Christmas Weekend

Last night, (Saturday) was our family Christmas party. Taking a few ideas from the Marysville FMC annual party, we decorated sugar cookies, had a special story, made crafts, sang, and had a visit from Santa. Vaughn added a Christmas quiz which was a fun competition to guess the top 5 carols, songs, toys, worst gifts, and movies.


Church attendance this morning was up as the college students and one of the young men who just finished boot camp are home.  The "boy band" plus Vaughn played during first service.  It was great to have the added instruments.  





Christmas Caroling

The last few days have been filled with fun and memorable activities.  Wednesday night the youth and others who just wanted to join in went caroling to some of the special members of our congregation.  Those they visited have lost loved ones in the last month, others have been ill or just needed some Christmas cheer.


Faith enjoying treats at the Copelands after caroling

A fun group!



 







Mystery of the Peace Poster

In October, Faith, through her art class, prepared to enter a peace poster contest.  She worked really hard on coming up with a unique design as you can see below.  However, when it came time to turn in her poster, it had disappeared!  She was quite disappointed and concerned because that also meant her teacher had nothing to grade.  It didn't turn up, but because her art teacher had seen her work on it, he didn't allow it to affect her grade.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago when Faith and I were in the public library.  As we walked into the children's section, Faith exclaimed, "There's my peace poster!"  It was up on the wall with several other posters.  We don't know the story of how it got there, but we're just glad it showed up! 

Can you identify the various landmarks?

Sutherlin Christmas Festival 2012

December 15th was a busy Saturday!  It was the day of the Christmas Festival.  We first dropped off the van at Les Schwab to get new tires, and then walked to the community center which was all decorated with 21 trees.  Different businesses, organizations and churches sponsored  trees and decorated them.  Our Calapooia Free Methodist Church tree was quite impressive!  Betty, the church secretary, is the creative genius each year.  This year the tree was "Polar Express" and was flocked with a miniature train that circled the tree.  Faith and Vaughn helped her decorate it on Friday. 

People who attend the festival vote on the best tree and our church won again for the 4th year.  The trees are all given to needy families in the community.    The afternoon had games for the kids to try, face painting and lots of yummy food!  The highlight of course was having a picture taken with Santa and Mrs. Claus.  What made that even more special is that Dale and Margie from our church were this North Pole couple.

Faith and Griffin with  Mrs. Claus and Santa

The trees lined the walls of the community center

Griffin playing a game with Pastor Stewart (the Christmas Tree)

A few hours later, Griffin's cub scout troop sang Christmas songs for the residents at Applegate Assisted Living Community while they ate dinner.

After our own quick dinner at home, Griffin and I were off to the Light Parade.  The cub scouts had a lit up flatbed trailer pulled by a pickup.  We knew we needed to meet on Taylor Street, but when we got to Taylor, we didn't see anyone.  I drove around a little more, looking for a long line of decorated, lit up floats and ended up back at Taylor which is a very long street that eventually curves around by the freeway.  We found the line up, but the problem was they were already moving and the cub scouts were somewhere in the middle.  (This was what the police officer told me since he was last in line.) We moved at a snail's pace for a while (behind the police car) and then I told Griffin we were going to park the van and then run to try and catch up.  I thought that because the parade (which hadn't reached Central Ave. yet) was moving so slowly that we could do it!

As my Grandpa Wiley used to say, "Oh Mercy!"  It was cold, raining slightly and the floats kept moving even when we got too tired to run!  The high school FFA float was on the way to the cub scouts and a few of my students encouraged me to hop on their float.  Trying not to sound too out of breath I told them we had to find the cub scouts. I figure that we walked/ran about a mile and a half until we found the cub scouts. 

Griffin, on the float, relieved that we'd made it!

I think we said "Merry Christmas" hundreds of times to those watching the parade!

The parade was fun!  As we went by, Griffin and I waved to Vaughn and Faith who watched the parade from our apartment.  Cruising down Central, I started to get ideas of how our church could have a float next year.  I mentioned it to Pastor Stewart later in the community center, (which was the end of the parade route) and he gave me a rather exhausted look until I said it could be my project.  Stewart was in charge of A LOT of the Christmas Festival so it was a good thing that Vaughn preached both services on the 16th!

I tried to take a picture of all of us on the "float" and those up ahead.  It didn't really work to well.

Baking for the Pastors' Reception

Many years ago Pastor Stewart started a tradition of wishing the congregation a Merry Christmas by hosting a reception between the two services the first Sunday of December.  This year Vaughn and I joined in which meant doing a lot of baking! 

Counting  how many Heath Bar Cookies I've made

Klaus ended up getting sprinkled with flour and powdered sugar

Even his nose

Here's the spread.  Stewart made at least a dozen different types of cookies! 
Vaughn's "Vaughn bons" and my Russian Tea Cakes grace the table on the right.
It was a festive time.  I even got to bring home a few of my Snickerdoodles.

Thanksgiving in Sutherlin

This year for Thanksgiving we decided to stay in Sutherlin and help Pastor Stewart with the Thanksgiving dinner he was hosting at the church.  We had about 40 people who attended and A LOT of food!  It was a nice day, but I have to admit I missed hanging out with our family in Washington.  I missed all the hugs, but I did get several from the "grandmas" I have at Calapooia FMC.

Griffin hanging out in Vaughn's office before dinner

We have our seats - now waiting for the yummy food.

Food and Fellowship

and more fellowship...

Faith acting shy

Roseburg Veterans' Day Parade

The cub scouts have been busy!  Saturday all scouts delivered paper bags with instructions to most of the homes in Sutherlin encouraging residents to fill the bags with food for the annual food drive.  This next Saturday the bags get picked up and taken to the Sutherlin-Oakland Food Pantry.

Today was the Roseburg Veterans' Day Parade where evidently all of the Boy Scouts in Douglas County (our county) show up and strut down the streets of downtown Roseburg.  This parade was a tribute to all of the US veterans, so most everyone in the parade (churches, square dancers, unions, horses, bands, schools, etc...) displayed something honoring those who have served our country. 

Once the parade started, Griffin was a waving machine!  He waved and smiled at everyone along the parade route on both sides of the street.  Vaughn, Faith and I walked behind the scouts with the scout master and another parent.

Waiting, waiting, waiting

Lining up



Griffin waving to everyone who waved at him.

Trunk or Treat Calapooia Style

The first big family event since Vaughn was hired went well!  After discovering that no other churches in town did a "trunk or treat" type event, Vaughn decided this would be a great one to try.  The morning of the 31st it rained buckets, so a decision had to be made - risk it outside or move it inside.  Vaughn decided to move it inside, which ended up being a good decision since it rained off and on all evening.  Long tables lined the walls of the fellowship hall for those who were going to "trunk it" to decorate and set out their candy.  Round tables were in the center of the room for people to visit and eat the yummy desserts that were available along with coffee, (a must for Vaughn) and hot chocolate and cider.  "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" played continuously in the Sunday school classroom.  We had a great turnout of families from the community, and those from the church who participated had a great time too!

This year Faith chose to be Juliet

Griffin as Spiderman.  There were only two little holes for him to breathe through.  This drove him crazy so he made the holes bigger, thus snagging the mask.

He loved having those muscles!

Pastor Stewart and Matt (one of the worship team members) got into the fun of dressing up.

 Vaughn - "The Punisher"

One of Clyde's foster dogs (soon to be adopted) shaking with Griffin

I ended up being the  greeter as families came in.  The mini candy bars had a tag with church information stapled to them.

What's Halloween without "The Great Pumpkin"?

Got this idea from Patti Edwards many years ago.  She lined the church driveway one year with tealight lit paper bags for Good Friday.  Vaughn tweeked this idea a bit, and he had the kids draw pumpkin faces on the paper bags for Trunk or Treat.

After Trunk or Treat was over we had been invited for pie and to visit with the Leatherwoods.  One of their daughters has become good friends with Faith.  The girls trick or treated together in the neighborhood by the church where the Leatherwoods live and came by the church for more candy and treats.  Although we were really tired, it was nice to get to know Kent and Dana better and meet another couple.  Very nice families and we look forward to getting to know them better.

Carving Pumpkins Without a Table

Monday after school we decided we had put off carving the pumpkins long enough.  This was the first year that Faith didn't need any help and Griffin did most everything except use the knife.  In the past we have carved pumpkins on the dining room table, but since our table is in storage, they spread out on the floor.  This actually went quite well. 

Halloween and Trunk or Treat post coming tomorrow...

A Somewhat Soggy Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Today we went with Griffin's cub scout troop to Brosi's Sugar Tree Farm in Winston.   This is a small farm, but it had a pumpkin patch, a corn maze and a barn with lots of fruits and vegetables.  We rode out to the pumpkin patch on a hay bailed trailer pulled by a tractor with exhaust issues.  Both kids picked out "just the right" pumpkins to carve before Wednesday. The corn maze was pretty muddy but the three of us (Vaughn was working) managed to not slip and fall.  I liked that it was a small enough maze that Griffin couldn't get lost like last year at Carleton Farm.  Thankfully it only sprinkled while we were there, but the view was still beautiful!