Well friends,
It's been almost 2 months and for that I apologize. I'm taking a quick break on this beautiful sunny morning here in Fraser to write an update and let you know we are still alive....We had a very short but wonderful time in North and South Carolina and we're so sorry we didn't get to see many of you, particularly friends in South Carolina where we were for only two full days. There are only so many hours in a day and we packed in what we could.
The kids did great with all the traveling and moving around. Everyone enjoyed the warmer weather, and the kids especially loved seeing all their cousins. Reid's grandmother celebrated her 90th birthday with a concert her family put on and a huge birthday bash so all the cousins and 2nd cousins etc. were in town. It was a week of partying! :) Our families blessed our socks off once again and we were re-energized to return to Colorado and jump back into life at Timberline.
January has been a busy month of ministry and school with sickness interspersed and all that lovely stuff, but we're feeling a lot more settled now that we've been here a year (can you believe it?!). We've switched to attending the Saturday evening service at our church. The kids can attend Awanas, (I had been praying for God to help me be more disciplined in implenting a good Bible-memory curriculum for the girls and Awanas has a great Bible-memory program), I'm able to help out with the worship portion and the setting is a little more intimate. We tend to be "small-group" kind of people anyway, so it's been a good fit for us. It's also opened up Sundays for us to help out with cross-country skiing at the local YMCA and get to know people in the community. The exercise is great as well.
We've jumped full swing back into family-group breakfasts, covenant groups etc. and the other Friday evening had an "open-house" where a bunch of the students came over for games and a movie (Reid made crepes with Nutella that apparently went over quite well! :)
We hope to start on downhill skiing as well soon. We haven't had too much fresh powder lately and when you're used to skiing in it - skiing on ice is hard! :) I know ... we are spoiled! :) But so thankful for the free opportunities for equipment and lift-passes provided by our local ski-rental place as well as by the resorts themselves. We couldn't do it otherwise - so we find ourselves very thankful.
I'm going to close with a huge prayer request - please join us again in prayer that our house in SC will rent or sell. We would be relieved of quite a few concerns if that were the case and are asking God for this provision in a major way right now.
Blessings,
Jen for the Dales
(PS - I haven't been able to download pictures from the Dale/Tomlinson/Isaac get together - these were sent from Brasher family members - hence it's only one side of the family - but will post others if I can get my hands on them! :)
