signing out for now,

Kaity

East Point School of Laser Tag Warfare!

Truly this was one interesting experience!! Matthew Arnold (left) and I (right) had a unique opportunity to plan and run a full day-and-a-half laser tag camp for boys aging from 8 to 15. Mr. Arnold (not pictured) was also a big part of making this activity run smoothly.

You can just try to imagine keeping 16 active boys busy for 24 hours!!

Matthew, Mr. Arnold and I were kept busy with manning the video cameras and keeping the boys going on their different missions. We also had the help of some of the boy's dads for keeping everybody on the right track.

But it ran very well, much to the joy of the planners of this military endeavour!

The time was spent mainly in running pre-planned missions including the following: Mission Medivac, Kill The General, Mission War, Capture The Flag and Battlefield Charlie.

The teams were divided into two eight man teams titled "Team Bravo" and "Team Delta".

At the end of the day when all the scores were tallied, it was close, but the winning team was............drum roll please!.......dududuududududu......................TEAM BRAVO!!!

Anyway,....way to go guys, you all did great!! Winning or losing, all the boys kept their attitudes pretty well under control.

I still wonder what anybody would have thought though.....if they had seen all these minature army guys running around with advanced "assualt" weapons. :o)

It was an awesome day though....and all the boys went home throughly tired out and with a bunch of great memories!

Eli, John Ferry and John Blanchette carrying Nick Johnson in "Mission: Medivac"




Levi sneaking through the woods for his next attack.




John Ferry at lunch break time....(Gotta love that face paint!)



Dan Johnson doing his best not to be spotted by the opposing team.

Levi in the one ghillie suit that each team got to use for each mission






Caleb Rardin and Eli taking a break in between missions





Joe Ferry looking like a full time G.I. Joe. (No pun intended :O)





Matthew (far left) giving the mission breifing before the two teams split up for the fight





Eli and Nick Nelson in full face paint. (Scary!)

Almost... almost here!

Tomorrow morning (at about 3:00 a.m.) our wonderful eldest brother is coming home! We are more than a little excited about having him for 2 weeks, to be sure, and I think he is ready to come home as well. We will be posting more soon, Lord willing, with pictures from the visit.

Piano Recital

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This afternoon was Emily and Jack's annual piano recital. For the opening of the program, they played a piano duet, with Liz on the violin.

There were 20 or so piano students, of all sizes and abilities. We heard everything from Silent Night, played one key at a time, to complicated classical pieces.

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Getting ready to play the "Hungarian Dance".

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Emily played "Jesus Loves Me Medley", arranged by Faye Lopez.

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Jack played a bombastic version of "Rejoice, the Lord is King". This was also a Faye Lopez arrangment.

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Lizzie, with Alexandra (a good friend), following the recital.

Handel's Messiah

We three oldest girls had the privilege of going to see Handel's Messiah performed, this past Friday. What an experience! None of us had ever seen it... in fact, I don't think I had even HEARD the whole thing before.

I must say that it is something else when they get to the "Hallelujah Chorus". Everyone stands and it is really just an awesome moment!

Indeed, He is Lord of lords and King of kings!

Ice Skating!!

Eli, Luke and I woke up this morning to very cold tempuratures. But rather than be grumpy, we decided to scout around for a frozen "puddle" to skate on. We finally were rewarded when we found one that was just thick enough for us to skate on. (We haven't had one thick enough for the past three years!)

Although we had to dodge the corn stalk bumps, we actually got up to pretty fast speeds!!
Eli and Luke especially enjoyed it when I towed them on their bellies over the ice with a long rope!

Even though I like warm weather MUCH BETTER, I don't mind a few cold snaps like we had today for ice skating!! Now if northern Illinois only had a few hills, we could use some snow for sledding!!

Now...to copy my sister's tactics of getting multiple comments.... :o)
How many of you viewing this blog have gone skating before?
And how many of you enjoy it?

 

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!!!

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This morning I woke up to big, fluffy, snowflakes floating down slowly.

It then picked up some and it's now safe to say that we are "officially"

having our first snow of the season!

"I'm dreeeeaaaming of whiiittteee Christmaaaaaaaas,

just like the ones I used to know....."

Don't you just love Christmas music?!

So, the big question of the day is... how many of YOU, our faithful readers,

have already had snow

???

My favorite part of our vacation!!

This looooooooooooonnnggg bike path was my favorite part of our trip due to the fact that we had such perfect weather, and it was Oh, so quiet and relaxing on the bike path!! Also there was plenty of wildlife around. Squirrels, rabbits, birds, deer, hawks, golden eagles and even a few bald eagles!! Now those are some majestic birds!! (Eagles that is.) I literally spent hours out on the bike trail,....just listening to all of nature's song!

A rippling creek that ran next to the bike path.

A picture of a true Iowa deer in a full body mount at the museum on the bike trail. (Nice rack there!!)

Misc. Iowa Pics

The beautiful rolling hills in Iowa were fantastic to see again!!

Lizzy tuning up her violin in anticipation of the wedding of our cousin, Kerstin.

Here Emily gives our ever-helping Grandma a hand with the dishes. I don't know if our Grandma ever sat down for any length of time while we were there. She is working or helping out somebody constantly!! God must have blessed her in a special way!

Game time!!

Truly, some of the best fellowship is to be had around a card table with a board game, rook, uno....etc. Here, James displays his "winning" smile while his dad, (Uncle Derek) Eli and Luke practice their poker faces.

Here, Emily prepares to challenge somebody in the age old mind challenge of Mancala.