Blessings to you in this Christmas season
    Looking back over this year, for us as well as the world, weather news was prominent.   Spirit Lake in January had open water at the edge of the lake at a date when generally it would be solid enough to walk anywhere on the lake, and never froze over in the middle.
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In March, we began getting record rains, which continued through June, at a time when the rest of the country was drying out...  Living in a semiarid region, we appreciate all the rain we can get, but this was a bit much...

In April, we journeyed to the new homes for our son Forrest and his wife Susa.  Due to their jobs being in different states, we got to visit Forrest at Danville, Kentucky, where he teaches at Centre College (briefly immortalized as the setting of the vice presidential debates), and we got to enjoy the Kentucky woods in Spring...  We also enjoyed visiting Susa in Davenport where she teaches at St. Ambrose University coming and going (for lots more photos click here)


Here we are in Davenport, along the Mississippi River...

We also picked up son Birrion from Colorado at the end of April, who was ready to leave early with the lack of snow in the mountains.  He suffered a broken pelvis from devotion to his sport of extreme skiing around a year ago, but fortunately has now recovered fully.  He spent the summer helping to sell pots, and is back hard at it, hoping for a better snow year this winter...  In the above photo he is in Evanston IL in June for Forrest's graduation, with the Chicago skyline in the background...



Forrest and Susa visited before graduation when the weather was still too cool to enjoy swimming, but how can one stay out of the lake?



    We returned to the Chicago area in June to be there for son Forrest's Ph.D. graduation at Northwestern U.

And here is Forrest in his academic gown after graduation...


We didn't expect to see new bird species so near Chicago, but got some nice photos of this black crowned night heron in Barrington...

Our summers focus on selling pots, enjoying the lake, and gardening, and all those things went very well this year.   There was a major setback in the pottery when both kilns overfired sufficiently to destroy them in early summer.  Fortunately the new kilns were a big improvement, switching to digital firing controls which turn the kiln up smoothly and shut it off consistently so that I was able to fire two kilns per day nearly daily and ramped up my pottery production (resulting in record sales).


(Johnson Canyon, Banff)
In September, having stayed home all summer selling pots, we took a brief vacation to Banff National Park in Canada, 4 hours straight north of us.  It was very nice, although we got caught by a rain front moving in that we thought would have the decency to wait till we were done...

At the end of October, I spent a week visiting my mother in Minnesota, who celebrated her 90th birthday in fine form with hundreds of relatives and admirers...

Althea and I continue to be active in ministry at Lamb of God Lutheran Church at Priest Lake, where she preaches and makes quilts and helps people, and I play music on guitar or occasionally on the organ.