El Noche Mexicano

We had mexican night with small group on friday. seems like we ate our way through this weekend between thanksgiving, mexican night and cookie days! we watched a movie, ate lots of nachos and other cheesy foods and they even got a pinata! it was great fun! i think i'm almost nearly recovered too :) Danae was so cute! here's a picture of me and danae and there's lots more pics from mexican night on my yahoo photos...


and i've also uploaded two videos so take a look!!
Danae ...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4667252219858307977

Tim sword fights the tree while the pinata watches ...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4177270395786647500&hl=en

Cookie Days

We had our first couple cookie days this week and made, well i don't have the count but i'm sure several thousand cookies. and we ate several dozen before they were even cooked!! :)







On saturday lydia and lana and trent came over too! they were a huge help! here's trent rolling...







there are many more pics on my yahoo photos page, but here's a fun one of lana and i playing with toobers and zots...

Ahoy China

Tim is back from his all expense paid 2 week trip to china!! woohoo! everyone was so great and kept me extremely busy while he was gone! not that i didn't miss him, but all the invites for dinner and the girls night and all the rest of the busy-ness definitely helped! thanks guys!! Here's a picture of us on our girls night - yes, we were tired!

after tim got back esther was his shadow. she followed him literally from room to room and sat on the couch next to him with a paw on his leg and just gazed adoringly at him for hours! now i don't have a picture of that but i do have a picture of her having fun sitting in a box while we were stuffing mailers for house of his creation that weekend

Secret Pals

Forgive me, i'm a little late posting this. i just don't think i'll be able to express on a blog all the things i'd say. so i'll just say a few things... My great Aunt Kitty and I had a unique relationship, i'm not sure many people have the priveledge to be so close to a great aunt. Growing up we would go to her house frequently for extended family gatherings. and we'd play with the little metal stove set halfway up the stairs (do you remember that katie?) she always loved to have us play our instruments and sing at christmas no matter how terrible we actually sounded! Through college and in the past several years I've enjoyed sending her mail as her secret pal. She enjoyed getting the mail and since our family gatherings became fewer over the years it helped me to keep close to her. aunt kitty passed away last month after many health issues. Well, i'm not good with words so i won't try to explain my thoughts any more but i've attached a couple pictures... a the top was one of aunt kitty and i at my bridal shower! her obit from the paper (click on it to enlarge it and read it) and a great picture of aunt kitty and mommom! we miss you aunt kitty. and mommom, you were a great sister to her!

Concerts!

Tim and I worked the David Crowder Band/ Third Day concert last week. We didn't get to see much of david crowder but i did get to say hi to him!! And Julie (from small group) and I worked the Michael W Smith concert yesterday!! It was great and really relaxing! I added a bunch of pics to a new folder in yahoo pics called november 2006. Here's one of Julie and I and another one of Tim and I on halloween. I know halloween has nothing to do with concerts but i had so much fun being a cat i wanted to post the pic!

New camera and October Birthdays!

New camera!! woohoo! and this one's not water logged! it's an exilim s770, realllllly nice! tim got it for me for christmas! here's a cute picture from the new camera of our babykins esther kitty...


There's lots more pics in the october folder of my yahoo pics of random stuff with the new camera and also of the october manthey birthdays.




We went to Matt and Lydias for october birthdays, fun times, your new room is the best! i will select a few pictures from the night to add to this post... one of trent cause he's so cute! and he was cheesing it up for the camera the whole night, he'd actually hold a pose until he saw a flash!





and one of us playing catan because I WON!! To which tim made some crazy comment about me winning at a strategy game - uh huh - well he's just bitter because he usually wins and this time he lost to a girl!

Camping and other such things...

We went camping this weekend! i think this was the first time we didn't get rained out camping! we used our new tent too!!

The tent also has a "pet den", not that we have a pet, but it's useful for things like luggage and funny pictures... and we had a good time with fires and marshmallows and reading, and tim went fishing.

but it was freezing!! We had two of those "mummy" bags, the kind that are very small and go up around your head. but the one tim was in was not so warm! so the second night we squeezed into the one that was warm and we barely fit, we stayed warm but woke up quite sore and I think this was God's way of making me stop complaining and really appreciate our full size bed!

There are more pictures of camping in the october album of our online photos...
http://jenbutjen.shutterfly.com/

And now for something completely different... We went to Tim's cousins (nathans) wedding last friday at the fonthill museum. really neat spot! also very cold! congratulations to carly and nathan!! Also more pics of that in the october album.

Thanks for your prayers

Thanks everyone for your support and prayers the last couple weeks. If you didn't already know... our friends had 2 girls in the nickel mines school shooting. The weekend following that my grandmother (dad's mom) passed away on saturday. It's been a crazy two weeks but God really does bless us with great memories and family in times like this! Keep praying for the Stoltfus family and let me know if you'd like to support them financially! Here also is the information for Mommom...

Evelyn P. Keller, 96, a six year resident of Garden Spot Village in New Holland, passed away Saturday morning, October 7, 2006. She was formerly a 46 year resident of Trevose, PA.Born in Bellefonte, PA, she was the daughter of Thomas W. Cole and Ada E. (Kepple) Clendening and the wife of William S. Keller with whom she shared 70 years of marriage.

A homemaker for most of her life, Evelyn enjoyed various crafts, caning chairs with Morrisville Senior Citizens, was an accomplished cake decorator having made wedding cakes for numerous friends and relatives, taught Sunday School, and was a Cub Scout Den Mother. She also enjoyed camping and traveling with her family, including a 5-week trip across the United States in 1964.

Evelyn is survived by her husband, William S. Keller of Garden Spot; a son: J. Allen Keller, and wife Karen; two grandchildren, Katie Keller, and Jenny, married to Timothy Manthey, all of Coatesville. She is also survived by five sisters, Virginia Lewis, Candice Barton, Carrie Cole, Marceline Cochrell, all of Laguna Hills, CA, and Eileen Null, of Miami, FL. Preceding her in death is a brother, William Cole.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, October 14 at 11 AM at the Garden Spot Village Chapel, 433 S. Kinzer Ave.; New Holland, with Chaplain Lucille Stoltzfus officiating. Friends will be received from 10-11 AM, prior to the service, with light refreshments served.Memorial contributions may be made to Garden Spot Village Benevolence Fund, 433 S. Kinzer Ave., New Holland, PA 17557.

To offer your condolences to the family, visit: www.legacy.com/philly

Hair Pics

Goodbye Hair

I finally got my hair cut today for locks of love!! I have about 12 inches to donate! Due to the unfortunate drowning of our camera I couldn't get pictures, but my mom did get pictures so as soon as I get them from her I'll post them!! If you want to donate your hair too or just find out more you can go to www.locksoflove.org

Peaceful Canoeing - The day we didn't die

Well peaceful is what it was supposed to be! I thought it would be fun to go canoeing down the brandywine with Tim this weekend so we packed up my parents canoe and set out for an organized trip from a canoe company in the area. They gave us a little speach about how the water was high and to watch out for any downed trees along the way because of the recent storms. So about 5 minutes into the trip, after i'd just said "I think this is going to be my new favorite thing to do!", we saw a large cable in the water. We didn't know what it was, whether or not it was live and how to avoid it! so we did the most helpful thing and panicked. we hit the cable broadside as we leaned away in a last effort not to be electrocuted. well that was a great move because we immediately flipped the canoe and the current pushed us into the cable. after realizing that we didn't die, we scrambled to grab the canoe and all our belongings as they floated away in the fairly rapid current. we managed to grab most of it and steady the canoe on a downed tree. we lost our map, a seat cushion and an oar! the banks were quite high and very muddy and so we weren't sure how to empty the water out of the canoe. tim threw our belongings up into the field and nearly got swept away, i think he was grabbing our cooler at the time. tim managed to hike the canoe and me up onto the bank as well. we were completely soaked, our lunch was soggy, our ziploc bag with extra clothes had broken at the seam (but congrats to ziploc for making the zipper part so strong, it stayed shut). so with one oar, no lunch and wet clothes on a fairly cold day we decided it would be best to call it quits. tim used our fortunately still dry cell phone (it was in two ziploc bags!) and called for the outfitter to come pick us up. we were pretty far from the road though so tim had to drag the canoe through a bog and over a field to get there (i wasn't much help, i thought the muddy bog was gross). our camera did die though, from the less than clean water we subjected it to. when we returned the staff explained to us that the cable had actually been there for a while, previously underground but now exposed due to erosion. needless to say they'll be adding an explanation about the not deadly cable to their informational speech. so that is the story that will long be remembered as the day we didn't die!! (at least we've got bruises to prove it!)

Blogging

apparently blogging is the thing to do these days. so i thought we'd give it a try. hopefully i can keep up with this more so than i did with our website!