Lasagna Dinner

We had an amazing amount of help today starting at 9:00 am all the way until this evening. All of our children and all of our grand children along with mom, Mike, Diane, Joan and her children showed up at church to help serve lunch. The trays were filled to capacity of goodies and distributed to all of the tables in plenty of time. Before lunch all the spots were filled and everyone just knew what to do and did it. After lunch we again had an abundance of helpers. Everyone worked together like a well oiled machine. Funny how we can serve 400-500 people without stressing at all.
Greg Rumbold had the morning service and Tim Roecker had the afternoon. I'll have to get the cd's, we were kind of too busy to listen very well even though the speakers were on.
We got home with just enough time to get a couple pans of lasagna cooked for the big dinner tonight. Diane also cooked a couple pans and mom cooked some too. We also served salad and rolls and by the end of the evening there were only 5 pieces of lasagna left. Pretty good planning. Below are a few pictures of the evening.

 Above and below Addyson wearing grandpa's glasses is playing with the bows and her siblings Jack and Jace.

 Above is the happy engaged couple Nolan and Sarah and below is the happy old married couple Ben and Taunya.

 Above Jessica and Emily are waiting in line for their turn to get their food and below Jessica is talking to Stephanie while David is trying to feed Israel who decided he only wanted to eat the bread.

Below are a few of the tables of guests

 Mackenson and Berlica were watching the birds from the kitchen sliding glass door.

 Levi enjoying his lasagna.

 Below Nolan and Sarah are giving their story to the group. 

 Berlica looking out the window at the birds. 

 Abram and Luke eating their dinner.

 Amy Koch holding Israel so he can watch the birds.

 The group left for volley ball at the Hanna City gym, Mark, Amy and I helped mom clean up then headed home to put away left overs. We are tired tonight and will head to bed as soon as this is posted. Good night all.

Thankful For My Family

We had a busy day in the Meister family. Joan's kids and grand daughters had breakfast in the igloo this morning.

Even the cat joined them for breakfast. It was nice and comfy with a thick rug and candles for light and warmth.
At 8:30 am nine of us went out on a job and something that would have taken Mark and I all day was pretty much accomplished in just less than 3 hours. Many hands really do make light work. A special thank you to Joan, Sarah and Hannah Reinhard, Rachel and Jessica Sauder, Rhoda and Lee.
At noon we stopped at church to drop off 10 more loaves of bread, clean up and in my case change. Kathy Huthmann showed up and joined us for lunch. After lunch Jessica and Hannah went with me to Shop N Save to pick up the 36 dozen donuts we ordered from Krispy Kreme for church lunch tomorrow then dropped those off at church. Everyone is invited to the Peoria church tomorrow, there will be an abundance of food, enough for even the biggest eaters.
Meanwhile Karin took a load of 4 Friesian mares to Sandridge for a scheduled trail ride. Horses used were Eliza, Jenis, Zalena and Ayanna. Riders were Melinda, Mitchell, Jessie and Karin.

Below are a few pictures of the ride.

Above is Melinda with her horse for the day Eliza and below Melinda is taking a selfy on Eliza. Karin is on Ayanna, in the lead is Mitchel on Jenis followed by Jessie riding Zalena.

There was nothing but happy smiles by the time they all made it back to the farm. Anna and her colt were put in with the 2 weanlings, Tatiana and Violet. The family purchasing Anna's colt called last night and are considering buying Tatiana also so those 2 may as well get to know each other. Jenis was moved in with Ribbon which made both Ribbon and Jenis happy. Jenis did not like being in with the weanlings and Ribbon didn't like being alone.
Sarah and Nolan announced their engagement late this afternoon.

That meant a trip to Sams for lasagna, salad, and rolls. Even though this isn't a surprise she still needs a lasagna dinner to make it official. Not sure why Nolan is wearing that hat in the picture. The dinner will be held at mom's house at 4:00 pm tomorrow as this farm house is just too small to fit the Meister family.  Better pictures of the happy couple will be posted tomorrow.

Playtime for Grandma

Anna brought the girls over today and did we ever have fun. Below are a few pictures of our day.

 Above Braelyn is building a castle with the bows and above Taegan is busy sweeping up the bows Braelyn is trying to play with. It all worked out though when the animal crackers made their appearance.

 The girls always enjoy playing the piano.

 Anna came back to nurse Kensley so I took the girls on the golf cart over to play in Joan's igloo.

 They were having a lot of fun inside when Braelyn spotted one of Joan and Tim's cats and took off at a run for a quick cuddle. Not sure how the cat felt about that but she put up with them without making a fuss.

 Next they decided to help the snow man to grow a bit bigger. The snow was perfect for packing.

 It was time to head back before the girls got too cold. By that time Kensley was done eating and ready to play horsey with Taegan.

 After the girls left, Diane sent a text that game night would be held at her house this evening. Below is Hannah who came over to read instead of play.

 By the time I arrived the first scrabble game was just finishing up. 

 Ruth won big time, she ended up being able to use all of her letters 2 times in that game.  Below she is pointing out one of her big words.

 Willow was busy making dessert for everyone, baking then decorating little cupcakes. They were delicious.

 Tate and Mackenson were busy playing downstairs. 

 Berlica was climbing up to Diane's loft where Faith was playing when I asked her to pose for a picture. She wouldn't smile until Joan mentioned Bethany would look at her picture.

 Below Faith and Berlica are looking down from the playroom loft at Diane's. 

 Mike arrived home from Middle Grove, he just happened to stop at the store and when Diane saw what he purchased she just had to laugh. You see Diane is on a diet since the cruise and the first thing she pulls out of the bag is 2 half gallons of ice cream, next was candy bars then donuts, peanut m&ms and finally chocolate milk.

Anna's Colt SOLD!

Anna's colt by Valiant is now sold. A nice couple with 7 children bought him. They were most impressed with how BIG this young colt is and how amazing his sire is. After checking out Valiant's movement and presence in the outdoor arena it didn't take long for them to make up their mind to take him. 

Dr. Pallen came out this morning to draw blood for the coggins test. Below Valiant is looking like a unicorn with a rubber horn as his braid falling backward during a good roll in the indoor. 

 Then Dr. Pallen showed up right after and had to draw blood from a dirty boy. Jenis is waiting her turn over by the round bales.

 Below left to right  waiting for the vet to get to them is Valiant, Zalena, Ribbon, Indy, Ayanna and Eliza. Killian was brought in after Valiant left and Anna was done last. We should be good to go to the fair.

 Emily decided to work Killian after all the other horses were put away.  He is so much fun under saddle that Emily says only then does she remembers why she likes him. Otherwise he is such a naughty little boy always pushing the limits of what is allowed.

 She finished up his work with a few tricks then took him back before cleaning up the arena.

Great Video

If you are interested in the Friesian breed I highly highly recommend you take the time to watch this video. It is a well done informative video and entertaining. This is in 2 parts and takes about an hour.

 

If this doesn't make you want a Friesian nothing will.

25,000 Sleeves, 25,000 Envelopes

Diane brought mom, I drove in by myself as did Rachel as after our Berean work Diane and mom were going shopping at Kroger, Rachel was heading over to Pekin to grocery shop and I was headed to Sam's club and Aldi. The roads were not good on the way in to Peoria, snow covering a layer of ice. It was hard to actually stop at the stop signs, the car just kept sliding through the intersections. I'm very glad there isn't much traffic out here. The temperature was at -6 when we went out to feed and -3 driving in to Peoria. We had a good group of volunteers today. Below is Tiffany working on stuffing envelopes, Dylan stuffing the Bibles into the sleeves, Rachel and mom reading letters, and Eva Jean opening the studies.

Diane kept the copy machine running full blast today and Terren was stacking Bibles once Dylan was done filling them.

 Diane R arrived and was put to work stacking Bibles then stuffing envelopes.

 We had a light mail day and were able to finish by noon although we ran out of postage for Bibles and then ran out of Bibles. Ellen got more stamps printed off, Diane drove to TEMCO to pick them up and we were able to mail out all the Bibles we had. I think we were 24 Bibles short. Sure hope the Roanoke and Goodfield young groups get busy wrapping and by Tuesday we can get another thousand Bibles in. Diane ordered 25,000 of the plastic sleeve envelope we send the Bibles out in and another 25,000 postage paid business reply envelopes. We went to Denny's for lunch and were joined by Dan, Mark and Philip. After lunch I bought 12 loaves of honey wheat bread from Aldi's along with some cuties (little easy to peel oranges) and muffins at Sams then drove to church to drop off the food for Sunday. Johnny Hoerr had just pulled in to start plowing the parking lot.

 That is such a big job. It had a good 6 inches of fresh snow covering the entire lot. We will have tall mountains of snow piled up at the back of the lot by the time he is done. A big thank you to Johnny!

Back at the farm Anna and her colt were fed, watered and given a fresh clean stall. Anna is a nursing mom and is going though 25 gallons of water or more each day. Even though we were below zero the stall barn is well enough insulated that the water buckets were not frozen at all. We are giving her 2  five gallon buckets in the morning, 2 in the afternoon and 2 more in the evening and by morning they are almost empty.
I brought home a few letters from prisoners to place on the Berean blog but will share 2 here typed as written. The words in parentheses are what I think he wanted to write :
Berean Prison Ministry, 
Hollow i have recive the bible from you. And i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart it was a blessing to me.  I was wondering what i could give yall. I have any money.  So one way is to let yall know that i will use it other is to give yall a small testimony to let yall know what God had done. let me start with my name is Rey i am 40 years old and i am doing a 6 year sentenecs (sentence) well i was a gangamember from that i started selling drugs with this time i have shoot 2 time in the back shoot other time in the am and stambed (stabbed)2 time in the leg and when i got shoot one weekend the next weekend got shoot again. and those were the times i was hit there were many more times now you tell me that that devil was trying to get me.  But my God was there all them time he wouldn't let the devil take me then i didn't know that i was looking for something to fill what i was messing (missing) inside. I tryed everything belive me. And i belivie that if God tooks care me all them time and i me all them time he haves something big for me.  I thank (think) God put me in here for me to leancen (lean or learn) to him i was always on the move.  Now that i have thanks (things) have been changing. I know when God is ready to let me go i will be a new man from the in side out God talked to me can you belive that me who would thank (think) you my God loves me. I can ask him the smallies things and i turn around and someone will come and tell me what i just asked him.  I would just thank (think) it was luck. No i would just ask something just to see everytime God is good well i have to stop doing it my way now i am doing his way. I am in a maximum secretly (security)  prison and there is a lot of anger Hate saness (sadness?) here I can feel it all the time around me but with all that is going on i feel love joy pices (peace) i tell God i don't want to be here i did like you  God does it's not time to me to leave yet so senck (sent) me to a trusty camp. So that's were i am at right now. That was just a lil of my testimony so thank yall and god bless you. Please let your ministry know that they are making a diffenc (difference) ! Thank You Rey
The second letter was much easier to read, printed up very neatly:
Dear Sir,
I got your address from a friend, and I helped him do his bible study so we could play Spaides, a card game.  I found the study very interesting.  Will you please send a large print Bible to me?  I'm 52 years old and my eyes are growing dim, Also will you send me the Bible studies? 
P.S. Thank you, and God, Bless you.