New zoom lens

I have always wanted a digital camera with a zoom lens, so I tried something different. I focused my 10x50 binoculars and then set my cheap Kodak cx3400 up to the eyepiece and here are the results of the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon this week.

Commencement

Darrick W. is our Senior this year. He will be graduating May 14, 2009. Please remember him as he leaves the school not to forget the spiritual teaching he has had the last 4 years. We will miss this quiet young man.

Love is in the ...

PIZZA!

Looks yummmy and it was! Melodie was going to make some little sandwiches for our Valentine's school party, but because the store was a ways away she decided to make pizza. There was no question that it was a good idea - the students love pizza. Melodie shaped the pizzas into a heart. She made 3 pizzas and if she would have let them they would have eaten all of them.

Murphey's Law

If it's going to happen it will happen when you least want it to.
It happened too. A water leak. I'm just glad the Lord allowed it to be a slow one so we could hold off a couple days for better weather and more time. Melodie woke about 5:30 a.m. and went to the school to turn the heat on - we had no school on President's Day - and found water running out by our meter. All day the wind blew and was pretty cold and Wednesday we had an appointment. Last Dec. there had been a leak on the Utilities Co. side of the meter, so I hope it would be their mess to fix, but it turned out to be my job instead of theirs. With the help of our neighbor's backhoe were able to dig it out and have it repaired and the hole covered before our Thursday eve service. It did inconvenience the students a little but we were able to get buckets of water to flush the commodes. I'M VERY GLAD I DIDN'T HAVE TO DIG IT OUT BY HAND! I have done it before and that is a very big job! That pile of dirt is very water logged and was a magnet to the school kids.

Battle of the Bulls

This would have been interesting to see. Someone e-mailed these pictures and article to me.

RENO, Nev. (AP)
It's not all checking hunting and fishing licenses. Sometimes the issues are bigger. Like when a Nevada game warden was handed the chore of figuring out how to separate two bull elk that locked horns while sparring and couldn't untangle themselves.

The saga began Nov. 21 when a rancher in Reese River Valley spotted the two elk. By the following day, the animals were gone and the rancher assumed they had separated.

A week later, according to Nevada Division of Wildlife biologist Tom Donham, the rancher was out looking for some of his cows and saw the elk again. This time, he called the wildlife department and Donham, game warden Brian Eller and Bureau of Land Management wildlife biologist Bryson Code headed out to see what they could do. When they reached Indian Valley , south of Austin , it was Nov. 29, one week after the elk were first seen.

“When we arrived where the rancher had last seen them, we found them pretty quickly. They were both lying on the ground and one of them was in a very uncomfortable-looking position with his head directly above the others head and his nose pointing straight up to the sky,” Donham said. Eller said he wondered if they had survived their ordeal.

“Once we found out they were alive, I was hoping they couldn't move and would stay where they were. That didn't happen. When they ran off, I was hoping they could not go very far. That didn't happen either,” he said.

The elk may have been sparring at the outset, but Donham and Eller say they used teamwork to run for nearly a mile to evade the newcomers. 'It looked like they had been doing it all their lives; serious cooperation if I've ever seen it,' Donham said.

After two unsuccessful attempts, Donham was able to get a tranquilizer dart into one of the elk. With one down, the other could not run, but was also partially tranquilized in order to separate the two. Eller and Code helped hold the elk down while Donham used a hand saw to remove part of an antler from one of them.“

As soon as they were apart, the bull that hadn't gotten a full dose jumped to his feet and Bryson, Brian and I quickly gave him all the room he wanted. He went off about 30 yards and lay down for about 10 minutes before finally walking up the hill and over the ridge, none the worse for wear,” Donham said. The other elk was treated with antibiotics and eventually walked off as well, after the tranquilizer had worn off.

“If these two bulls had not been discovered, and we had never gotten the call, they more than likely would have both died. Watching the bulls walk away, and knowing that we likely saved them from a slow death was definitely one of those moments that makes this job rewarding.”

Christmas Break! When?

It seems like our Christmas break flew by swiftly. School let out on Friday the 19th. We had snow that weekend and it grew pretty cold, the Lord let it be a nice day and evening on the 23rd. We got all the students except 2 to go Christmas Caroling. Not too many have done this in our area, so we are trying to start a little tradition. Christmas day we went to jail. gulp! Yes, you read correctly. Only we go because we want to share the Good News! My Dad has gone to jail on Thanksgiving and Christmas day ever since he started having jail services and we have tried to continue. More cold weather. Sunday night after service we left our house and headed to South Dakota to see my two sisters. It is an 18 hr trip and we drove straight through. We had a family reunion planned for New Years Eve. We all made it but William (Jonathan's son) had a seizure on the way out and then ended up in the hospital in Sioux Falls, and Darla stayed with him. Jan 1st and 2nd I was able to go deer hunting. South Dakota has a special season in January because of the large deer population. We had 7 deer tags and we filled 5 before 2:oo then another that afternoon and the 7th on the Jan. 2. I was able to bring four deer home. My 2 tags and my brother-in-law gave me 2 of his. We woke up Saturday morning to gray skies and blowing snow and we neede to be home for Sunday services. The Lord helped us and we drove only about 70 miles and the winds quieted some and the sun came out. We had good roads most of the way home. Sunday morning was cloudy in Grants where my sister Dorcas lives and it tried to snow. By the time we got clear home we had 4-6 inches of snow and by Monday morning there was a good 9 inches of snow on the ground.
Wednesday afternoon the students enjoyed a time of sledding down a hill close to our house.

Happy Birthday to You!

We started the year out with TWO Birthdays in the school.

On the 1st Amanda turned 3.

On the second Marlin turned 11.

Marlin is suited up for fire duty
It hardly seems possible that it is now 2009 while yesterday - uuhh! Excuse me, 11 years ago the Yates family increased by one.

2 vanilla wafers and a york mint patty "hamburger"

By the Way there is to be another b-day on the 23rd of this month and she will be 21.

Christmas Humor

I was walking through Wal-mart the other day and passed these items for sale I thought were cute and humorous. These were on 0-3 month old baby onesies.

Joke of the Week

We were shucking corn to freeze and Marlin says, "This corn is sunburnt!" Melodie and I look at each other and I say, "What makes you say that?" He said, "It's peeling!" We had a good laugh!

Day Camp 2008

This was a busy week. We took Pauline Nunes to the airport to fly to Greensboro, NC. Melodie made arrangements to pick up some of Marlin's friends that live in Albuquerque. They spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning with him. Wednesday and Thursday Marlin had some other friends come over and they had quite a time. Wednesday, Melodie made homemade pizza. Everyone's favorite. We ended up having 12 children at some time during the day and a former student for lunch. We kept them busy...

in a water fight,

stacking them,

and with other games such as "Uno Attack"

Thursday we went to the Navajo Nation Zoo. The only monkeys were imported.

This one wanted to know WHOOOO they were? They tried to escape... well I don't think they would have gotten far in this.

Family Get Together

My brother and his family flew to NM in July. William wanted to visit Auntie. In planning we asked where they would like to go. They decided Durango, Colorado. So we packed up and... There were 10 of us in the van with our luggage.

Our first stop was at Four Corners.

Next to Durango where we met Miriam, April & Isaac. We ate supper together at the Bar D and enjoyed the evening there.

Riding a small train. Eating supper together. The next day we went to the ski resort and went up... then we came down...We camped in cabins and sat around a fire...

Crossed the Animas on a swinging bridge

Before it was all over we took in a sunset.

VBS 2008

In the second week of July, 7th through 11th, we held our VBS and one at Free Trinity Navajo Mission. The missionaries there are Rev. & Sis. Dennis Gardner. We had theirs at 10:00 in the morning and ours at 2:00 in the afternoon. That kept us hopping, then in the evening we prepared for the next day.
Our Giant - had a new name each day

Our theme was, "Campsites of Victory." Overcoming giants in our lives. We studied the life of Joshua and the conquest of Canaan.

Trekking through the Wilderness
Our Campsite

Monday and Tuesday was the conquering of Jericho and remembering how the the giant "Fear" caused the Israelites to wander in the Wilderness 40 yrs. and the report of the 2 spies Rahab hid and helped to escape.

Achan's hidden goods revealed

Wednesday was about Achan's sin and the defeat at Ai because of the giant "Rebellion."

Achan and his family stoned (with the help of the kids)

Thursday reminded us about the giant "Self Sufficiency" when Joshua relied on his own "wisdom" and made the alliance with the Gibeonites.

Friday we saw Caleb at 80 yrs old telling Joshua, "Give me those mountains!" Those mountains full of giants and walled cities. Then the death of Joshua and his challenge that is with us today - Choose you this day...

This "Giant" got wrapped around the back seat of the van. Becky Plummer, the secretary of Northwest Indian Bible School, Alberton Montana, helped us out this year. We could not have done it on our own. A Special thanks to Becky, NIBS, and Sanders Family!

Automatically a Preacher

A preacher one Saturday night had a dream. He dreamed of tailpipes & mufflers. When he awoke he was totally exhausted. He went to church that morning and preached on the manifold Blessing. By the time the message ended it had backfired on him. One car salesman had one catalytic converter and he quit smoking immediately.

Look who came to visit!

Yes, that is Pauline Nunes. She flew in Friday, July 11 from Jamaica. She sure has livened things up around our house this week. She will be with us until Aug. 5, she will be flying to Greensboro, NC to see a sister and then back to Jamaica to start school again. Please pray for her as she returns to her students. Her students are special needs children. Many come to school without having had breakfast and no money for lunch. Learning is hard for them to begin with, then add the empty stomach.

What's Up?

Definitive explanation of the word UP that you may think confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk‑sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4" of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP. One could go on.and on, but I'll wrap it UP because my time is UP, so ... it is time to shut UP!

Where? Oh, where have you been?

Time sure flies. Many are wondering, "Are you Lost?" Well, we have been enough places to be lost and done enough to lose track of time. In May:

Kindergarten Graduation. May 1

Revival with Beechers. May 4-11

End of the year School trip. May 12-14

End of School and Awards night. May 15

Trip East to Pa.

Oklahoma

Oh yes! We have two extra passengers. "Where do you go?" they asked. "Come and see," we said.

Indiana

at the Beecher's

Kentucky

Creation Museum

Waynesburg, PA

at my Brother's.

In June

Hershey Chocolate World

Amish Country
Bethel, PA

Family Reunion at Pioneer Coal Mine

Ashland, PA

Trip home.

Top of the World! Well, 630 ft above the flooding Mississippi.

Yes way up there!

Arrived in Grants on June 14, home on June15 in time for service. The last 3 wks we have been preparing for next week. Vacation Bible School July 7-11. Can you believe it, we have even been talking about school starting... Whew!! WAIT A MINUTE!