2008 – The year in review

Two more hours and 2008 will be history, at least in the Mountain time zone.  I thought posting a “few” (103?) pictures from the past year in chronological order would be an interesting way to sum up 2008, with comments kept to a minimum. 

They’re small, but there’s a bunch of them, so if you click to continue you’ll have to be a bit patient.  Depending on your internet connection, of course.

 

 February

Setting the first beam of the Rog Mahal

 

Perfect South Dakota grilling weather

 

Christmas holidays?

I offer this post as an “alternative” to a post I wrote yesterday afternoon on the other blog.  If you happen to read that post you may wonder what, if anything, we do differently during this holiday season.  We are not big on “tradition,” which is probably not a surprise to anyone who knows us.  And one Christmas holiday season will probably have some differences from others before or after.

So, here’s what’s been happening over the past week or so…

Amy and the girls are on a two-week break from homeschooling and are making the most of their time off with putting Thomas Kinkade puzzles together, baking bread, reading, and non-school stuff in general.  Here’s a photo from a bread-baking day, showing how yeast reacts to static electricity.

Yeast and static electricity

 

Pictures from the past week

Last Friday we were part-way through building a wheelchair ramp during some of the coldest days we’ve had yet this winter.  When we arrived at the jobsite that morning there were “ice crystals” on just about everything, and I took some pictures before we disturbed them too much.

Ice crystals on door lever of tool trailer

 

Peace Like a River

Based on a recommendation by someone I respect and trust, I went to the Spearfish Library this morning and borrowed a copy of Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.  I am now hopelessly lost in its pages.  But this is a good kind of lost.  Trust me.

 

Extremely cold and toasty warm

As I write this post on an early Sunday morning the official temperature in Spearfish is -12 (12 degrees below zero), with wind chill in the -35 to -40 range.  This storm brought four or five inches of snow on top of freezing rain that arrived yesterday afternoon.

But we’re toasty warm inside this shelter that God has provided for us, as we listen to Together for the Gospel Live, a great collection of sixteen Gospel-saturated, Christ-exalting hymns and songs that were recorded live at the 2008 Together for the Gospel conference.  This CD is available for $12 from the Sovereign Grace Ministries Store, and it’s good.  It’s really good.  Our copy arrived in yesterday’s mail and it hasn’t left the CD player yet, figuratively speaking.

The scent of fresh waffles has made its way to my office from the kitchen.  Gotta go…

It was so quiet, you could hear a snowflake drop.

The forecast for today was ”flurries.”  So far we’re in the midst of a four-inch flurry.  After I finished shoveling this morning I stopped and listened.  The only sound I heard was that of snowflakes landing.  I must admit that days like this cause the hibernating skier/snowboarder within me to stir. 

Somewhere in the background is Spearfish Mountain. Trust me.