NOT MUCH

It didn't amount to much but we had an inch of snow by the time we came home from church.

SNOW!

Well, it is snowing again but we will wait to see if it amounts to anything. It is coming down beautifully right now. June was going to leave this morning but will wait until either this afternoon or tomorrow.

SNAPSHOTS OF CHRISTMAS

Grandpa Tucker enjoying Christmas and giving with his grandson John.

The polycarts we have were filled and overflowing so we had to go another direction for getting rid of garbage from our 30+ people in the house. Rog had to make a trip to the dump.

Molly is watching Uncle Roger as he passes out the presents. Molly is 9 months.

Last Sunday many of our grandchildren sang for our morning church service. That thrills Grandpa and Grandma.

Below are are half of my grandaughters and they have a lot of fun together. Maggie is 7, Malia is 4, Meryn is 3, and Meredith is 2.

CHRISTMAS AT HOME WITH THE FAMILY

There were two popular games that were played most of the time. The one above is monopoly and the grandkids played that for hours at a time. The one pictured below is called blokus and the adults played that one without too many breaks.

We are so happy that Grandpa and Grandma Tucker could be with us on Christmas eve.

Grandpa & Grandma are enjoying watching all their 20 great grandchildren as they are so excited about their presents.

Grandpa Tucker is passing out his Christmas gifts to all their children & spouses and their grandchildren.

Son Roger always wanted to be the one to pass out presents when the children were growing up so we decided he could do it this year also with the help of his brother John.

Malia received a ladybug tent and had it set up so all the kids could play. It had a tunnel out the back side of it that made it more fun.

The grandkids do well as we listen to the Christmas story from Luke and pray before the opening of presents. Then they come alive when the presents are being passed out.

Miss Molly is enjoying sitting a a basket. She crawls everywhere so we have to keep an eye on stairways etc.

John & Elisa left last night with their family and Damon & June left this afternoon with Eli and Molly. So we are thinnin out here with only 26 people left in the house.

Eli is going to have surgery on his eyes tomorrow so Maggie, Micah, and Evan are still here with us until their Mommy returns with the 2 littliest ones on Wednesday. They will be spending a few more days with us then.

HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

FUN TIMES WITH FAMILY

In the basement we have tables set up to eat at but also it is a game buffet during the play time and the cousins are having a ball.

This is all the grandkids at dinner tonight. They were a hungry crew and this is only 12 of the 20. We are going to do everything buffet style and have tables sitting everywhere for people to eat.

We had a little problem today. No hot water this morning with only 2 showers taken and many more to go. We had to go buy a water heater - we are so glad that it did not happen on Sunday morning with the whole gang here. We are thankful that we could take care of it today but it was not a planned part of our schedule so it made our day a little hectic.

READY FOR CHRISTMAS

We have our Christmas Tree up now and Greg was the designated decorator. I think he did a super job and it sure made it easy for us. We are finished decorating and have finished our shopping so we're just looking forward to our time together with family..

OUR DEAR PARENTS

We had a good day today visiting Mom & Dad. We were able to take Mom and Dad out to lunch. Dad has not been able to do that for quite a while so we were thrilled for him.

I went down to see my Uncle H and found him in the dining hall with a group of people listening to a lady playing the flute and entertaining the people with Christmas carols. As I was looking around, I saw several people from the church where I grew up who now live in the manor. I enjoy visiting with the people.

CLEANING UP & GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS

We have been painting for 2 days now. We decided we wanted to clean up the walls in the dining room and living room and before we were done we had included the hallway from the kitchen to our bedroom door. Susan & Greg helped us and Meryn just posed for a picture. She did pretty well staying out of the paint with it everywhere.

HAPPY 35th BIRTHDAY JUNE - ONE WEEK LATE!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUNE!


I wanted to have this on a week ago but could not find my picture of June. Susan and I try to cover all the birthdays but didn't get Junes on here. Sorry we are late June.

WHO IS ONE YEAR OLDER TODAY?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!!

It's obvious I didn't have a chance to get a picture today but this was taken only a few months ago.

This is what John and Melanie got in Blue Springs and since today is John's birthday, I thought I would show you a picture of his home beautifully decorated for Christmas.

If you wonder how our snow turned out, the picture I took in my last blog was it.:(

IT'S SNOWING!

It just started snowing and in 10 minutes, we have a dusting of snow. We are supposed to get 4-6 inches but we will see. Rog went out to get the snow blower ready to go so I know he is hoping for more.

MORE PICTURES FROM ECUADOR

They flew to Houston on Thursday morning early and had to spend all day in the Houston airport so Dave Oldham had to find a place to rest.

This is the car that they traveled around in at Catarama. It was a Mercedes Benz van and it is pictured by the church in Catarama.

Rog stayed in a home in Catarama where no English was spoken. He had a small Spanish dictionary but you can imagine trying to carry on a conversation in such a situation. He said they looked at each other a lot:) They showed him his bedroom and he slept in a mesquito net(pictured above). When they showed him the bathroom, he didn't quite get it. There was a wash tub with water dripping into it but he thought maybe the water was not completely turned off. The water was on but no pressure so the lady showed him that he needed to dip a pan into the tub of cold water and pour it over his head. That was the shower! He needed
to pour water into the toilet to flush it as well. Pretty primitive.

You see the laundromat in Catarama where they are washing their clothes in the river. The kids are playing in the water while Mom does the laundry.

Each of the churches that they visited gave the ministry team members gifts and the straw hats pictured were given in Catarama.

This is a homemade pump that was designed by some people that lived outside of the city.

Rog and Dave Oldham rode in this motorcycle rickshaw around Catarama.

We don't see pigs tied up in the US but you would see this in Catarama.

They knock the fruit down from the trees when they are hungry.
This is in Catarama.

The Quichua children play this improvised game of pulling each other through these long tubes.

These are the homes on the mountainside in Pueblo Viejo.

This is the church in Pueblo Viejo.

A couple of Quichua mothers with their children - they always wore the ponchos and hats.

The Quichua children were trying to get a better view of the foreigners.

This is the radio station headquarters in Quito, HCJB. This is where Rog heard the Gospel as a child on his short wave radio. He would listen to it by the hour.

These are the huge satellite dishes that are part of the broadcasting equipment of HCJB.

This is the GMU(now Avant) guesthouse in Quito that was named after Roger Youdarian, one of the missionaries killed by the Aucas back in the 50's.

Rog is with the pastor and his wife from the Quito Church where they ministered.

This is an older part of Quito. They say it is over 100 years old.

WHAT BLESSINGS! TREASURE THE TIMES!

We had 5 of our 8 granddaughters with us over Thanksgiving and enjoyed every one of them.(Malia, Avery, Ella, Meryn, & Meredith)

Meredith, Ella, and Ethan all enjoyed entertaining us and liked to tease each other.

Ella, Meredith, and Meryn were good friends all weekend.

John & Elisa were the last ones to leave on Saturday and we had lunch just before they left. Ethan was so exhausted that he couldn't even finish his cookie.

In fact, when they removed the cookie and the tray, he didn't even stir.

We had a wonderful time with our children and their families and treasure the times with family.