Final pictures of the reunion

Oops, the above picture is what happened AFTER the reunion! The day after we arrived home, our second batch of golden doodle puppies arrived! We were thankful they waited till we got home. We were delighted to have eight living puppies! Lots of work ahead!

Back to the reunion--Here is a picture of the food line. Craig insisted that the boys let the girls go first--thanks, Craig, for teaching a bit of chivalry! Craig and Joella headed up the cooking and organizing all the help to make meals. They did a wonderful job! Sunday noon's slow-cooked roast beef that Chris and Kezia donated was tops to me.

Saturday evening we celebrated Charity's and Gabriel's Danny's birthdays. Cake and icecream were eaten around the campfire.

Up we go, into the wild blue yonder!

I think this is my favorite photo! Just before we were getting ready to leave on Labor Day, Monday, I suggested getting a picture of us three sisters. Then we decided to have the husbands in on it, too. And then Kezia suggested that the husbands HOLD us! And, can you even more imgine, the husbands CONSENTED!!

What I like about this picture is how happy everyone looks--especially the husbands! Whether it is because they are thrilled to have us for wives or whether they are just tickled that they can still pick up those wives is a matter of debate, I suppose.

Tire Shop in Salina, Kansas

Story follows

We stayed so much later than we expected to Monday that we didn't get to visit the St. Louis Arch as we'd hoped, but that saved us money anyhow. Jonathan's dad on the phone helped us get a hotel room on Priceline, in Salina, Kansas, which ended up being a bit of a fiasco. The air conditioning didn't work, and Jonathan ended up opening the window and the inside door both, to get a cross breeze. But then he couldn't sleep because every little noise made him think someone might be coming in! Plus Timmy had been sick and his breathing sounded awful, and his heart was racing. Jonathan wondered if we'd end up taking him to the ER. Finally that awful night was over, and we started off early in the morning for home.

That wasn't the end of the adventure. Twenty-five miles down the road, we came upon a stranded vehicle with a tire off and two guys by it, one waving us down. We stopped, and ended up trying to make room for one big colored guy and his flat donut tire. We thought we'd just take him on to the next station, but Jonathan soon realized it would be many miles on our way to find help. So we turned around at the next median turn-around--right in front of THREE policemen! Thankfully, they didn't even stop, but we were pretty cautious driving behind them. Unfortunately, the donut spare tire turned out to have a hole in it as well, and the guy was pretty upset and frustrated. We spent a couple hours going from one shop to another trying to find another tire--the problem aggravated because the guy didn't know the make or model of the car he'd been riding in. It belonged to his friend, and his friend back at the car 25 miles away had a cell phone that was dead. We finally had prayer together with Paul, the guy we'd picked up, to ask the Lord to undertake for us and help us find a tire. To make a long story short, after stopping seven different places, we finally found a shop that appeared to belong to Christians. The guy there looked in his vehicle book, and made a couple calls, and figured out the make, model and size of tire needed, and outfitted the donut with a new tire. The above picture was taken in this cute tire office. It had this harvest display in the middle of the show room, and the whole room was decorated with antiques. Very unique, and very good service! If you ever have tire problems near Salina, check out Bengston's Tire Shop for good service.
We weren't sure why the Lord let this happen. We sure didn't expect to be held up two and a half hours when we first stopped to help. We could have been almost half way home. There didn't seem to be much reward for it, in earthly terms. It was a really miserable time some of the time, but at the same time, God's mercies were evident. We just committed this little situation to Him and prayed that something about it would count for eternity. If nothing else, it was a chance to show our children that sometimes you just help for nothing in return. You cannot always expect a reward or think that everything you do will shine with a great purpose. Sometimes your only payment will be more misery. But even when you don't understand why you got stuck in a situation that you feel helpless about, you can trust God to bring good out of it--even if it only shows up in eternity!