**'Tis The Season To Be Jolly * *
Hello Everyone!
Hope all is well with you and yours. We're doing just fine. Time has passed so quickly this year. Seems I was just writing our Christmas letter not that long ago.
Well, we are getting more "settled in" here all the time. Looking more like a "homestead". I planted a few more flower beds this year. Allen built a little beach/bunk house by the pond. He's working on a new barn out back now. The cement is being poured today. Looks nice.
We planted more trees (500+) this spring. We were fortunate all summer to get rain that we didn't have to water them but once. Still getting rain. Had a real wet fall also. So far the weather had been real mild. It's been up in the 60's this week.
Nick got 2 ducks in April for his 4-H project. We now have 13. Jenny's rabbit got out and ran away a month or so ago. Nick's gerbil passed away after 3 1/2 years about the time the rabbit ran off. We recently got another dog given to us. A Jack Russell, 4 months old. His name is George. Cute, but a small handful at times.
Mark got to go to Chicago for 3 days in October for a class trip at school. He really had a good time. He spent the summer going to work with Allen doing work for Sumark and making a nice little sum for himself. He's gonna work over Christmas vacation also.
For vacation this year we went out West. Made many stops of sight-seeing
( Little House on the Prairie, World's Largest Hand Dug Well, Dodge City, seen the Santa Fe Trial wagon tracks, and toured an adobe built- Bent's Old Fort which was neat). before arriving at Allen's folks in Colorado Springs for a few days.
Kept busy this summer again with the garden. Things did real good. Put up lots of goodies. Allen planted two crops of corn. Field and Sweet. Froze most of the sweet, and gave some away. The rest, along with the field corn, we picked by hand and are
shelling/grinding it for the ducks and chickens now. Had lots of strawberries too. Yum!
Over the summer we (as a family) did a puppet/sunday school ministry at a local campground the 1st Sunday of the month (June-Sept). I think it went well. The owners said the kids enjoyed it. Our best turn outs were over the holiday weekends in July and Sept. In Sept. we had close to 30 kids come. Our first time in June there was around 12 kids. We would do a skit and songs, a couple short lessons and craft and a small snack/candy. We might expand and go to another campground next year also. We'll see.
Jenny won 1st place in the 5th grade for the Christmas coloring contest. She will get her prize tomorrow at the community Christmas celebration they have here every year. They also give out door prizes the kids always hope to win something in. (One year I believe Mark won $10.00 in it). Jenny and Nick also entered the local newspaper's coloring contest, but we won't hear anything from that for probably another week or so.
Well, I better close. To get monthly updates, the boys take turns writing a newsletter each month. It is found at our home web page Mark made at www.bright.net/~howellru Check it out, he's done some changes for the holidays.
Our email address is howellru@bright.net * * Happy Holidays! * *