Tuesday, December 3, 2013

A Wonderful Thanksgiving


All of the unmarried children in the family, John's roommate Jie, and  Paul and I traveled from our various locations to Champaign, IL, to spend Thanksgiving Day with David and Kelsea in their beautiful new home.  We arrived in the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning and were all able to stay until very early Sunday morning.  Here are some pictures that hopefully capture a bit of all the fun we had together!
A beautiful setting right inside their front door

This is the one giant sled they made.
We gave it to David and Kelsea as a
memento celebrating all the years of
making and selling sleds. The idea originated
from David's Royal Ranger's class which we
estimated was in 1998.  Wow! Our family has
really profited from it!  Plus a fun memory for all!
Daniel and Timothy had already built Christmas sleds getting ready to sell when they returned home. In fact tonight (Monday) was their first night out to sell, and it was quite successful!  The layer of new fallen snow probably helped to get people into the Christmas mood!







Kelsea and David had been working hard before we arrived to have everything all prepared for Thanksgiving Day.  
All the siblings that were present


Kelsea working hard

Master carver of the turkey and ham!

How do you like Dad's new pants
bought just in time for the occasion?




As you can see, the food looked beautiful.  And it even tasted better than it looked.  It was fantastic!
Our gracious host and hostess!

It was truly an added blessing to have John's new roommate,
Jie, with us for the weekend.  He is so easy-going and very
eager to be involved in everything we did.  He started at Epic
the same time that John did.  We thank God for such a roommate!

We enjoyed the wonderful meal, and after clean-up, we went for a very nice walk together out in the dark.  On returning, we enjoyed some excellent desserts that Kelsea had prepared. I wish I had taken a picture of the beautiful pecan pie she made!  We all listened to a recording done some years back of Guy Doud, Molder of Dreams.  It was very meaningful.  










On Saturday morning to go with our brunch, Esther made some delicious cinnamon rolls. 
Before breakfast


After Breakfast!  The picture speaks for itself!

Pool was much enjoyed over the weekend.
Here are 2 teams of 2 in hot competition!
Can you tell?

The pool shark himself...


...and his determined partner!

This guy is cool...He is not worried a bit!

Dad's partner...No wonder Dad had no worries!

David did instruction along the way too.
Look at this action shot!!

Later that evening another game in progress...



This time they were listening to Christmas carols. Joseph doesn't know that I got a shot of him impersonating Elvis singing I'll Have a Blue Christmas Without You, using the pool stick as his microphone.

The whole family present.


















We had a truly wonderful time!  It isn't often that you get to be together with family for several days in a row where no one has to go to work or anywhere else. We thank the Lord for this great blessing!
All the kids, plus Jie!

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Happy Birthday John Huntley!!

                              

   Happy Birthday Special Grandson, John!!!  5 years old today!
                       We love you soooooooooooooo much!!

                                           with love,

                           Grandpa and Grandma Molitor

My Special Trip to the Huntleys!

For one very special week in November, I had the great blessing of being with the Huntley family!  The first couple of days, while Adam was away at a missions conference, Ruth and I got a few things ready for their new baby girl due in December!
Here we are doing a Baby Registry at Babies R Us.  This
was the first registry either of us had ever done at a store.
 The next day while Ruth completed her registry at 
Target, I stayed home with the boys.  I was so tired that
day that I (sort of) let them play without interrupting them.
They spent a long time making "forts" on both couches with
all the cushions.  As you can see by their rosy cheeks,
they were really getting into it!

The day we picked Adam up at the airport, we were able to bring the boys to their awesome day care.  Then after the airport, we elders got a nice time out for coffee!
This woman at the day care was a woman I
prayed for through my sister Stella.  Her Father-in-law was
a wonderful man of God who was a pastor where Dean and Stella met.
He married Stella and Dean.  This woman and her husband always
called MN their home, and their son died after being electrocuted while
sailing here on one of their furloughs.  Otherwise they were a missionary
family abroad.  I recognized her name when Ruth mentioned it, so I looked her up this day.
She was very glad to meet me!


That night, we enjoyed great pizza
at "Sam's Pizza".  I think Sam thought
that was pretty cool!

After the boys were already in bed on Oct. 31st, there was a knock on
the door.  We opened it to find a group of the little children of the near
neighborhood trick-or-treating with their parents.  But they did it
differently. They brought the candy to us!  So of course  we got
John and Sam out of bed to see all of their friends!




One of the places Adam and Ruth love to take their family and friends is to Joe Pool Lake. (I hope I spelled that correctly!) It is always nice there, but particularly quiet at this time of year.  We cooked out for supper and took some nice pictures!

Flowers that Sam picked and brought to me.



I think that John and Sam have had so many pictures
taken of them that they are very practiced at NOT wanting
to pose.  I don't blame them at all! Why should we always
be ruining the fun with pictures!

The Happy Huntleys waiting for the birth of Little Girl pretty soon!
 One of the best parts of the week was the game I played with the boys almost every night.  It was a treasure hunt.  When they weren't watching me, I hid the clues.  Then I sat on the couch as they looked for each clue racing back to me to read the next one.  They were always so excited about it! The final clue led them to the Monster Bag with a treat for them!


Here they are in the middle of one of our treasure hunts!
This is the bag they were looking for in the end.
This is one of the nights after the hunt eating their treat.

Their favorite was the candy necklaces I put in for the treat on the first
and last night.  I laughed so much trying to get a ;icture of us as they
were devouring their treat before bed.


It was a great week, and of course, it went way too fast!

Friday, November 22, 2013

Visit with the Freunds

Sal and Otto left yesterday after a week of visiting us.  They walked in with a beautiful fall bouquet which we have enjoyed all week.  It still looks beautiful!









I

Immediately the same day, Otto got busy fixing things.  Here is a picture of Daniel as Otto's helper fixing the kitchen sink.  Many things were fixed during this week.  It is Otto's love...and we love it too!  What a blessing!


Aunt Sal watching Timothy working on the Christmas sleds that he and
Daniel are getting ready to sell after Thanksgiving. 100 are made so far!

Uncle Tom's birthday was last Saturday.  He treated us all out for dinner at The Log Cabin in Forest Lake, and then we went to their house to visit and have dessert.  Here is a picture of the 3 siblings.
Tom, Sal, and Paul



We got a picture of us 4 right before Sal and Otto left.  We were all so glad
They spent this time with us before their return to Germany in December!


Monday, September 30, 2013

John's Surprise

On his return from TX, John found his first surprise:  Vandals going around on the night of White Bear Lake Homecoming had smashed his windshield and broken his side mirror with two big granite rocks.  Thankfully, he got the window fixed today (no insurance), and will be looking into the mirror tomorrow.

Saturday night brought a better surprise!  Dad and the boys went to play frisbee golf.  While they were gone family members arrived for a surprise party for John for both his 25th birthday and his  soon going away to Madison to take up his new job with Epic.

Some pictures of all that were here:
John was totally surprised!  It was great that he had
decided to take an impromptu trip to TX the week
before the party, or I don't think we could've hidden it!



Afton was a fun delight as usual!



 It looks like 2 people to stay away from when pictures are being taken are Blane and Amy! 
(See the next few pictures!)


John's favorite guests! (the little ones!)
 

Don't let all the pictures make you think that Blane is weird.  He is actually a very wonderful guy to have around!
Jessica with her boyfriend Dan.

Chris and Angie happened to be in the cities, so they came
for a while !  Good thing too...Chris had to leave to  pick up
Jenny and her two boys who got stranded at the intersection
of Hwy 36 and 35E when her car broke down.




Thank God for the wonderful extended family we have!
And this is only a small, small part of it!!