Winter Wonderland

So just a few more snow pictures. These were taken after being snowed in our house for two days, December 26 I believe. It was actually quite pretty, but I don't think I ever need to see that much snow again.
Somewhere here is our driveway. Jay Dee is back behind that large drift blowing snow. It took him almost 2 hours to open is just wide enough for the vehicle to get out, and sometimes the mirrors would still hit the drifts. He would use the snowblower for awhile and then stop and knock down more snow with a shovel and then hit it again with the blower.

Taking a break for a bit. This is me.

Jay Dee completely covered and looking a bit frozen.

We got Ben to run out long enough to stand by the tallest part. That is our neighbors house in the background.

A Snowed In Christmas

After spending Christmas Eve day with Jay Dee's family at the farm, we attempted to come home during some really bad blowing snow. Not sure if it was the best decision we ever made, but we figured it would be nice to be home Christmas morning. And we couldn't figure out how to explain to Ben that Santa forgot to come to Grandma's, if we would have stayed there for the night.

So we made it home and got everyone all snug in their beds, and attempted to fall asleep listening to the howling 40 mph winds. We woke up on Christmas morning to find that we were indeed snowed in! Somehow though, Santa and his reindeer did manage to find our house. I'm guessing Rudolph and his bright red nose helped out a bit. The kids were extremely excited to see what Santa brought. Especially Ben. And he got exactly what he wanted...a Kerplunk game and a Toy Story coloring book. Maddie got a new stroller to go with her new baby. Then we had a great time of opening gifts for and from each other. Ben would open so fast and then ask where the next one was. Madalyn really got into opening too. Actually once she took a present from under the tree and opened it and luckily it just happened to be for her.

This is Ben showing Daddy all the pictures he had drawn on the wrapping paper for him.

And now for why we stayed inside for the next 2 days! This is a view of our driveway. Yes, our driveway is somewhere amongst all that snow. When it was all over, the drifts were 6 feet high just in the driveway.

The front of our house. You can see the windows were pelted with snow.

And this is looking across the street at the clinic and hospital. At times it was blowing so hard, we couldn't even see the clinic.

MCC Meat Canner

So I'm a little behind in updating the blog, and I'll get to the reasons why in future posts. But for now, I'm going to try to update a bit each day.

Right after Thanksgiving, our church is the host for the MCC Meat Canner truck which travels through the country to can meat for world hunger. It is quite an amazing thing that everyone comes together to do. This year they canned 29,000 pounds of turkey in 4 days. This is the kitchen area, where the cans come after being cooked. They are washed, dried, date stamped, labeled, and boxed.
This is the canner truck set up right outside the kitchen door. There are four men that travel with the canner for a year. Jay Dee has always thought that this would be something he would enjoy doing.

Jay Dee, and 2 other men from our church are in charge of getting everything organized and making sure the canner runs as smoothly as possible while it is here. So this means, that for a week, we don't see Jay Dee. He was leaving every morning by 4:30a.m., so they could start canning at 5 am. They aren't usually done for the day until around 9pm. This year, some people volunteered to stay later, so these guys could come home to see their families and get to bed. So Jay Dee was home by 7 most evenings. The following picture is of Jay Dee washing one of the big pans they put turkey into after grinding it.

Another highlight is that people of all ages can helpt at the canner. Ben was and still is so excited about working at the canner. We've been hearing about it since last year already. So on the day he had preschool, his teacher took his class to go tour the canner, and then after preschool, he was able to stay for the afternoon and help. So for 6 hours, he helped slide cans around to people to label, and he put them on the conveyor belt to be date stamped. He was one tired boy when he got home. But like all 4 year olds..."Mom, I'm not tired!" This being said with tears in his eyes.

This picture is of just some of the boxes of canned turkey that will be sent around the world to relieve hunger. Quite amazing!

Also, during this week, Santa and Mrs. Claus arrived in Henderson at the school to visit the children, so we made a trip over to see them one evening. This is the first year that Ben didn't cry and was excited to see Santa. Madalyn however, didn't care for them too much. That would be why I had to be in the picture.