Adventures: Christmas Newport + Providence RI

These two months were Ginger's last on campus ministering to college students. She's grateful for some extra social time with them during the holidays. At Thanksgiving dinner: Vanessa, Charity, Ginger, Lindsey.

Lindsey is the "Large Group" leader- though many weeks only include praise and a speaker, some weeks are focused on prayer or unique ways of connecting with God. Below, Matt and Sarah expressing understanding and worship of God through art.

We got to connect with students at the other universities. (There are five chapters in RI.) Sarah, Sarah Beth and Caitlin at the RI Worship Night at Bryant University.

Ginger met with student Aaron all year to talk about his struggles and stresses. We explored his Jewish background by studying the old Testament and seeking God in prayer. At the end of the semester, Aaron began attending the weekly meetings with other students and hopes to continue making friends.

The chapter grew at the end of the year. Student leader Kelley opened her home to a crowd- over 30 students came to our Christmas party!

See the whole semester: Fall InterVarsity facebook photos

Last party with the wonderful RI + SE Mass Staff Team: more staff photos

South-East Massachusetts now has two staff and an area supervisor. They're planting new chapters!

At home in Newpost, we sent a Christmas letter with a "family photo" and spent Christmas day with our friends the McMasters. They require pajama wearing for dinner. Stephen makes room for baby Liam and pet Max.

 

Nicki sang and Seth did a monologue skit for CrossPoint Church's Christmas Eve service. Nicki and Gabriel enjoy eating sprinkles while making Christmas cookies.

 

The Christmas season was a special time for several of our dear friends who got engaged!

Tim & Jess (RI & Mass)

Kristian & Amos (Wyoming)

Steve & Amy (Connecticut)

Adventures: Honey Visits

Stephen's mom Diana (aka Honey) came to visit for two weeks. We tried to have lots of spooky Halloween fun- starting with the Lizzie Borden House. It's in Fall River, MA, about 30 minutes from Newport.

Unlike most house tours, Lizze Borden is a Bed and Breakfast. You can stay in the rooms where Lizzie Borden alledgedly murdered both her parents with an axe in 1892. The tour guides walked us through the events of that day, the investigation, and the suspects. Lizzie was aquited, but it seems very likely she was guilty.

aaaah there's a body! 

The same day we drove up to Salem, MA to the Salem Witch Museum. The first half was an interesting presentation of the story of the Salem Witch trials of 1692. Everyone sat in a dark room while the different displays were illuminated as the recorded narrator shared the story. Their research suggested that the young girls who seemed possesed were acting for the attention (they had boring restricted lives) and the adults went overboard. 

At home, right after Ginger finished baking shaped Halloween cookies, we lost power thanks to Hurrican Sandy. (These were decorated by candlelight- not bad, right?) The power was out 32 hours this time, and there was a lot of wind. Otherwise, nothing terrifying. Honey was glad she was with us instead of watching scary news reports at home and thinking it was worse. Honey does excellent shadow puppets- bunnies, dogs, and a camel.

 

After the town had some time to clean up, we visited the mansion Rough Point. We could see marks in the yard where the waves came up over the cliff walk. The tour guide said the water reached the edge of the house.

The Ocean! Honey enjoyed talking photos of the high waves.

 

We went to the Belcourt Castle Ghost Tour on Halloween night. The owner gave the tour herself and shared her many experiences of living there 50 years. She's been on several ghost hunter TV shows. We didn't see anything frightening, but the stories were entertaining. 

Honey at the old Mill, and Stephen's list of everything we did:

  

 Honey brought her Christmas projects along to work on the airplane and when we were at work: crochet for grandkids! Spunky pink mix for Sophia, baby pink for Finley, "Hulk green" for Lukas and masculine blues for Bailey.

While Honey was visiting us, Rene went to Angleton, TX for his dad's 80th birthday. It was good that San Benito Jr. got to see all his seven children that day, because he passed away several days later. His obituary.

San Benito and his wife Marjorie in the 1950s. She passed away in 1998.

San Benito with his seven children- San Benito III (Beno), Earl (Stoney), Rene, Theresa, Jacqueline, Marilyn, Elizabeth (Liz). 

Adventures: Billings + Lewistown + Denton MT

Billings MT

For Thanksgiving, we visited Billings to see family and friends. One big event from the summer was Gramma Pearl's 90th birthday on September 6. Left to right- Paula, Michael, Mandy, Aunt Gloria, Uncle Larry, Gramma Pearl, Uncle John, Uncle Jim, Aunt Mary, Nancy and Ron.

Nancy made the fondant cake herself. It's a quilt cake to mimic the many quilts Gramma Pearl has made.

 

On July 7, our cousin Kelsey married Peter. They live in Seattle, but came to Billings to marry in the same church on the same day as Kelsey's parents. (photo by wedding pro)

Mandy has a new job as Program Assistant at Montana State University Billings working with Disability Services. When she's not working in her lovely office, she rocks out...

 

Nancy and Ginger wanted to solve an architecture mystery. The building where Mandy works has massive windows on the third and forth floors. We imagined they must have a beautiful view from the interior of the building. But last time Nancy explored, she was unable to find the windows inside. After a while of searching, we could only guess they didn't exist. Another survey of the exterior of the building led to a sad conclusion: the windows were fake. (We were disappointed.) As you can see in this photos, only the window panes with thick outlines are real windows.

 

Nancy was an art student at MSUB from 1975 to 1980. (It was called Eastern Montana College then.) At the same time her father, Grampa Adrian, had just retired from a principal job at Beartooth Elementary. (He had been principal at four other schools also.) Adrian decided to take some college courses as well. They often met for lunch at the cafe in this building. (It's been remodeled since then.)

We met Ginger's high school friend Talia! Talia has finished her position teaching English in Japan, and is living with her family for a while before starting her next adventure.

On Thursday, we had Thanksgiving dinner with Gramma Pearl. 

Mandy and Nick on a post dinner walk, ready to eat pumpkin pie (throughly covered with whip cream.)

 

Aunt Mary and family visited that evening. She is going through chemo treatments, but looks gorgeous in her new wig. Nick took a panorama photo on his iphone. He caught Nancy in movement. Left to right, Sharon, Sabrina, Stephanie, Ginger, Stephen, Mary, Nancy, Ron, Mandy, Kelsey.

On Friday, we met Kristian and her boyfriend Amos in Red Lodge to look for a tree. Amos is a photographer for CAN, and he took excellent photos. See more on facebook.

 

We found a lovely tree and tied it on top of Mandy's Jeep. (We also learned, while playing Scrabble, "jeep" is also a verb that means to travel from place to place in a small vehicle.)

Lewistown, MT

On Saturday, we drove to Lewistown, where Ron is pastoring a church for one year. It's a beautiful two-hour drive from Billings, with wheat fields and almost no traffic. (So different than Rhode Island.)

They are living at the parsonage while keeping their main home in Billings.

We went to church serves. Nancy sang in the choir, and intoduced us to many people. Right, Stephen in downtown Lewistown.

After driving out in country dirt road for 30 minutes, we walked in light snow along empty train tracks to a broken trestle. The supports were knocked out during flooding two years ago. The farmers is the area had previously sent their grain on the train, but now have to use semi trucks, which are rough on the dirt roads.

 

Denton MT

Sunday, we drove to Denton, where Ron pastored a church from 1982-1990. We lived in the parsonage next door. This is the first time Ginger's been back since she was four. Denton has about 300 people. 

We visited Margeret (center) and Betty (in lavender). 

Ron showed us old high school annuals (1963), and Nancy took us on the walking trails around town that used to have railroads. 

 

Monday was Ginger's birthday. It was fun to be in the town where she was born 27 years ago. Ron and Nancy recounted the story of driving in -26° weather to the hospital. Thankfully 2012 was in the 30s with sunshine. It was a lovely visit with just a little snow.