Sceggel Christmas

The Sceggel family celebrated our family Christmas last night. We knew the kids were excited when we walked in Phil and Anna's house. Below is Jack hardly able to stop smiling after all everyone kept bringing in presents.

Addyson and Braelyn were playing on Braelyn's magnetic wall in her playroom.

Phil and Anna put on a tasty deep fried turkey dinner with everyone bringing something delicious to the bountiful laden table. After dinner it was time for the gifts to be opened. Our children had Mark open the very needed present below:

A Wilson cell phone booster, once installed we won't have to stand outside in the cold to answer or make a phone call. Addyson's favorite gift was this watch.

Not sure what Braelyn was opening below.

Jack got a truck that turned into a dinosaur.

But the very favorite item to play with the entire evening was the laundry basket I used to bring the presents in. Addyson is in the basket and Jack is trying to climb on top.

When he lets her out his reaction was pretty funny.

Daddy Ben got involved and started giving elevator rides in the basket.

Sarah took over to give Braelyn a turn.

What happened next was pretty funny. Addyson decided it was her turn, Braelyn insisted it was her turn and sat right on top of Addyson.

Once Braelyn was off, Jack decided to climb in, check out Addyson's face in the picture above and below.

Sarah and Rhoda kept the peace by piling all the oldest three grandkids into the basking and giving rides around the house.

Anna had Philip bring out the game he made down at the shop. This is a game very popular in Minnesota and after playing the game we are sure it is going to be just as popular in Illinois.

And now for my favorite part of the entire evening. Below is Taegan talking to grandma.

She was cooing and smiling so cute. Today Rhoda and Karin are heading out to Middle Grove for a trail ride in the snow. Hope it warms up quickly, it was 10 degrees this morning.

Dee & Olympia

The doctor's office ordered Malaria medicine that must be picked up on our way to Phil and Anna's. My cell phone rang while I was shopping and this was an unusal call. A trucking company from Colorado had a semi loaded with oats go into the ditch last night during the storm. The owner of the company starts the conversation with this question, "Do you feed oats to your horses?" She wanted the driver to drive to Bridlewood and dump the oats on the ground. As I was already at a hardware store I purchased a big tarp and heavy duty garbage bags and told the lady I would meet the driver at the barn. The driver called back just a few minutes later explaining these oats were frozen to the sides and bottom of the trailer and the only way to get them out was to hose them out with hot water. Hot water would ruin the oats so he was told not to come. Oh well, I'm sure I can find a use for a 12x16 tarp sometime. Dee, Olympia's owner stopped in to visit her filly. A few pictures had to be taken first inside and then out in the snow.

Olympia is quickly growing out of her halter. The laundry is just about finished and the presents for tonight are now wrapped. Time to bake the yeast rolls for the dinner tonight.

Survive the Storm

Karin wrote in that the wind was blowing her house around. Well here it isn't quite that bad the house isn't moving but each time the wind slams into the doors, windows and walls the dogs are sure there is something out there, something very scary. Around 4:00am Emma started running around the house barking going to each door. After stumbling out of bed then shuffling over to the door to open the door, Emma stops dead with the door wide open and refused to go out. It is a freezing 16 degrees outside and what ever is out there has spooked her, she is such a chicken she refused to go out until Darcy goes first. They didn't stay out long, it is just too nasty out there but the stars were out and looking like diamonds dotting the black sky. Mark felt it was a good time to get up and work on taxes and wanted 12 months of credit card bills printed out with the items circled that are tax deductible. Today Phil and Anna are hosting the Sceggel family Christmas and I must go shopping. The doctor's office will be called to see about getting some Malaria medicine. I don't know that's what I had but have 3 of the symptoms and why take a chance. Oplympia's owner is coming out to visit her this afternoon, she will need to be haltered and moved inside. Hope the roads are open. We didn't get that much snow but what we did get is sure blowing around.

Let it Snow

The wind is blasting from the North West slamming into the house with a roar, the snow is not falling it is flying horizontal landing where it can and sticking to the fields and roads. The landscape outside is disappearing into shades of gray and white, yes we are in our first blizzard of the season, just in time for Christmas. The picture below was taken from the protected south side looking over to the stallion paddock.

Thank goodness for all the work Mark did on this 150 year old farm house with new windows and insulation. The electricity has been flickering on and off and we just lost power to the computers for a bit. Days like today make me so thankful for our wood burning stove. Rachel stopped over with some home made chicken soup and told me what pills to order for Malaria. Mom stopped here after quilting to check on me and let the dogs out. This is a very inconvenient time to not feel well. After the second time of losing power it is time to turn the computers off.

So Sick

Yesterday was sheer torture trying to get everything done while getting sicker and sicker. The evening was spent huddled up to the woodburner shivering. The illnesses from Haiti could be Malaria cholera hepatitis Dehngie fever. Good thing this is probably just a respiratory flu. I missed our candlelight Church service at the Fellowship hall last night, I missed the singing of the Hallelujah chorus, not that I can sing anymore. I missed the people! I haven't been with my church family for 11 days. We are expecting our first snow storm of the season this afternoon and tonight.

Olympia Sold

The good news about Olympia selling is we will get to see her grow up. She is only going to Crystal Baker's barn in Brimfield, IL and will be brought back to us at age 3 to breed to Killian. Then at age 4 she will come to us to deliver her foal which will then be ours. The Raven line will continue! Her new owner is going to let us keep Olympia here until her foal is weaned. We could hardly bear to sell her but at least we will have a foal by her out of Killian. More news is we have a booking for Valiant this spring to a purebred Friesian mare imported from the Netherlands. Even more news is we will be acquiring 2 new gaited mares. They are suppose to be delivered between Christmas and New Years. The first one is a black Tennessee Walker mare 15 hands 9 years old never been bred and rides with no buck or rear. The other mares is a double registered Spotted Saddle Horse black and white. Both of these mares will be brought to the Hanna City farm and worked with, both haven't been ridden for a couple of years but both had a good start. Right after work I took off for Sam's club to buy the food for the Meister Brother party $219.00 was spent on all kinds of goodies. All of the food was unloaded into the apartment and will be stored there until the party tomorrow. Steven Marchal came before dark to work Evan and Valiant and helped get Olympia cleaned up so she could present a good first impression. I'm convinced even muddy she would have done well. She is such a little show off. Steven took the picture below of Evan checking out Olymmpia.

When it was time for Valiant to head to the outdoor arena, Olympia was in the paddock next to the barn. Valiant had to meet his little sister before heading out to work.

Amazing what 3 years does in the horse world. Once all the horses were put away Mark and I headed to Diane's to pick up 3 tables then to the Old School Center in Farmington, IL for 20 folding chairs. It really was amazing how that worked out. Dan is in Goodfield, IL and remotely by using his phone he unlocked the front door of the school, then turned the lights on so I could see my way down the hallway and off once I passed. Magic, sheer magic!

Cold and More Cold

Ever since we got home from Haiti I cannot warm up and yet when we were there I couldn't cool down. None of us were going to complain about being cold after sweltering all of last week (and this is the cold season right now Joan says summer really gets hot!) but we must have forgotten it is winter here. The wood burner has been going full blast but I can't get the house more than 73 degrees and it hasn't really been much below freezing since we arrived home. I will stop complaining and start counting my blessings. Of which the first is the wood burning stove and a husband that keeps us supplied in wood. Today after work the shopping must be done for the Meister company Christmas party. At least the car heater works great. Olympia needs be cleaned up and there must have been a lot of rain here while we were gone, the paddocks are muddy and the foals feather full of the mud. Philip worked on the website last night, hopefully soon I'll be able to update it. I think the problem came from the program used to make videos at least that is what the malware scan picked up. I'd better start saving money I think the software to render high definition videos is very expensive. Today I asked Mark if he put all the chairs on the couch because I needed to vacuum. His answer was surprising, "No, I came home from work and both Emma and Darcy were laying on the couch while you were gone."

They know they are not allowed on the furniture, I just think it is funny the lady of the house leaves and they start breaking the rules.

Cattle Guard

Mike was wanting to put in a cattle guard out at Middle Grove, but...they work for cattle not horses. They are very dangerous for horses so we talked him out of it. Good thing, if one had been put in it would have been fired. Read below: For those of you who have never traveled to the west, or southwest, cattle guards are horizontal steel rails placed at fence openings, in dug-out places in the roads adjacent to highways (sometimes across highways), to prevent cattle from crossing over that area. For some reason the cattle will not step on the "guards," probably because they fear getting their feet caught between the rails. A few months ago, President Obama received and was reading a report that there were over 100,000 cattle guards in Colorado . The Colorado ranchers had protested his proposed changes in grazing policies, so he ordered the Secretary of the Interior to fire half of the "cattle" guards immediately! Before the Secretary of the Interior could respond and presumably try to straighten President Obama out on the matter, Vice-President Joe Biden, intervened with a request that...before any "cattle" guards were fired, they be given six months of retraining. 'Times are hard,' said Joe Biden, 'it's only fair to the cattle guards and their families be given six months of retraining! ' And these two guys are running our country, By the way This is a joke that has been told and retold since the 1950s according to snopes.com but today was the first time I heard it and thought it relevant. Work today was a little frustrating. My car is full of snow tires and golf cart tires. The appointment to get the snow tires on the car is now Wednesday morning. The printer wouldn't communicate again with the computer and I had to have Mark come down to help today. There mail was all opened but not all processed, just too much mail. That's what I get for taking a week off.

Rohan's Ribbon

Rohan belongs to Vicki. He is by Raven out of Velvet. Vicki took Rohan to the FHH Inspections held in Texas where he got a very respectable 2nd Premium. Vicki writes, High Merit is 7.7 or above and He was close at 7.3. Congratulations VICKI! He is still young and growing and she wrote he is easily 16 hands and 1200 pounds.

Barking Dogs

I went to bed early, not sure how early but as soon as I hit the bed it was lights out for the brain. During the night, or maybe it was only the evening, the dogs started barking. I woke up sure I was back in Haiti. There are dogs everywhere in Haiti, skinny, hungry, mangy looking dogs and they are not quiet. Most don't seem to belong to anyone they just exists. They all seem to look so much alike Mike asked Tim is this a recognized breed of dogs. Dogs aren't the only noisy animal. Each morning the roosters are crowing, the goats are baaing, the frogs are peeping, the donkeys are braying, and the cows are bawling. I didn't realize how quiet it is here at the Meister compound. Yesterday Onyx broke a board and crawled out then wanted back in with the girls. With no tools handy another board was brought over and secured with bailing twine as a temporary fix. Today will be busy, I'm heading in to the shop to try to catch up on last weeks work before Eva Jean comes tomorrow. We had another offer come in on Jenis' filly while in Haiti, one we may not be able to turn down.

The lady is coming tomorrow after work to discuss it. She is willing to let us breed her and keep the first foal. That way she gets a fabulous Raven daughter and we get to keep Raven's line through her foal and she is local so we would get to see her grow up.

We're HOME!

We left the hotel before breakfast this morning. The hotel restaurant didn't open until 7:00am and we needed to be on the shuttle by then. We arrived at the airport 2 hours before our plane was to take off. Diane had no problem getting our bags on board without paying the $25.00 per bag. Once we were all check in and waiting at the gate the announcement came over the intercom that our plane hadn't arrived from it's last destination. Some of our group wandered down the D gates looking for a restaurant but there were only little Kiosks, no hot food. Our plane was over an hour delayed, then of course they had to let the other passengers off and clean the plane before we could get on. The only ones here to greet us were the dogs, the rest of the family were all at church but the dogs were so happy to see us. Mark had been very busy while I was gone, cleaning construction mess on the patio and cleaning the barn. I tried to work on the website problem but the internet server, the one we pay each month for won't let me on, that will have to wait until tomorrow. It looks like the website has been infected with a virus. I'm not sure how to find the virus and kill it but perhaps Philip can help tomorrow. He is great at keeping the computers clean. Rhoda left for her volley ball tournament. The girls found out they are in first place. The dogs are snoring contentedly by the fire. Mark was telling me all about the school shooting in Connecticut, how awful for those families of the victims. Our prayers go out to that grieving community and our grieving country. 2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Let's all humble ourselves, repent, Seek Him, turn from our wicked ways, our country which was founded on Christian principles sure needs healing by our Creator and Lord.

Atlanta

We are staying in the Hilton, what an extreme opposite of Haiti. Just walking off the airport in crowds of people no one is yelling, no one is trying to grab your bags and no one is trying to sell us something. Diane got us 2 rooms here for $53.00 each (that's the complete cost tax and everything) and they are really nice. We checked in went down to the restaurant for dinner then sat in the hot tub for a bit to relax and hash over the trip. The Sauders are at another hotel but we will see them in the morning. Diane tried to print off our boarding passes for today but the airline is trying to charge us $25.00 a bag. With International flights one bag is free, our direct flight was cancelled, there were no more flights last night to Peoria so we have to wait for the first flight out today. None of us are worried, Diane will get us on the plane and she will get us on without the extra $25.00 per bag. She is the best travel agent of all. In a way this was kind of a nice break even though we would have loved to be home earlier. Our flight yesterday was packed and had a screaming child on it. This child screamed just about the entire flight. Those poor parents were trying everything, walking him up and down the aisle-way, offering food, trying to get him interested in toys but nothing worked. We should be home by noon. I've been getting emails from all over the country that the Horsemeister website is down. I promise we will work on the problem on Monday. Sure hope that is nothing serious.

Trip to the States

Joan had breakfast and lunch sandwiches all made up for us to take on our long trip to Port. Our driver arrived at 7:20am with the good news the roads were open and we should be able to make it to the airport at Port-au-Prince with plenty of time to spare. Below the van is getting packed.

Amy found the shells we bought on the primitive Island, they had not been removed from the bag and wow did they smell and yet we packed them. Good-byes were just a bit sad not knowing the next time we will get to see or be with the Reinhards. Our driver put on a cd of Haitian Christmas music and we were off moving as quickly as one does on these winding roads. About an hour into the trip all those in the back started yelling STOP STOP. Poor Caleb was car sick and needed to vomit. I can't believe it but we took the plastic bag of vomit and left it on the side of the road. Don't tell mom we littered, that's like the worst sin one could commit in our family. About that time our driver starts looking for diesel fuel and for the next 4 hours we stopped 5 times with no success, no one had any for sale. We were following this truck that was driving down the road with a flat tire.

As today is Saturday every small town seemed to have market day. Below was a field full of animals to sell.

Each time we got close to a village the streets became crowded and would slow to a crawl.

Diane told us after seeing donkey after donkey loaded down to the hilt, "I'm not an animal person but I really feel bad for the animals in Haiti." At almost every corner there are 10-15 Haitian men sitting on their motorcycles. These are not motorcycle gangs, these are the taxis. It is 50 or 75 cents a ride.

In the picture below the tap tap we were following had 3 guys hanging off the back with their baskets. Another guy tried to jump on and the guy in the middle started fighting to keep his place and knocked the other guy off.

We came to one town that had a police check point.

The one road to Port goes through many small villages and it seems each village has a speed bump or 2. Sometimes they have signs posted on them. We asked Tim what the signs say and his interpretation was: Laying down Policeman or sleeping policeman. I think it was either Hannah or Bethany years ago when they first arrived in Haiti tell their parents if they would just take out all the speed bumps and put them in the pot holes the roads would be smoother. This 125 mile trip that can take as little as 4 hours was taking us over 5 but don't worry we still had plenty of time. And then we reached Port. Trying to drive in that crowded city was something the green truck below actually tried to cut in, hit our van and just kept going.

Our driver didn't even react. Of course all of this was done at a crawl. The next pictures are of the rubble still standing in piles from the earthquake in Jan 2010.

And there are still tent cities, for the most part these Haitians did not have insurance and cannot afford to build.

We finally arrived at the airport with 3 hours to spare. An airport official insists on our driver backing up to a fence and then we are surrounded by Haitian men all trying to sell us something or help with the bags. It was chaos trying to get through, they send us through a door where we go through security, our bags are gone through and we are patted down (at least Diane and I were because we set off the scanner with our artificial hips). Just about that point an official tells us we are in the wrong area takes us back out the way we came and again we are surrounded with sellers and helpers. He takes us to another line where we again have to go through security. About this time we are all out of dollars. Everyone that handles a bag wants a dollar tip and they are grabbing our bags out of our hands over and over. We stand in line for over 2 hours while they again go through our bags, and again need to go through the scanner and be patted down. Then we are sent to another line where 3 different dogs come around to sniff the suitcases. Each dog sniffs for something different. We had those stinky shells in our suitcases and each dog was fascinated with ours drawing lots of attention from the policemen. Below is a dog sniffing Amy's bag.

The line to check in took another hour, their computers were down but finally we walk in where the boarding is ready to start. The escalator is there just not working

We are all sent walking up the escalator carrying our bags where we come to another check point. At this one they we again had to put our carry-on bags up on a counter and have them gone through. We are still in line when the plane was suppose to take off but thankfully it waited for the hundreds of people getting their bags checked for the 3rd time. We are so hot and sticky that when we finally board the plane and see the frost coming out from the airconditioning we are thrilled.

The rest of the story will be told tomorrow, we are exhausted.

The Christmas Program

We knew the Christmas program was tonight but still wanted to hit the clean beach for a few hours. The confusion just seemed to be extra loud this morning. Diane was helping Joan on her Christmas list in the office and got so distracted she borrowed Mike's headphones to try to cut back on the distractions.

In Diane's defense this is another aspect of living here that must be experienced. Words cannot explain how chaotic it is here each morning. The workers, the people lined up at the door all wanting to plead their case, the interruptions from vendors and the noise, oh the noise. I don't know how the Reinhards deal with this day after day, week after week. We finally loaded up and headed to the beach. On the way we stopped to see the church and school Peoria is sponsoring in memory of Gabriel.

The beach was in the town Aristides came from. There was a bill board up in that town saying the UN and Cholera were twins both here to stay.

Talk about trying to rile up the people! This town is much neater than everywhere else we go. Joan explained, they still throw the garbage on the ground it is just at this town they hire people to clean it up. As soon as we got to the beach the vendors arrived. Haitian vendors are not as annoying as Mexican or Jamaican vendors. They don't yell, just ask quietly if we want something.

Rhoda bought a purse but the man put a hat on her and asked her to model the hat and purse hoping to make a hat sale. Notice Tim laughing, it didn't work, Rhoda had already purchased a hat from another vendor. The Haitian people are so poor they work hard for just a few dollars. We felt pretty strongly that those that had worked to make something to sell should have the opportunity so tried to buy something from each. The problem there were twofold. How to remember who we bought from and the sheer amount. Still it is better to buy something then just give money.

Amy and I went for a walk on the beach, this dog came running up to her then followed her back to where we were camped out.

He ran right over to Mike and made himself at home, one can tell just by looking how Mike makes friends where ever he goes, although he asked Joan, "what's the word for beat it!"

The dugout canoe below

with some fishermen came in with their catch, just a few skinny fish after fishing for hours. I asked if I could take a picture of the fish but he said no. The canoes are made of a solid log, they are so heavy small round logs are needed to move them.

The man below was busy mending his nets but notice how far up the beach he got his boat by rolling it.

We didn't have enough flippers for everyone wanting to snorkel so each person got one flipper. That turned out to be a bad idea, the rip tides were strong and the fire coral dangerous. Most of the snorkelers ended up getting pushed against the fire coral and getting hurt, then when they were trying to get back to the beach from the reef they all kept swimming in circles. That's what happens when one only has one flipper. Not really but it was a long distance and hard. Tim ordered french fries at a local resturant. They came out nice and hot but not much salt, Tim asked for more salt and that came after the the french fries were mostly gone.

After lunch was snooze time for Joan and Berlica.

Mackenson was busy playing football with Tim.

While we were laying around reading and watching the crab below clean out his home.

Below is Faith and Tim coming back from a swim in the ocean.

On the way back from swimming the Sauder boys showed Mackenson the little crabs running along the sand. They all had fun chasing them.

He wasn't as thrilled when they caught one.

All good things must come to an end. We needed to leave by 3:30 to get back in time for the big Christmas play the missionary kids were putting on. That started at 6:30pm and was so cute. Below is the cast.

Bethany is Mary, Faith is a lamb and I'm not sure what Hannah was but she sang a solo.

At one point the star was suppose to disappear and it got stuck. Madam Tim (Joan) had to get up to save the day.

They were playing to a packed church. After the play everyone was issued a candle and we sang Silent Night in three different languages by candle light. It is hard to think Christmas is coming it is just too hot here. Everyone was invited for desserts and drink but we walked home to start packing. We leave tomorrow morning.