Weeks are flying by. I thought I'd try to keep updating every few days and it's been nearly 10 since my last update! :O So much has happened....during this busy month of December! :)

One evening when we were in Marianna, we stopped to visit a former inmate who worked for Dan in the chapel and was released around Easter. It is good to see men being able to rebuild their lives outside of prison. Pray for Tony!

~Tony & Dan~

December 5 was the Blountstown Christmas parade.
My friend Elizabeth was marching with their church float/band.

The "smoke" was steam from Dan pouring himself a cup of coffee right beside me! :) (It was a COLD night!!)


The famous Christmas bus, driven by local realtor, Danny Ryals.

After the parade, our church did some caroling in the Pioneer Settlement. We had a very small group this year! But it was still fun! :)

After caroling, we were invited to join some homeschool friends at the Pickrons. We had yummy snacks, great fellowship and then had fun putting a puzzle together!


December 7 was the annual GEMS Christmas Banquet. This year it was held at Seminole Winds in Tallahassee. Very good buffet and great people to visit with! :)
We sat at a table with Mike & Candice Nissley (below) and Gary and JC Montgomery. Gary and JC have recently become interested in working with Gospel Express, but do have their own ministry as well. Candice is one of the board members and is the planner, organizer, designer, and whatever else, of the Fundraiser Tea's and Banquets! She does a WONDERFUL job and loves it!

Gary & JC

~More of the board members and missionary chaplains~

Bill & Dot Slabaugh~auction committee members

Ken & Marcia Stoner~auction committee members

Lee & Jan Hoover~auction committee members


John & Edith Nissley~board members

Merrill & Marie Detweiler~board members


Monroe & Ruby Hochstedler~board members


Jonas & Emma Bontrager~board members


David and Jill Smith-volunteer chaplain


John Maxwell~volunteer chaplain and our neighbor :)

Dan & I <3
Thursday, Dec. 10, the children and I drove up to Thomasville, GA for the Victorian Christmas. Dan had Elder's meeting, so he couldn't go.
We enjoyed it as usual. The children always look forward to playing in the "man-made snow", but this year they were asking a $3 donation per child. We decided that was too much to pay to play in snow!! :P
Got the chance to eat some of TH's yummy chicken pita's again. MMMMM!!!

We also enjoyed the musicians playing up and down the street~





Met my sister Chris and her children there. The girls had their picture taken with a "Snow Princess".


The live mannequins are always a highlight for me!


Roasting marshmallows~

The children watching another live mannequin. People would go up to the glass and try to make them laugh! They have amazing self control!!

Live nativity~



Saturday night we were invited to Eric & Yolie's to celebrate Collin's 1st birthday! Wow, this year flew. He was born when we were in PA for my brother's wedding...that just seems like a few months ago, not a whole year!

The cute (and yummy!!) caterpillar cake Yolie made. :)

Opening gifts! What fun :)

We were given tickets to watch "The Nutcracker" on Sunday afternoon by our friends, the Pickron's. Most of them were involved in it in some way. Roy and the 3 oldest were in the play and Kay was a behind the scenes helper! :)

Roy with his step-mom. (In all his made-up glory....and with HAIR!! :) ...I bet it's all shaved off by now!)

We were not allowed to take flash photography during the production, so at the end I took a few of the entire cast.

The cute little mice....

Kayla Pickron (in the red and black) giving an award to the lady who was in charge of it all.

Today is Dan's Monday to work all day. Every other Monday night they have mentors come in to the chapel program and he has to be there. He went to bed with and woke up with a sinus headache...I hope it left him by now. I think it's this crazy weather we are having! It was so cold this past week and now it is back up in the 80's again and very humid...lots of rain!!

We are looking forward to heading up to SC for Christmas. :)

Well, I must go make supper for the kids and I and then I still have a few "chores" to check off my list tonight!! Blessings~

Just a little photo reminiscing! :) Danny was born at 8:20PM on December 3, 1998. He weighed a whopping 10 lb. and was 21 inches long. Dan says the thing he remembers is that right after he was born and they had him wrapped up laying on the "warming table", he was just laying there, all pleasant, just looking all around! :) Cool as a cucumber! :) :)
He really was a good baby!!
For some reason I don't have his newborn pic scanned in to my computer...

3 months old

2 years old~

3 years old~

4 years old~

5 years old~ (can ya tell? :))

Must have missed 6 too. I think that was his Kindergarten photo...might have to go search for it~

7 years old~

8 years old~

9 years old~


10 years old~

:)

Yesterday was Danny's 11th birthday. It sure wasn't a "normal" day for our family. This weekend is also the Gospel Express North FL Prison crusade. So yesterday we had orientation from 8 AM to lunch time. Then I had an hour to spend at home before heading out to meet the other female volunteers going to the only Women's facility involved. I was glad I had the opportunity to go home, because I had forgot my Bible and a jacket...and it was c.h.i.l.l.y.!!
A big thanks to Susan Drawbond for coming and staying with the kids all day....and for keeping them entertained, feeding them, and making supper for us! You were a big blessing!!

I got back home around 8 PM and then Danny finally got to open his presents!!

First of all he showed me what came in the mail from his Aunt Esther....a snakeskin wallet from Mexico! He loves it!! :)

We gave him a football, a remote helicopter....

and a tackle box with some fishing stuff in it. Now he can't wait to go fishing again.

We had a late bedtime snack/birthday cake eating time!! :) Already in pj's! :)

He got them all out in one blow! :)

We had a good time in the prison. When we got there, it took a little time to get in, as expected. Then it was time for count for the inmates and during that time, everyone must stay put. So we hung out in the chapel till it was cleared. Then we went down to the chow hall where the inmates where coming for supper. Normally we would hand out invitations for the evening service ass the inmates were arriving to eat, but this time, we went in to eat first and then handed them out as the inmates were leaving. When we got done there, brother Billy took us back to the gym where the evening service was to take place. A group from the FootHills Churchin NC sang and Billy Stoll preached. There were a few new commitments and some recommitments! Praise God!
Tonight will be much the same, and then tomorrow I will not be at the prison. Keep praying for all the volunteers, singing teams, team leader and the inmates who's lives will be touched! :) Thanks~

Happy 11th Birthday to my Favorite Son!! :)



Was it 11 years already since my 10 lb. happy baby entered the world?? :O

I may do a post later of some memories and old photos, but I don't have time for that this morning. The North FL Prison Crusade starts today and I will be going in to the Women's prison today and tomorrow. I need to be ready to leave the house in an hour and still need to get ready and make a list of "things to know" for the kid's sitter, Ms. Susan D. :)
Pray for us today, will ya? Thanks~

Wow, I had so many thoughts running through my mind this weekend that I wanted to blog, but we had company and were having lots of fun. I didn't take much time for the computer and then when I finally decided to update my blog, our phone and internet service were down (from Sat. till Monday afternoon!! :P)
So Wed. night Dan's brother Sam and his wife Katrina came down from SC for Thanksgiving. They got here late, but we still stayed up and talked for awhile! The cool thing about the long weekend is that Dan had off work the whole time and even got his school work for the week finished before they showed up Wed. night!! :)
Thursday we just bummed around the house, then had a big meal for lunch. After that was all cleaned up, we headed out to town to take some family pics. What fun we had!! And everyone was a good sport. It was cool and windy and so bright and sunny!
Here are a few samples of the pics that were taken....

Danny ~age 10 (but only for a few more hours!! :) )

Tamara Quinn ~Age 8

:) One of the "fun shots" :)

Dad and his princess~


We also took along the guys remote control cars and stopped to play awhile at the park. I only took video's there...no pics. (Wow, I figured out how to add a video!! :P)



Then we stopped at the train when it was almost dark and had a little fun there.
Katrina with the kids on top of the train...

Sam & Katrina


Friday morning we ALL got up at 4 AM and went Black Friday shopping at Walmart. What a unique experience! We got most of what we went for and were out of there by 6. The kids did great! I got a birthday gift for both of them and just hid them under my jacket. Once we got to the register, Sam and Katrina took them out to the van while we paid.
We came home, ate breakfast and then took naps! :) After lunch we headed down to Panama City Beach to take more pics...this time, mostly of Sam & Katrina, but we did a few family ones too.


It was so bright and most of my pictures turned out too bright...was not real thrilled! :P It was also very chilly and windy which makes it hard to keep hair in line!! :)

After the photo shoot on the beach, we went to Pier Park. Had fun window shopping and taking a few more pics!

Then we went to Olive Garden for supper!! :)

After supper, we walked to the center of Pier Park where they had caroling by the tree.

Christmas in the south.... :)

While I was shopping in Carter's, Danny had my camera! :)


Saturday we just had a lazy day....played some games of croquet, had a visit from Sharon Schrock (Dan's moms cousin), and took naps, trying to catch up from the lack of sleep the previous nights!! :)


Sam and Katrina had told us that they wanted to take the kids out and do something fun with them one night and give Dan & I some time to ourselves! :) :) :) We were thrilled! So late afternoon Dan and I headed out to Tallahassee. We did some shopping and enjoyed an Auntie Anne's pretzel in the Mall. Just had a great time lollygagging. No agenda, no hurry to get back! :) A great evening for us.....
.....but the other's think they had more fun than we did!! :) They all went black light mini-golfing and tried out the maze in Marianna and went out for supper. I know they had a good time because the kids couldn't' get done talking about it. :)

We said goodbye to our "guests" Sunday morning. What a great weekend we had!! Thanks Sam and Katrina for coming and making our Thanksgiving vacation so enjoyable!!