Happy New Year!!!!

We have been having a great time as a family. My brother John has been here and he leaves tomorrow. What a great visit it has been for all. Today we got together and celebrated Kayla's birthday (Jan 3rd) and Laura's birthday (Jan 4th) before Uncle Johnny leaves on Sunday and before Leah leaves back to Bend this afternoon. Here are some pictures which includes updated pictures of Luke. He just gets cuter and cuter each day.

Uncle Johnny and Aaron

A BEAUTIFUL BABY BOY

LUKE PAUL VETSCH was born tonight, December 27th, at 8:01 pm. He weighed in at 9 lbs 7oz and 21 inches tall. He looks just like Nathan when he was born and almost the same weight. Both Michelle and Luke are doing well. Michelle looks awesome for just going through a birth and Luke is most handsome. I am a very proud Grandpa. Here is a picture of Luke about an hour after birth.

Glory to God in the Highest

"Gloria in excel sis Deo" Merry Christmas to everyone. It's good to say that, amongst all the political correctness going on around us. We are having a great time together as a family this Christmas. My brother "Uncle Johnny" flew in from Houston last Friday night through Seattle without any weather hiccups. It is good to have him here. He usually comes for Christmas. Leah drove over from Bend, OR on Saturday and has been organizing stocking stuffers for me this year. She will be here for two weeks. She is already working at Ski Shack to keep busy. On Sunday, the kids and I celebrated what would have been Susan and my 29th Wedding Anniversary. We had grilled steaks and fresh salmon steaks which were so so good. My kids are the best and each one of them portrays a different characteristic of Susan which I treasure and hold on to. We all miss Susan so much especially on these anniversaries and holidays. For the anniversary, Hannah gave me a multiple picture framing of Cannon Beach pictures from this past summer. Here is a sampling of those pictures. It was only my girls with me this time at Cannon Beach. My girls are so beautiful.







Have a Merry Christmas!! Enjoy family and celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ together. Keep it safe for those experiencing snow and ice.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Having a great time in Bend Oregon at Leah's new house. We have had nice weather with temps into the mid 50's. But it has been changing with rain/snow today. We travel back to Coeur d'Alene on Saturday. So pray for safe travels. We are moving Jason back home from his stay with Leah over the last three months. He will be going to North Idaho College this coming semester. It will be good to have him home. So now I will have six kids at home to keep me in line and to help out at home. Here are some pictures of the surrounding area of Bend and of the family.

Count it all Joy!

Hey everyone, Fall is and has been upon us. We have always loved the Fall and the transformation from the growing season to the dormant season. It has definitely been a while since I talked with you and I don't even have a good excuse! I will catch everyone up with what has been going on in the past month. I know several people have called to check in with us and ask how everyone is doing. We are all doing fine. God has been taking good care of us and putting dear people in our lives to make sure we are on the right path. I was just going through my bible and found several pieces of paper that had some questions on them. It was a questionnaire that Susan and I answered in our church small group that was to help everyone else know who we are. Several questions stood out. First question: What do you collect? Susan's answer was "CHILDREN". That speaks for itself. She was so funny. My answer was "Everything that my wife doesn't get rid of". She was always throwing things away (or taking them to Goodwill), so I therefore started collecting the things that I figured I might need one day. Sound familiar, guys? So the second question: What one or two words describe yourself? Susan's answer was "JOY, Strong". Susan was a Joyful person and very strong (physically, spiritually, emotionally). This excerpt from "You gotta keep Dancin" (Susan's favorite book): "Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional. We cannot avoid pain, but we can avoid joy. God has given us such immense freedom that he will allow us to be as miserable as we want to be. Joy is a choice." Not to be confused with happiness which is circumstantial. Where happiness is a feeling, joy is an attitude. Jesus said, "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full." John 15:11 The joy of Jesus was doing that which the Father sent Him to do, self-surrender and self-sacrifice. Having the right relationship with God means that same joy remains in us and it can be full if we choose. It is so evident that Susan chose JOY even in the battle.
Here we are at Carver Farms to get pumpkins and cornstalks. Glad we went when we did. The weather got bitter cold several days after this (down to mid teens) and the pumpkin crop was damaged, pumpkins got rotten on the vine. The above picture is Mary, Kayla, Laura, Hannah, Jake and Sarah. And me, I'm the photographer.
Carver's has a hay wagon to take you out to the fields to collect the pumpkins. This is the picture going out. We collected about 70 lbs of pumpkins. And a car top full of cornstalks to decorate the front of the house.
My sister Jane and the kids' cousin Abby came over from Montana via Amtrak to visit in mid October. Here is Abby and Laura making birthday cake. The reason that 'Gramma' Jane and Abby came over, was for Abby's birthday. So we celebrated with a cake that the girls made. Abby and Laura had such fun together.
We also went to Silverwood Theme Park where we all were able to ride some roller coasters and log rides, etc. Here is Abby and Laura in front of "After Shock" the new roller coaster. Nathan and I were the only ones that went on this incredibly exhilarating ride.
And here are the four girls, Kayla, Laura, Abby and Mary on the Log Ride. The weather was still pretty nice then, so the water was not too cold. We had such a great time.
And we collected apples again this year to go to our Apple Press up in Bonner's Ferry, Idaho. We collected enough apples to get 59 gallons of apple cider. Here is the start of the process. Dump the apples into the conveyor belt that takes them into the building to be washed, chopped and pressed. What a process. Fun to watch.
And here is the bottling phase. This is where the kids get involved. The vat of apple juice is above this pouring station. Then into the bottles. And the end product was pretty tasty. And there were so many apples this year in the neighborhood that we easily could have made 150 gallons. But freezer space is limited.
Here is a picture of some horses on this ranch where the Apple Press is. What a beautiful place to behold. Even this picture does not capture the beauty of the snow covered mountains with the Tamarack trees turning yellow against the evergreens.
More later...... with prayer requests and praises.

Time to Celebrate!!

Hi all,
Made it back from Portland on Sunday evening after running the Portland Marathon. Nathan, Leah and I ran the 26.2 miles in nice cool Portland weather. It was a great marathon, full of cheering crowds, bands and food afterwards. Nathan did fantastic with a 3hr 40min time, 3hr 55min for me and 3hr 56min for Leah. We had a great weekend together, just hanging out together and checking out Portland. Here is a picture of us three afterwards in the hotel.
We also celebrated Jakes birthday and Hannah passing the Idaho State Nursing board. Had a great time together. Jake gives us a fall birthday to celebrate which we haven't had before. And we are so proud of Hannah passing her board. Her work has been exciting for her. Lots of kids coming in these days getting the flu and wanting help.

From Beaches to Barns to Books

"He who believes in Me....out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" John 7:38
Hello ALL,
It has been a month since Cannon Beach and I haven't been faithful in my blogging. Sorry about that. It seems like it went so quickly. So I am going to put a lot on here to catch up. But first, the river. In the picture of a river, the river only knows its source. It never knows where it will end up. A river comes up against obstacles and may be blocked, re-routed, slowed down for a while, BUT it continues to flow, where??, it doesn't know. We too are like that river. And too, if we know God, we know our source. And if we focus on our source, God will take us through our obstacles, around them or even remove them. We as a family try and focus on our one true source. We then reach our potential of being a flowing living river of water for Him.
In the last blog entry, we were at Cannon Beach and we had worked on the Memorial benches to Susan. Four teak wood benches. They turned out beautiful. We bought some plaques to fasten onto the benches in tribute to Susan. They too captured the beauty of Susan in description of who she is. "Loyal Friend", "Beautiful Wife", Faithful Servant" and "Loving Mother". Here are pictures of the benches and the kids. If you are ever over in the Cannon Beach area, stop by and see the benches on the porch of the Pacific View Lodge at the Cannon Beach Conference Center.

The week after we got back from Cannon Beach, we then shifted gears and went right into the County Fair and 4H. Mary and Laura did the Sheep livestock project. Mary, Laura and Kayla did the pet rabbit project as well. Mary and Laura did an exceptional job in raising quality animals and well trained sheep too. Mary finished with Reserve Champion in Fitting and Showing of her lamb. Laura made it to the finals in both quality and Fitting & Showing. They really enjoy the sheep project and it showed. Here are some pictures of both Mary and Laura.

Here is Mary getting top showman for her Intermediate Class. She then went on to get Reserve Champion. Mary is turning into a pretty young lady. She just got her braces off, after about a year and a half.

And here is Laura showing her lamb. She too is growing up fast. She has done well in her 4-H career.

And the girls all did pet rabbit. But the highlight to this years rabbit showing was my dear Kayla. This was her first year in 4-H and she happened to take third place in the Junior Class for Fitting and Showing. Her rabbit cooperated for her which can be a huge part of showing rabbit. Kayla put the rabbit on the table to show her rabbit and the rabbit pretty much stayed right where she put it, didn't move much so Kayla was not distracted. Here is a picture of her with her ribbon and rabbit.

Two weeks after the fair, school started. The girls were so excited about starting school. They wanted to go shopping way early to get all of their supplies. It just seemed too early but I was glad to be done with it once the rush was on. But they are plugged in. Mary is on the Canfield Cougar Volleyball A-1 team. She really likes volleyball. Laura is in band with her violin this year at Canfield Middle School with Mary. She is continuing with violin again this year. And Kayla is at Dalton Elementary, alone since Laura moved on to sixth grade at Canfield. She has signed up for Road Crew which is a singing group. Mary and Laura ride the bus to school and Kayla rides with our neighbor Kelly and her kids to Dalton school. So the routine is working. I thank God for working out the details. He seems to do that.
Prayer requests and Praises:
1) Sarah is at home and still in her Nanny position for Jeff. Sarah is a great help around the house. I am so thankful for her. She is looking for additional work to fill in the gap between the nanny work schedules. So pray for some part time work so she can keep busy. Also she is praying about college and a direction there. So join in praying for a calling for her.
2) Hannah has started her nursing job at Coeur d'Alene Pediatrics. It actually started earlier than anticipated. She started two weeks ago and she loves it. She works with some really nice people and she works around kids. Her state board is on September 28th. So she is studying for that. So a prayer request is for Hannah to stay focused on the task in front of her, read and answer the questions with confidence and to stay calmed down. It will be a big relief for her once this is done.
3) Jason moved down to Bend Oregon to live with Leah in the house she bought in Bend. It was a struggle for Jason at first because he didn't know anyone there in Bend. But he applied at Applebees Restaurant as a Host/server. He was one of 80 applicants and Jason got the job. He has also found a church down there and is going to the College group there at the church. Some of his coworkers go to that church also, so that makes it nice for friendships.
4) Nathan and Michelle are doing well. They showed me the baby room that they have been working on. The due date is still Jan 1st. Michelle is doing just fine. They do not know the sex of the baby and we all have our thoughts of whether it's going to be a boy or a girl. Pray for Michelle to stay healthy and strong. And the baby would develop and also stay healthy and strong.
5) Leah is finishing up with her Forest Service Fire fighting job for the summer. Then she will head back to Bend and be with Jason. That will be good to have them together. Leah will keep tabs on Jason. That will be good for Jason to be under Leah's watch and care for a while. She was canning peaches yesterday when I talked with her. She will be working part time for the school district down in Bend. Pray for a teaching position for her to open up.
6) Aaron is in his Senior year at high school. He is still plugged into youth ministries at church as well as Boarders for Christ. Pray for direction and after high school graduation opportunities for Aaron. He will probably move over to Bend and work up at Mount Bachelor and do something in the Bend area while contemplating college.