Sanibel Beach

Yes, our "Winter" weather is nice.  Come on down!

Here are few of my favorite pics from our day at Bowman's Beach on Sanibel Island on Dec. 27th.  Click on any pictures to see the whole album.

Rob

Happy 35th Birthday Rob!

Happy birthday to a wonderful husband and great father!  We love you!

 

Merry Christmas from Rob and Becky

We had a great Christmas.  Here are our pictures.  Click the slide show to visit the album.

Rob

Merry Christmas To All

 

Icicles

Is this why they call these lights icicles?

So far in December, we've had over 2 feet of snow. What will winter bring? We were supposed to get 2-4" tonight. We already had over 6" by noon and it's still snowing! But the boys love it and it will be perfect for Chase to try out his new skis tomorrow (we'll have our little family christmas tomorrow before we head down to NJ on Saturday). Notice the 6 foot wall of snow on the far side of the driveway! Soon we won't be able to throw it high enough to get it out of the driveway! Oh, and before you get jealous about getting snow days... our schools were open today!

Sound Clip

I heard this on The House radio station and wanted to share it with you. It is a little boy who called into a Christian radio station. His faith and wisdom is well beyond his years.

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=d5d4ee2c067a456e7c0f

Elf Yourself

Following Becky's lead, I elf'd our family! Check it out, then do your own family. How fun to have all our families Elf'd!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1148085200

Band Championships

Darlene had her Championship performance in Hershey on November 10. They had an amazing performance that totally stunned the staff. All their hard work really showed. They came in 3rd place and the Color Guard came in first. Darlene said that the performance was the most amazing feeling ever. As you can tell from the picture is was extremely cold. They performed at 5:00 and it was already 35º. By the time the awards were announced at 9:30 it below 32º. Here is video of their performance.

We are very fortunate to have a couple of fathers who are semi-professional photographers. I have captured the pictures they took of Darlene and uploaded them to Picaso. You can see them here.

Here are 2 links to all their pictures of the season.

http://www.pbase.com/sjphoto/oakcrestambassadors

http://www.oakcrestambassadors.org/HOME.HTM

Thanksgiving

Grandmom and Pop-Pop Thompson came down from NJ to join us for Thanksgiving.     The day started out with citrus from the neighbors trees.  First grapefruits.  Drew helped Grandmom  cut them and squeeze the juice.  We hade a great citrus breakfast along with sticky buns from Chester's (brought all the way from NJ.)

 

Pop-Pop took Drew for a ride in the tractor.

Grandmom and Tessa snuggling...

There's nothing like eating your Thanksgiving dinner on the lanai!  It was a beautiful day!

Friday we went to Bass Pro Shops... pics to come...

A Nebraska Harvest

 

With only 1/2 hour left in the firearm season Toby harvested this beautiful 8 point white-tail.  He crossed the creek  about 300 yards from us.  I grunted a few times and within about 5 minutes he came toward us.  Toby shot him at a little over 100 yards.  The buck dropped in his tracks.  This is Toby's 5th deer in three years.   Toby has now taken three deer from this exact spot and I have taken one.  Uncle Lee shot his buck about 50 yards south of this spot a few years ago.   Unfortunately it looks like the ground may be leased next year so we will be unable to hunt there anymore.  

 

Also notice what we were wearing.  It was 69 degrees on November 18.  Wow, there should be snow on the ground by now.   Let it Snow!

Fear not: We're still alive

I know that Becca and I have not posted anything in awhile. After an intense summer, we are reveling in the normal day-to-day of married life. Who knew that grocery shopping and cooking dinner take so long? Anyway, I've uploaded a few pictures from our fall so you can see a few things that we've been up to.



Photos are here

Rob and Becky's November Slice Available...

See it here.

Fun in the "Cold"

 

Quote of the day:

Mommy:  "Drew, what happened to your hair?"

Drew: "It got wrinkled"

It's been "cold" here since Saturday.  "Cold" means, for example, it was 57 degrees today at 8:30 am but will probably go up to 76 degrees by this afternoon.  It's finally that time of year where I can turn off the air conditioning and throw open the doors and windows for the next 5 months at least.  The kids love it.  Our lanai is screened in and they play out there all day.  Drew rides his tricycle like a crazy man!  Tessa just runs around following him.  Drew insisted on socks, hat and "sweat coat" this morning to play-- it was a little cold for his liking!  In a few hours, their outfits will be too hot and I'll have to change them into shorts and T-shirts.  I only have a few warm things for them to wear.  Guess it's time to buy a few more pants and long-sleeved shirts.  Of course, it's supposed to be a high of 85 degrees on Saturday!

On another note, Drew has been potty-training for a month now and is doing pretty well.  He's gone a few times in public bathrooms, but most of the time gets too nervous once we get in the public restroom.  He wears underwear all day unless we go out or to church, then he wears a pull-up.  He even does great in underwear at the babysitters! He does a pretty good job of keeping his pull-up dry when we go out. We haven't attempted bed-time in underwear yet.  Thought you might get a laugh out of this picture!

Becky

Spengler Trick or Treating 2007

Make a slide show, scrapbook or ecard

Wow, that's scary!

So, I found these pics on Dad's picasa album and I got very scared. It literally took my breath away. I think this is the wig that he wears to the Pioneer's (the weekly kids' night at Greentree). Check it out: a side of Dad I never thought I'd see:

Roofing Fun

  Last Saturday, Sam and I had a chance to help our district Superintendent shingle his house.   We worked from 9:30 until 6:00 with a short lunch break.  Sam worked so hard carrying shingles and supplies that he wore holes in his gloves.   It was a beautiful fall day in Nebraska

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Dad wasn't watching...

Becky worked 10 hours yesterday (Saturday).  The above was while I wasn't watching.  These pics below are just a few moments that I caught while I was watching...

Rob

Update on Mom Carty

The doctors seem to have her blood pressure under control now.She has been moved out of ICU but is now in a great deal of pain. They are trying to figure out the best non-narcotic pain medication for her. She was originally supposed to be released to the rehab center tomorrow morning. I am not sure when that will happen now.

Prayer Request

Tom's mother had knee replacement surgery yesterday. She seemed to be doing well until the evening when her blood pressure starting crashing. They can get it up and then crashes. She had a Depidural (spelling?) drip which is a morphine time released drip in the spinal canal. She evidently is allergic to the medication which is what is making her blood pressure crash. She has been moved to ICU so they can put her on an IV drip to flush the medication out of her system. Also, Tom is pretty sick and can not be around her. So pray that he will feel better soon so that he can be around her. He is feeling like he is letting her down by not being there.

Nebraska Corn Harvest

I shot this video this morning to show the kids what harvest in Nebraska looks like. The Corn was planted in May and has now matured and dried down. It is picked by the Combine and offloaded in motion onto the auger wagon. It is then loaded onto a truck and taken to the grain elevator in Loomis to be stored until sold. It will become Ethanol, Cereal, Corn syrup, animal food, nachos or many other things.

Tessa's Birthday Party...

We had a delayed 1st birthday party for Tessa.  Her birthday was actually August 22, but Becky was in Guatemala.  So, we had some friends over to celebrate a few days ago.  Here is a video of her eating her cake and some pictures from the evening...

(by the way, if you haven't seen the latest video of Drew singing, see our post from yesterday on our personal blog here.)

 

 

Capturing Memories...

Since Tessa's birth, Drew has sort of gotten the short end of the stick photographically (probably some other ways as well)...  So, here are a few pics of Drew that I caught recently...

Rob

Kingsway Competition

We had our first competition Saturday. They took first place in their group and first overall with a score of 81.75. They won first Color Guard and Drum Line in their group. At this point, they have the highest score out of all bands they will compete against this season. Darlene did a wonderful job. She dropped her flag on a couple of hard tosses. The girls got new flags that were much heavier than their practice flags only an hour before the competition for their first song. They had a hard time catching a toss at the end of the first song. They also learned a really difficult and high toss last Saturday so they didn't really have time to perfect it. We were proud that only 3 (including Darlene) dropped their flags. The show is almost 10 minutes long so we have uploaded an edited version.

Guatemala Pics

I posted a blog entry with a bunch of pics about part of my trip on our personal blog today.  Check it out!  www.robandbecky.blogspot.com

Here is a picture of our team.  I'll post more pics on our blog this weekend, so watch for it.  You can also check out all the pics at www.robandbecky.com/family/pictures.htm

 

Becky

Fellow Bloggers...

I am so excited.  I have been waiting for this day for a very long time...

Windows Live Writer now supports image upload to blogger!  No more ftping images to my own servers. 

Now, without a doubt, some of you are like, woohoo, and some of you are like woopdeedoo.  Either way, I thought I would let you know in case you were also holding your breath.

Rob

Back to the Grind...

Forgive me for not posting anything sooner.  I returned from Guatemala late Saturday night and I have been slow to get back into the swing of things.  The good part was that my Mom stayed until Tuesday and I didn't have to work on Monday, so I got to spend a little extra time with her.  And I only had to work one day this week. I am  out of sorts from being away on such an intense trip for 9 days.  So its starting to feel like I'm getting back to the grind of everyday life.  I guess next week, with a regular schedule, should help.

For those of you wondering, Guatemala was beautiful!  Here is a picture with 2 other team members, Julie and Carrie, overlooking the valley on the way to Chipel, the aldea our sister church was located in.   I plan to post a lengthier blog entry with a lot more details/highlights of the trip this weekend, so be on the lookout!  I can't wait to tell you all about it!

Tessa woke up this morning with the yuckiest croupy cough (funny how quickly it started, she was fine last night) and she's had a pretty bad diaper rash for a week now (her first!) so we are off to the doctor this afternoon.  So its definitely back to the daily grind of life. Believe it or not, I like the regular routine of things.  I just have to get myself back into that routine! 

Becky

Honeymoon Pics!

We finally have loaded (most) of our honeymoon pics to look at online. Here are the links:


http://picasaweb.google.com/rem1221/Honeymoon1Athens?authkey=C5CNJSUCvqQ

http://picasaweb.google.com/rem1221/Honeymoon2Santorini?authkey=xsbPulb3pQ0

http://picasaweb.google.com/rem1221/Honeymoon3Paros?authkey=7HWzD9dNEbA

Have fun!

Our Great God

Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That's got them scratching their heads about what's just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That's an expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness, a University of Minnesota team announced Thursday."
Very interesting. Click here for the full story.



"He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:15-17

This post was originally on Rob's Blog

Future Preacher!

I went to camp this week in Quakertown, PA. I had a ton of fun but the best was a preaching contest. In the beginning of the week my cabin went on a hike through the woods and we came across several huge boulders. They didn't look like they belonged there. I preached about how the only way these boulders could have been moved there was with water current and that the flood could have moved them there. I talked about how even a walk through the woods can prove creation. - Christopher

Honeymooners come home!

3:30 AM, 8/12/07, 31 Hrs. in transit. Left Athens to Paris, got there and a service car ran into the plane and the flight was cancelled. Now had to wait many hours for flight to NY. Then van ride for 3 Hrs. to Phila. Mom and Dad went to pick up and deliver home or they would have another 5 hour wait for train service. Still turned out to be a 12 hr. delay. They looked tired but happy. Becca got in their house and said at 4:45, "I'm wide awake." Brian goes back to work 8:00 on Monday morning. See what they say then. If you can go throught that and still smile, good start!

Brian and Becca

We are all still in the process of going through all the pictures everybody took at the wedding, but I wanted to upload at least one. This picture was taken at the reception. You can also go to the photographers site to see a few pictures they have uploaded. http://www.stringerphotography.net/