These are the days...

It’s been a while since I’ve written so decided I would just touch on the high points here…

Company- Landon’s friends came to visit one weekend. There were 5 of them and they joined our household for 2 days. They definitely filled the house up and brought some extra fun and laughter. Was fun getting to know them just a bit! Also toward the end of January, Darrell and Jean Amoth (the supervisors) came for their bi-annual visit. They were here for a couple of days as well. It was good to have them…someone to bounce thoughts and questions off of. We spent most of the time around here, Jake and Darrell drove around to the different jobs and work sights, Jean and I made food and hung out! One evening they took us out to eat which is always lovely of course!

A getaway- We had planned to go on a little trip over Christmas week to keep the holiday loneliness away, but due to several different circumstances it did not work out. So we had promised the guys we would do it in January. The guys’ destination of choice which also fit the budget was the Mount Shasta area, so Jake booked an Airbnb there for the last weekend of the month. The weekend had its shiny moments and not so shiny…but over all it was a good one. (I mostly share the shiny moments, because the un-shiny ones maybe aren’t necessary for everyone to read, but just know things aren’t perfect here all the time. Like its adventurous, but not actually completely relaxing taking 2 small boys and 4 big ones on a weekend trip to the mountains in a huge, rocking white van.) The drive up was gorgeous! Pines and mountains that have not been ravaged by forest fires like so many areas around here. And Mount Shasta itself is so beautiful. it’s over 14,000 feet, so the actual elevation at the top is similar to the Colorado Rockies that I’m used to visiting, but it is volcanic, and the area and mountains around it are so much lower elevation than Colorado, therefore Shasta looks absolutely huge and majestic in comparison to its surroundings.. Our Airbnb was perfect as far as setup and size and it had a cozy look to it, wood walls and open plan etc.. The guys were wishing we could take it back to Paradise for a unit house! We (or should say I) would definitely want to give it a good cleaning first. There were white feathers on the furniture, how odd. the guys wondered if someone had killed a chicken in there. And also one would want to add a much larger hot water heater and some heating. It had a woodstove but we never could coax the charming thing to put out much warmth so we kind of had to bundle up indoors as well as out. The guys spent Saturday snow boarding! I gathered from them that it had been a very satisfactory day:) Jake and I and the littles spent the morning at a coffee shop and taking M & G sledding. Then Jake joined the guys for the afternoon! We ended the day at Yak’s Shak which is a little gem of a place in Shasta City that serves amazing quality eats like burgers and bowls and such.

A youth rally- We were delighted to be included in the youth rally Glenn congregation put on the last weekend of January. Also invited were Anaheim unit, Bow Island AB, Grandview ID, Chino Valley AZ, Basin WY, Burns OR, Bonners Ferry ID, plus the other 2 valley youth groups (Princeton and West Valley) The guys opted to have their names thrown into the basket with all the rest of the youth to be boarded in the valley for nights. Jake and I and the littles made many 45 minute drives “up and down the hill” (as we say) that weekend. It was such an incredibly good and fun weekend and I feel that’s understating. The guys went to Sacramento Friday afternoon to pick up the Anaheim boys. Supper Friday eve was at Glenn school. I told Mom we would have good food all weekend and I was right! lol. Friday evening was delicious Asian bowls done a little differently than I was used to, more different types of fresh veggies on top an a different sauce. And of course fresh orange slices. The mood in the gym that evening was so energetic and enthused. We enjoyed it immensely. We got to see Seth from home, he came and gave Jake the customary back slapping and hug. It’s so good to see home people when you have been living across the country for 6 months. If you know you know! It’s fun making random connections at deals like that. Like the random Halstead girl that is married and moved to Basin and is now a youth leader wife. And the best friends of Jake’s house parents when he was in the unit. She was like, “Oh!! you’re Jake!!” she totally remembered them talking about him. And many more. can anyone make connections like Mennonites can?:)

And at this point I am trying to talk Jake into finishing up the part about the youth rally because I’m at a loss how to put the weekend into words. Not having much luck so I will attempt to keep on here…

Saturday was lovely. It rained most of the day. We heard a good talk in the morning and the singing was phenomenal as it is at youth rallies. The afternoon was spent at school. The youth played ball, and they also had their large lunchroom area arranged into a great socializing/hangout spot. the lights were dim and they had brought comfy chairs from home and arranged them into several little sitting areas, even a cozy little electric fireplace. They were serving homemade ice cream and 2 of the young couples did coffee drinks…games were being played. They had fires going outside in the sheltered area too. Made it easy to hang around and visit! Supper was back at church. Amazing street tacos and more fresh oranges. Another talk and assigned parts…hilarious charades by West Valley of the story of Ananias and Saphira, who both thumped down “dead” very hard onto the rostrum. Our guys had their quartet that evening and I was proud of them I must say, they did super! Sunday morning Dallas Nickel from Smokey Hills KS had the talk! Such a good one for all the youth to hear, it was a wedding sermon and he even pulled a youth leader couple out of the crowd to walk down the aisle while we all sang the 3rd verse of Tread Softly. Needless to say he had everyone’s full attention after that! We had another good lunch together and then it was time for the fun weekend to start breaking up. I very much enjoyed getting to know all the youth leaders there that weekend. Hopefully some of our paths cross again someday. The guys acted like the rally had been 5 star for them as well! Kind of sad to head back up to foggy, rainy Paradise that afternoon and have the fun, social weekend over with, but Dallas and Serena absolutely made our day by stopping by to visit us that afternoon and taking us out to eat At Tres Hombres in the evening!:)

Farewells and Hello- Logan’s term here ended last weekend. He’s our first boy to leave who we had for his whole term which is a bit bizarre. We are going to miss him and his love of doing all things active and social, his good food, his lattes (he is learning latte art so he was always happy to make me a latte for extra practice:) We had his farewell supper a couple nights before he left with a few guys from the valley. Logan made his traditional dish for us one more time. Black eyed peas with sausage and bacon eaten over cornbread. Yum!! We took him to Sacramento Saturday morning so he could catch his plane back to Mississippi. And so ended another chapter. We hung out at the airport for maybe an hour after saying goodbye to Logan and then Anthony King from Mifflinburg, PA walked into our lives. Or I should say he walked by. None of us knew him at all. We stood on the airport balcony waiting for him, watching people come by on their way down to baggage claim. With great curiosity we took note of every youngish guy that came by and looked like he could at all possibly be Anthony, but they all just trekked right on past(we were baffled cuz you can’t miss a unit standing in the airport can you? For sure not if the house mom is along) There was one guy that we thought may have been him, dressed about how guys are dressed when they show up at the unit, about the right age, height and weight that he had filled out on his survey, etc. But he had walked right by us without any glance of recognition and just headed to the escalator. The flow of people eventually ran out and we decided to head down because maybe that guy in the green hoodie and black jeans with the sleeping pillow around his neck actually had been him and he had just missed seeing us somehow. We stood in our motley group watching him from behind as he claimed his luggage. He then turned toward us and headed for the door without even a glance in our direction and went out and sat on the waiting bench in front of the airport. We were stumped. No one else showed up that could possibly be Anthony King, so finally Shelby headed out with George on his shoulders to see if he could figure out if this first young man might possibly be Anthony. We all watched through the big windows with great curiosity and YES Shelby said a few words to him and soon he and George were both shaking hands with the guy. So we all headed out to say hello and welcome!! And yes he had seen us but I guess he decided it would be fun to play tricks on us instead of us playing tricks on him. Lol. Despite his initial ignoring of us all he is a very friendly, fun, individual and is hitting it off just great with the big and little guys alike.

Last Sunday we said goodbye to Matt Johnston, our “non-resident unit boy” as he is known. He left Monday morning to start a new job in Mississippi. We were invited to a picnic at Bille Park here in Paradise with Princeton youth and young couples and also some Glenn folks for lunch for his farewell. It was a bit chilly but sunny and bright and it was fun singing in the huge gazebo. A few of the youth and young couples stayed after the picnic to play pickle ball at the courts here in town. The guys asked if they could invite them over for the evening. Sunday evenings can get a little lonely sometimes so we were game! Allyn and Joyce came also. Bryson and Rochelle and Michael and Jill were the other couples. I was happy to have some more females around! We got pizzas from the pizza parlor down the street and the guys stopped at the store for salad stuff and blizzards. I was thinking as I sat there that evening in our packed full living room how random it was. I knew none of these people a year ago. I’m very thankful for this life broadening experience and the lovely folks we have gotten to be friends with here. Which brings me around to what I stated at the beginning of the paragraph. The whole day was kind of a farewell for Matt. He came over to the unit house so much and is a very easy to know person, it really did feel about like when one of the unit guys leaves!

The food- for those who like to read about such things. I’ll see if I can remember what we had to eat this week. Monday breakfast was sausage and egg sandwiches on English muffins plus fruit and supper was roast with carrots potatoes and mushrooms baked in, plus salad. Tuesday morning I’m just blank what we had. Probably toast and eggs. Supper was the guys’ turn to cook, Ryan was in charge and he did disco in torts and also these super thin cut garlicky potatoes that he air fried and then he had a very tasty creamy sauce to dip them in. Wednesday they get their own breakfast, but come home for lunch. I made chicken BLT sandwiches. and supper was grilled BBQ chicken with baked rice and a cabbage spinach salad. Thursday breakfast was poppy seed muffins and eggs…For supper we had a couple extra guys here and I made pozole. A Mexican soup. Probably everyone knows what pozole is but I had never had it before I came out here. Kind of a disaster. I had purchased the wrong kind of pork so I had a hard time getting it tender. The guys ALL very kindly offered to help and so I took them up on it which was probably unwise because our little kitchen was so full that I could hardly move and somehow when I was blending the soup the little flap on top of the blender popped open and sprayed that very dark peppery soup all over the white painted backsplash and stove plus I didn’t get the peppers properly blended. Also pozole is the type of soup that kind of has to be just right to be good and somehow it just tasted off to me that evening. Oh well so it goes. We had blueberry peach cobbler for dessert at least ha. Friday morning was breakfast pizza with a sourdough starter crust and supper was half baked harvest’s hot honey chicken. I also tried a California thing and made green beans with little smokies cut up in them. Weirdly good. and also we had garlic mashed potatoes. Made brownies later in honor of Valentine’s Day! Guys cook Saturday morning breakfast. It was Shelby and Ryan’s turn and they made grit bowls. creamy grits, bacon, cheese, eggs, avocados salsa… Sooo good! Saturday night is our eat out evening and we went to a delicious sushi place in Chico.

Jake speaking: For work lately I have had some scheduling challenges in the form of 3 Habitat houses being pushed across the finish line at the same time. This means all our inside work was completed right before the rain started. We have managed somehow to stay mostly busy between inside odds and ends for Habitat, a small one off project, and maintenance around the unit house. We spent the last week before the Habitat home dedications frantically trying to build the fences and retaining walls for the three homes. Each yard has to be enclosed to keep pets or children in, and most of the Habitat houses are built in a hole, due to the digging out of the old “contaminated” foundations of previous burnt houses. I would understand that the cost to haul in dirt, and compact it to code in order to build on is above Habitat’s budget.(We hear around $60K, I can’t quite believe this, but it might be true.) This is a total disaster to be trying to put the yard to grade and allow water to drain away from the house after it is built. Think lots of backfilling, French drains, and other creative rock lined ditches to hide water. The upshot is, that almost every yard needs some sort of pressure treated wood, or stone retaining wall to stabilize the dirt banks. We sort of achieved, but finally got the most important things done and are working on finishing the rest of it after the fact. Tomorrow we are working on retaining walls and building the little garden sheds that are included on each property. The guys seem to really enjoy the sheds, as it is framing(which they love), outside work, and rewarding to see a shed materialize in only two days. Towards the end of this week we are very enthused to start a raised concrete foundation on a Habitat house right across the creek from the unit(weather permitting). Also two new Habitat houses are being started about a mile away as soon as the ground dries out enough for a concrete contractor to pour the slabs. We are all looking forward to spring and outside work.

In other news…the weather has been mild with rainy days thrown in, the daffodils are blooming in the front yard. Very cheery! I guess it’s spring by the looks of the blooming trees here in town and the garden center at Home Depot yesterday! We have been consuming large amounts of fresh citrus gifted to us by friends and neighbors, absolutely love this particular part of living in California in the winter!! I am becoming addicted to freshly squeezed orange juice. The latest hobby is little RC planes. House pop bought one too. George says longingly how he wishes he could have one. The guys just walked in the door from Walmart as I was writing this and Landon had bought Max and George each a little car. Had to throw that in because it warmed my heart:) The other hobby they’ve gotten back into is nerf gun fights. They shut off all the lights in the house and use anything from cushions to lifetime tables as their shields. The kids and I stay out of the way when this is going on!

Today we spent the day up here in Paradise. Chris and Amy G. and Travis and Caitlyn joined us for church and lunch so that was a full house and a great time!! Lovely to have them here!

Please keep praying for us here, we can feel it! life is oh so good but also lots of wisdom is needed… Love, Jake & Chels, M & G