Merry Christmas!!

The AMewesing Times

Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas, beloved friends and family!  What a year we have had!  Jonathan turned 13 and is officially a teenager.  He’s still our sweet, helpful boy, and we are hopeful he will stay that way through the teen years.  Caroline turned 11 and now has an email address.  Please write her – she loves to have email!  Victoria turned eight, so her milestone was getting her ears pierced.  She’s thrilled – one more way she can be like her big sister.  Peter turned 16 and got his driver’s permit.  Pray for us all, will you?!  Ha, ha – no, really.   Tim is, so far, still gainfully employed, for which we are tremendously thankful.  I am still at home, home-schooling the kids and keeping house.

While many things happened this year, the highlight has to be our cross-country trip.  We had talked for several years about visiting my grandparents in Oregon, and this year we decided to just do it.  We were on the road a total of 24 days!  We started by driving to Niagara Falls and riding the Maid of the Mist.  We then found our campsite…oh, did I mention that we had never camped before?  Caroline was especially apprehensive about sleeping outside, but it turned out to be quite fun!  The next day we drove to Indiana Dunes, on Lake Michigan.  Beautiful!  Chicago was our next stop.  We went to the Museum of Science and Industry, drove around, saw Wrigley Field, and ate deep-dish pizza.  DELICIOUS!  We had a short drive to our next campsite in Wisconsin.  The kids swam and that night we found out that, fortunately, our tent was indeed waterproof!  The following afternoon we were in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where we poked around the falls (not as big as Niagara, but quite pretty!).  We drove to Mt. Rushmore (so cool!!) the next day, and attempted to camp overnight at Devils Tower, Wyoming, but a storm blew up – a BIG one.  We ended up driving (during that awful storm) to a hotel that night.  The next day we set up camp for TWO nights in Yellowstone National Park.  It was COLD.  We woke up to 33 degrees.  Brrrrr.  The kids, however, were great.  They were more than willing to deal with the cold for the AMAZING things we saw – buffalo, bear, trumpeter swan, Old Faithful, “mud pot” geysers, cool geothermic formations, elk, deer, eagles.  God’s handiwork was loudly proclaimed in that place.  

The next stop was Oregon!  We stayed five nights, playing games, going to Mt. St. Helens, the Oregon coast, the Columbia River Gorge, Multnomah Falls, a HUGE bookstore, and thrift stores!  Tim flew home from there, while the kids and I continued to Mt. Shasta, California.  The boys set up the tent by themselves, the girls set up the inside, and I made dinner.  The kids were great – have I mentioned that yet?  Next day was full of fun – In-and-Out Burger, driving up and down Lombard Street (!!!), over the Golden Gate Bridge, and into Monterey.  I took them to the aquarium, which they LOVED, and the next day we poked around the neighborhood where we used to live, drove down to Pacific Grove to see where the monarchs congregate (although they weren’t there then), saw seals and otters,  and ate at Compango’s.  Best sandwiches ever!  Then down to Sequoia National Park.  I tried to go to Yosemite, but went to the wrong entrance, so we had to skip it to go straight to Sequoia. Oh, and something you should know is that starting in Yellowstone, we had to wear different clothes into the tent than we wore to eat, to keep bears away from the tents.  Yes, bears.  No food, toiletries, nothing that had an odor, was allowed in the tent, ever.  It’s harder than you might think!

Anyway, after Sequoia and seeing General Sherman, that HUGE tree (oh, and a black bear), we drove to Murietta to see Tim’s sister, Heidi.  The next day was….DISNEYLAND!  Oh my gosh, we had a great time!!  We were sad to leave the next day, but had to hit the road.  We drove through Las Vegas (while listening to Elvis singing, “Viva, Las Vegas”), then over the Hoover Dam, through the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, and into the Grand Canyon.  Another thing – we were now out of bear country.  Now we just had to worry about rattlesnakes and scorpions, but we could take food into the tent.  Good thing – because it started thundering as the boys were setting up the tent and I was cooking.  We just tossed everything in there and got in just as it started to rain!  Next day, we went to see the Meteor Crater and then to Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit with some dear friends.  The following day had a stop in Abilene, Texas to visit with MORE dear friends!  We stopped in Hot Springs, Arkansas the next day.  On to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and a cave tour and the next day – HOME!!  We were so glad to see Tim, the pets….and to have a lovely, hot, long, shower!!  It took us an hour to empty the car, and two days to do the laundry, but it was worth it!

We talked a lot about our trip and we all felt the enormity of God during those 24 days.  So many times we confine God to an hour on Sunday, or a few minutes of prayer before dinner.  God is so much bigger than that.  SO much bigger than we realize, yet He made Himself small to come to us as a baby.  He kept His glory confined in a human body to die on the cross for us, and then He released His glory when He rose again, so we too could have eternal life.  He died the death He did not deserve, so that we could live the eternal life we don’t deserve. 

Amazing grace. 

We pray that you know God’s love, mercy, grace, and peace this Christmas.  He loves you.  We love you.  Thank you for your friendship, your prayers, your love.  You are important to us and we are so glad you are in our lives.

Love,

The Mewes family

P.S. Let me know if you'd like email addresses for the kids - I don't just want to post them on the internet!!

Happy New Year!

 New Year's Eve was a little different this year.  Tim had go into work for 6:45 am the next day, so we went to the Westenhofer's.  Great fun!  (A little too much tequila, but great fun)  Of course, our annual tradition is the smashing of the gingerbread houses.  Enjoy!

Yes, I know there's no individual picture of Peter.  Be happy there's one of him at all!!  We have entered a stage where pictures are not encouraged.  <sigh>

This year, I made ten gingerbread houses for kids.  The girls invited the new neighbors over (they have four kids), and of course, the Westenhofer boys joined us.  Couldn't have gingerbread house building without them!  It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work.  We'll see how many I'll make this year!

 

"Sweet" Sixteen

My oldest turned sixteen.  Sixteen.  Do you realize how old that makes me?  Do you realize how soon he'll be out in the world and on his own?

Wow.

He had apple pie for breakfast, nachos and cheese fries for lunch, and potato leek soup for dinner.  All by request.  Yes, I'm aware the soup is a bit odd, but he LOVES it.

Love you, Peter!

Eight!

New earrings!

Victoria turned eight this year!!  Eight is big in our girls' lives, because that means they may get their ears pierced.  Her birthday was a bit haphazard, because we had JUST returned from our trip, but she still got her choice of meals, and we had cake with all the neighborhood kids.

Hard to believe my "baby" is so big!!

Love you, Victoria!!

Niagara...again?

After spending the night in Hot Springs, we packed up and drove to Mammoth Caves, Kentucky.  We had a nice big campsite and things started to look a little more like home as far as the countryside, animals, stores, etc.

In the morning, we packed up and went for our tour of Mammoth Caves.  The caves are, as the name suggests, mammoth, so we had chosen one tour (there are SEVERAL).

The kids enjoyed it (although the comment was made that Luray Caverns in Virginia was just as nice), and there was a fun little formation there called Frozen Niagara.  Jonathan commented that we started at Niagara Falls and we were finishing at Frozen Niagara.  Nice little symmetry.

We got in the car and drove on.....when we arrived in Huntington, West Virginia at about 3 pm, the kids and I had a little conference.  We were still about six hours away from home and I knew we were all tired of being in the car, but also tired of being on the road.  The consensus was to GO ON!!!

We arrived home around 10 pm - YAY!!!  Happy to see Daddy, the pets, hot showers, our own beds.  Aaahhhh.....

Friends!!

I have fewer pictures of the last bit of our trip because it was just me taking pictures and because I was too busy talking!!

Moon Crater

After leaving the Grand Canyon, we headed towards Albuquerque, to see some dear, dear friends of ours that we hadn't seen since Caroline was about 18 months old.  On the way, we stopped to see the Moon Crater, and drove through the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.  Very cool.

We spent the night at the Kubeckas, where they fed us with local New Mexican fare (it was hatch chile season!) and sent us on our way the next morning to go to Abilene, Texas.  We did stop for breakfast in Albuquerque and met "new" family - the daughter of my biological father.  Great fun!

We were to meet some old friends in Abilene - they used to live across the street from us when I was eleven!  I hadn't seen them since Peter was little (he's 15).  What a blessing to talk and spend time with them!!

The next day we had another breakfast meeting with some dear friends that were a tremendous support when we lived in Abilene.  More blessings!!

Then we headed for Arkansas, where the plan was to go to a diamond mine where you could dig for rocks - and anything you found, you could keep.  Unfortunately, we arrived too late to actually dig for anything, so we drove on to Hot Springs KOA.  We didn't see the town or anything, but the campsite was fine and we passed an uneventful night.

To be continued....

Viva las Vegas

We left Heidi's bright and early - it was not a pleasant goodbye.  We don't get to see them often, so there were tears.  But, on we went.

The kids loved seeing the palm trees in California.  As they said, "it's like being in a movie!"  I explained about Hollywood and how lots of shows and movies ARE filmed in Southern California.

On this cross-country trip, I had pick and choose what we'd see.  We simply could NOT see everything.  I tried to make it mostly natural attractions.  Obviously, Disneyland was an exception, as was Las Vegas.  The kids REALLY wanted to see Las Vegas, so I agreed to drive through on our way to the Grand Canyon.  Peter turned on "Viva las Vegas" (Elvis) as we drove through and saw the casinos and then we drove on.

I had also decided that we should at least see the Hoover Dam, so we drove to that as well.  There has been a terrible drought in California for quite some time.  We had seen evidences of it in some dead groves of trees along the roadsides, and as we approached the dam, we could see that Lake Mead was QUITE low.  It was a good time to talk about drought and the effect on our food supply.

We drove over the dam and headed towards the Grand Canyon.  It is MUCH more populated than I remember.  There's a school there!!  Anyway, we found our campsite and started setting up.  As the boys got the tent up, I read the little pamphlet you always get as you enter a national park.  I rejoiced to see that we no longer had to worry about bears!!  And then had to tell the kids that the new threats were snakes and scorpions.  As I looked up to tell them this, Victoria was getting ready to move some rocks that were piled on one another....needless to say, those rocks stayed RIGHT there and everyone gave them a fairly wide berth.

I started dinner (after checking the weather - which forecast NOTHING) and the kids continued setting up the campsite.  Then we heard thunder.  Oh dear.  The tent went up VERY fast and then they started tossing things into the tent.  I finished dinner, grabbed the dinner and ran into the tent just as rain started to fall.  Good thing we could take food in there now!!

The rain didn't last long and we passed a very pleasant evening.  After packing up the following morning, we went to look at the "big ditch", as Tim calls it.  Beautiful.  Just beautiful.

Onward....