FALL BEAUTY

We celebrated our anniversary in Tennessee this year.

Yes, another trip! Richard Elgersma, our son-in-law, was scheduled to graduate on September 24 with a Master’s Degree from Oxford Graduate School at the Dayton Tennessee campus.
(Dayton is also (in)famous for the Scopes - Monkey trial.)


Because our wedding anniversary is on September 23, we decided to go the Chattanooga, TN., a few days before the scheduled graduation.

To make our celebration memorable we decided to book a room on the old stern-wheel-river-steamer, “the Delta Queen.” She is permanently moored in the Tennessee river in downtown Chattanooga. Rooms are available as hotel rooms for guests to spend the night and include a scrumptious full breakfast buffet in the morning. The rooms are fairly small, like ship’s cabins and we had two single beds with a passage to the bathroom between us. It was different, so more memorable, right?


Situated between two bridges, one for foot traffic and one for any traffic, it was just a walk across the river to the downtown area. “Our” side of the river was a bit more eclectic, with small shops and eateries.

The lounge on board was just like in the movies and transported us back a few years. Although we could have had our dinner on the boat we decided to go “German.” There was a new restaurant, called the “Brew Haus” where we had an excellent German meal.




We also re-visited Point Park on Lookout Mountain, where we had been before in 1968. Not much had changed except the city is bigger now.














Rick and Monique had also given us two nights in a bed and breakfast in the Amana colonies, here in Iowa and we went there to celebrate our anniversary here as well. We spend the night in Homestead in “Die Heimat B &B.” This was near the place where we had our 40th anniversary dinner and celebration with the whole family.







The days we picked to go there were fabulous; sunny and the fall colors were showing.


We went on our motor bike to really enjoy this trip, taking secondary roads to avoid traffic and to be able to really enjoy the trip. We took a side trip to Kalona, a place known for its quilting and rustic country atmosphere.

Again a gloriously sunny day.
We had dinner that night at Phat Daddy in Marengo, another memorable place. Our “Indian Summer” was only marred by very high winds, which blew some of the beautiful fall colors away after we had come home again.


Although it is now getting a little bit cooler, we still have a lot of sunshine and reasonable temperatures to enjoy this beautiful Iowa fall. We take short rides in our surrounding areas to enjoy this beautiful fall.

Busy August AND September

It has been over one month since my last blog entry. I am truly sorry about that. August remained busy and so was September. We did many things and were involved with many activities.


Our motorcycle weekend during August 19-21, with our kids was a great success! We stayed in the same B&B as last year, and only used this one for two nights. Then, on the day we were there we really checked out the local area. Riding most of the day, with stops in rustic and eclectic places.

While we were riding I noticed some worse oscillation of the tires during our rides, but I had been assured that due to some “cupping” in the tires this was not all that uncommon. Yet because of these oscillations we decided to get new tires anyway, to ensure a better ride on future excursions. When I took the bike in to have the mechanic look at it I got a really big surprise: there was a large defect on my rear tire. Apparently the thread had separated from the tire lining and wore about a three inch (7 cm) hole in the tread. Miraculously we were still holding air. We had gone over 70 mph (115 km/h) on the previous weekend on the way home. We truly believe that the hand of God kept the tire intact until we could replace it. We had planned to ride to Minnesota during the following week, to see our children and grandchildren there. But it was way to windy to ride all that way, so we went by car. We only went for two overnights because they were planning to visit us over Labor Day weekend. We gave them some belated birth-day gifts. Arn made a NASCAR of his favorite driver and Will made a movable wooden lion.

The week leading up to their visit we were once again active with helping to package meals, for “Meals from the Heartland.” This is an annual event, which is patterned after “Feed the Children.” Started as a local church project, the community adopted it and for the past few years about 10.000 volunteers package over 4 million meals during Labor Day weekend. They are shipped to areas of need and all the materials are paid for prior to the event.


After that we were busy entertaining our grandchildren, while their parents took time to relax. I had finished my N-Gage railroad layout and the boys were happy to take time to run some trains. We had also scheduled some time for crafts with them. They made a bill-fold and a coin purse.
We had planned it so that they would make each others’ project. They had a lot of fun making each others special money carriers.


September started with beautiful cool weather, but we were not able to ride our motor bike because of a defect in the ignition switch. The part took a week to get here but all is well gain now. Fortunately it was covered under our warranty! The bike was ready or me to ride as an escort bringing the Dignity Wall into Des Moines. I’ll do my next blog on that event.

Busy August

So, now it is the middle of August. My bride and I both celebrated our 66th birthdays. We did so in places many miles apart! We had been invited to go to a hoe-down at Corrie’s brother’s house in Jenison, Michigan. This was scheduled to take place on August 13. We decided to go a few days early so we could celebrate Corrie’s birthday in Michigan on August 12.

For my birthday on August 5, we went to Hickory Park in Ames for dinner and visited White Oaks winery on the way home. The dinner consisted of a mixed platter of barbequed food, chicken, pork, and including some of the best ribs in the state. The desert menu was our place-mat, so we ate with dessert in mind.

After this great experience off to the winery.

They have a life band at the White Oak winery on Friday nights. When we got there they were playing “our” music; so we got to dance. Monique and I even did a twist... I used some muscles which I did not know I had. They were aching on Saturday, so I must have really had a good work-out. Not too bad for 66, but I had to work of some of the calories, didn’t I ? We had planned to ride our motorbikes, but because there was a solid rain coming down, we had to go on four wheels. We hope to make up for this on this coming weekend. We plan to do a similar trip as last year. (See my blog of August 13, 2010)

For Corrie’s birthday we were in Michigan visiting with family. She celebrated in a nice restaurant in Ionia surrounded by brothers and sisters (and in-laws as well...) We had to hold the hoe down inside, because there were storms in the weather forecast. Most every liked the air-conditioned gym better; no mosquitos to contend with either. On Saturday morning Corrie’s sister, who has been a life-long beautician, “lowlighted” her hair. It turned out really great. She looks younger than her age.

We visited some very nice lake side properties visiting with relatives. On Monday we went to Ludington to visit with my cousin and his wife. We had not seen each other for about 45 years. We took a nice boat ride and enjoyed a scrumptious dinner.

Because we were in Ludington we planned to cross the lake (Lake Michigan) to Wisconsin, rather than drive back to Chicago and fight the traffic there. It was a long day! The boat trip on the SS Badger was great. Sunshiny day with little wind. We stayed on deck the entire crossing, which lasted about 4 ½ hours. Getting there early and waiting for the car to get off-loaded added about another hour or so to this part of the trip. Then driving home, another 8 hours with a stop for pizza on the way. After we unpacked and relaxed we needed to prepare for our motor-bike weekend trip with our kids.

JULY is for slowing down

It seems that my life is less exciting, because I have not blogged since the middle of June. But that is not correct. As I stated in the previous blog, life has been hectic. We planned some home improvement projects and also scheduled some personal vacation time later this year.

Our activity with the DELTA kids was great fun, although we did not sleep much during the two overnights we spent with them. When the rain let up we went for motor cycle rides. July has been much better weather wise. So, we have been on a few longer rides through the country side of Iowa.




On the weekend of the 4th of July we went on a group ride with “Hope’s Angels.” The group is primarily comprised of a group of motor cycle enthusiast of HOPE Lutheran Church in West Des Moines. We also attend here. Although it is a very large church, it does not seem like a very large church. Just click here if you would like a neat description of what goes on there.

During the month of June we did so many things, that I was wondering how come we had not gotten paid yet; I honestly though that much more
time had passed than it actually had.

Time to slow down and smell the roses.

We are preparing to travel to Colorado to again spend another month as Pink House hosts at Glen Eyrie.

I did some elaborate blogs on Glen Eyrie in October - December 2009 and also in May of 2010. You can find some nice pictures and a description of our duties there.



Spring is here , I guess. We had snow every weekend we were gone from here. When we were visiting our children in Missouri we has sleet and frost and had to scrape the ice of the windshield. During the visitation of Corrie’s mom in Michigan, we were exposed to cold weather with hail and sleet. When we visited our children in Minnesota last weekend, again we had sleet and ice to deal with.

I wonder what will happen when we get to Colorado this coming weekend; last year we did have snow here as well. Fortunately, we have missed the devastating storm which have caused so much havoc in many parts of the Midwest and even further east.

Easter was here. We celebrated Resurrection Day with thousands of other worshipers and again focused on the words of the apostle Paul: “...if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile;...”

Even Bertrand Russell (atheist) said: “Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.”

Our life is meaningful !

SPRING?

I have been lax in keeping up with my blog. I could make excuses, but that does not alter the fact that it has been over one month since the last post. Some sickness, unexpected travel, an a funeral do take up a lot of time. While looking for spring we found more snow and after the funeral of my mother-in-law in Michigan Iowa welcomed us with summer-like weather.

Needless to say, we found a winery to ride to with our local children. As the dust of the last several weeks settles, we are preparing to go to Glen Eyrie again. We are looking forward to work there for the month of May.


Our trip to CEF in Missouri was cut short because of the passing of Mom Kasper. She reached the ripe old age of 94 years and three days. The farewell ceremony was officiated by the oldest grandson and was attended by a majority of the family which consists of 38 grandchildren and 86 great-grandchildren and 5 great-great-grandchildren. All eight of the still living children were there. These numbers do not include the spouses, just the blood-relatives. Life goes on. The youngest family member there was just 2 months old and another great-great-grandchild was expected “any day.”

She said; “So...?”

Yankton, 2001: view from our house

A lot of my pictures on the blog have water in it. I like water! We sailed Lewis and Clark lake, near Yankton SD, for twelve years. Whenever I was in the water, however; it was mainly by choice. I do remember an early sail, when I lost my sunglasses overboard and promptly dove in after them, leaving the boat under the command of two rookies... Fortunately there was very little wind and the boarding ladder was available for me to climb back on board. I must say, though, that I never did that again. (The plaque on the boat stated: “ I am the Captain of this boat and I have my Wife’s permission to say so.”) All kidding aside, she did make an excellent mate!

We also love visiting the ocean. In Hawaii on previous mission support trips we usually spent the weekends at a beach. Mostly every night we watched the sun set over the ocean whenever we were there. Vacations in Florida were very frequent as well, when we used available timeshare events. Again most of these times we got wet by choice, wearing appropriate attire.

On August 28 we were visiting with my bride’s relatives at the usual gathering place for this family reunion. There is a lake adjoining the back yard. The kids, grand-kids, and even great grand kids enjoyed the fun of playing in the water. As in previous years, there was some “horse-playing” by the adults; it is just great fun to dunk someone in the readily available lake. I thought that as an older person I would be safe, but when my daughter came to admire my watch and even asked me if she could hold it, I became “wiser.” I did say to her, “but I have my bill-fold in my back pocket.”

She said; “So...?” “I am also wearing my cell-phone,” I retorted. She said; “So...?” “But I am also carrying the camera on my belt.” She said; “So...?”

I did not take very long for me to dispense with these items, but I had one last hope: “But, I don’t have any dry clothes to change into.” She said; “So...?"

So! My brother-in-law, the one from Colorado, and his son carried me bodily to the lake and dunked me. They went down with me, I guess, it was to be sure that I would get really soaked. I’d like to think that I pulled them in with me, but they were wet already anyway. Next time I’ll bring a change of clothes, if I don’t forget in the meantime.

Iowa does not have many large bodies of water, at least not in our back yard. The rain tried hard this year, but we stayed dry. We do enjoy the weather when it is dry, so we can continue to enjoy riding our motor bike to local and distant sites.

We try to always find a winery and it is a lot of fun finding them and getting to know the vintners. There are many recent additions in Iowa, so we keep right on going.

MISSION NAVAJO 2009 (2)

Our week at Rehoboth New Mexico is done. Rehoboth is a settlement just east of Gallup. There is a large Christian School here, founded and supported by the CRC. This were we had our dorm and also our breakfasts and most evening meals.














In my previous blog I mentioned our trip to this place; this time I’ll share some of the week’s activities. After breakfast every morning, we met together in two groups to have morning devotions, this focused primarily on God’s interaction with our lives and thus became sharing of individual faith stories. In the evening we would discuss the days’ accomplishments and the tasks for the next day. One of our evening activities involved making Navajo jewelry for ourselves. We also visited the code-talkers museum and we had a Bible study on Wednesday night; the men at Rehoboth, the women at Churchrock.

Our daily tasks involved some general repair work around some of the homes and churches in the vicinity. If there was a need we tried to help, without any regard to church membership or attendance. Monday was a big day at Verna’s place. She has a dilapidated home in Churchrock. Corrie and I were part of the team working there. We tore out damaged and hanging dry-wall in the ceiling and a wall around a window. This had been wet and was really bad looking. The ceiling pieces were hanging down, the insulation was damaged and had been wet.
The wall piece had large holes and was very brittle. Last year the roof had been replaced but the occupants are totally indigent, and battle alcoholism as well. So they could not get the inside repaired without assistance. Supplies were available and we supplied the labor. We also worked there to finish hanging the last ceiling pieces on Tuesday and did some general clean up. This is very hard if there is no electricity or running water. During the afternoon we worked at the Fort Wingate parsonage. On Wednesday we hung a new door at Verna’s. (When does a 32 inch door not fit a 32 inch frame???) With limited tools and the capable assistance of Corrie and Jeni, we got it done. The women also fixed the entry way, so it had a firm footing. In the afternoon we again went to Fort Wingate to help finish the job at the parsonage.

On Thursday we visited Grandma Pablo. What a contrast her house was to the one we repaired on Monday! She needed some fixing of the roof and replacing some dirt around the base of the house to keep the winter cold at bay.
She prepared some fry-bread for us!
A delicious mid-morning snack.

She was also very pleased to pray with us, both in Navajo and English. For lunch we went to the church at Tohlakai. I had some one on one with Darryl who is really struggling with staying “dry.” He takes care of his 90+ year old grandmother, who speaks no English at all. On Thursday night we had a cookout - potluck barbeque, Navajo style, at Pastor Ted’s hogan. Everyone was invited to try their hand at making fry-bread. From a ball of dough to a tasty treat. After we all shared the bounty and tasted the rich variety of food, we celebrated communion. While we were there we met with a couple having the same last name as us. To our pleasant surprise, we found that we were related. Chris Huizinga’s great-grandfather was my uncle. I stayed with him and his wife when I first came to the United States in 1964. As a matter of fact, Chris’ father played his trumpet at our wedding. We had a really fun time sharing our memories. We might just have to come back to this place in the future, to help with needed maintenance, help on the reservation, and to enjoy the hospitality and beauty of the place.