Thankfulness

We are thankful for:

1) The opportunity to be in Vermont and a part of what God is doing here. Brian did a short devotional at church tonight reminding us to be thankful for the gospel and the grace of God, without which, our lives would be hopeless. During his speaking time one of the youth (Wed night at church is youth group night which always draws quite a variety of teens) began to act up quite a bit. It escalated to the point of the pastor asking him to leave the service. He shouted a few expletives that we are thankful that none of the little kids repeated. The cops had to be called to force him to leave the property and while they were there the drug dog was going crazy. Brian thankfully maintained his composure on the stage. Just gotta love Barre... it's a tough place to live for a lot of kids. Please pray for this young boy... he is coming and hearing the gospel each time he's there... Also, we are seriously considering Waterbury as our plant town. Please continue to pray for this town and the people there.

2) The home in which we live which has made it possible for Allison to be off for 3 months after the baby is born and for Brian to devote his time to working at the church.

3) The timing of this pregnancy. Allison is glad she does not have to spend the worst 3 months of the winter driving from house to house to see patients! We are also thankful for the gifts we have been given for the new baby.

Nathanael even got a Tigger toy at the shower!

Our Little Virtuouso

4) Our son! He cracks us up every day!

Brian: "Nathanael, what's baby sister's name?" [we really hope it's a girl]

Nathanael: "Hofie"

Brian: "Hofie?"

Nathanael: "Yes"

We couldn't figure out how he came up with Hofie, we haven't even mentioned Sophie. Well, the other night after our singing and reading the Bible before bed, Brian was praying. He prayed that God would keep Mommy and Baby Sister healthy. Just as he said that Nathanael shouted out "HOFIE" We laughed and laughed and think God was laughing, too! Nathanael is also memorizing a few verses. The first one he's gotten right is Ephesians 6:1. We make him say it quite often... every time he disobeys! We're hoping to capture a video and post it here soon! Happy Thanksgiving!

our Saturday adventure

Yesterday we went to another prospective town... (is there a bad town anywhere to start a church and tell people about Christ?) Richmond, VT. Nathanael thought we were going to see CC, Grams and Papa J. At least he associated Richmond with them. Richmond is a town of 4000 people near Burlington with only 2 churches in the town, a Congregational Church and a Catholic Church. Please continue to pray for us.

The view of Camel's Hump from Richmond, VT

We also had an interesting trip to Burlington. I just have to share our experience at Ponderosa. Neither of us are big on buffet restaurants, but we had a gift card we wanted to use. While we were in line, we had a gentleman cut in front of us to order... funny. Our meal cost about $18, which will be important later... Brian headed off to the restroom. On the way back, he had to tell the manager about a problem in there (not created by Brian, of course). Shortly we saw the mop go by... we were almost finished with our food when it reappeared (It was a rather large mess!) The manager even came by to tell us that the problem was taken care of! While going to fix his first plate of food, Brian watched someone bring out chicken for the buffet. She was eating, too. We prayed over that plate again... Our waitress took some of our dirty plates away and also took Brian's cup to refill it with water at the same time. Same cup came back. We prayed over that cup, too! I went up to get a dessert and ended up beside a lady who was complaining about how wide the tongs were. I guess she thought the best idea was to use her coat to help close them a bit more. Although I didn't use the same tongs to choose my dessert, we prayed over that plate, too! Even Nathanael prayed for our health after that trip! We were so disappointed in our meal, that we gave the $5.37 balance on our gift card to someone in line while we were leaving.

We did some Christmas shopping (my first time inside a mall in quite some time), got a $5 balloon beetle from a Shriner clown (it was worth it), had a Pumpkin Spice latte from Starbucks, went into the most interesting outdoor shop where Nathanael talked to everyone working in the store (a girl named Holly and a guy he mistook for Daniel), then went to McDonald's for dinner (oh how we miss Wendy's and Chick 'fil A). Thankfully our McDonald's experience was not quite as hazardous as our lunch, but it did cost $17.50 (when did McDonald's get so expensive?) and there was a hair in my quarter pounder with cheese (thankfully I saw it before I ate it). We had a great time hanging out as a family and made many many memories!

Balloon Beetle

Nathanael taking our picture after our shopping trip

Here are a few pictures from the last week to share too!

Nathanael ready to ski

A gift from CC

Our little monkey

The circus came to our church's Harvest Festival

Allison and Linda with poor nameless child... any ideas?

Our family photo from the Harvest Festival

This picture was taken 2/4/08... a gift from CC

This picture was taken today :)