More Friends Working for the Convention!

Working throughout the year! Notice those bracelets?

Gotta check these things many times before publishing. You know there is always something we miss.

Oh John you do such a great job making everyone feel welcome.

A huge group, and the Lord was there to meet each one.

Faithful. . . . .

These are our convention bracelets that we wore at every meeting as we worked toward convention time.

Love these smiling Bluedorn faces.

Lloyd and Emily were unbeatable this year. What would we have done without them?

Beautiful music and much fun was had by all these musicians.

Dave and Craig where unstoppable. (is that a word?)

Kevin thanks for the encouragement and vision you shared.

This young man was a soldier working with his folks.

Good job Jacob!

Another engaged couple! Actually getting married this weekend.

THANK YOU ALL!!

We're Letting Our Hair Down

This is JS Bach week at our house. We've gotten lots of things from our public library and are reading about Bach, listening to tapes about his life, and quizzing each other at meals.
Most importantly, we are listening enthusiastically to his music all week!

This is his family's crest. How might you tell that it belongs to him??

How many JSBs can you see?

Here's a sample of his music written in his own hand.

Do you know how many children he had?? =)

What country was he born in?

What instruments could he play?

Lastly,
What piece of his music is your favorite?
I haven't decided this one myself.

His music definitely brings glory to the Lord!

After the Wedding

After the wedding, our family (including Kyle of course) headed back to our hotel rooms to freshen up and relax. We ordered out pizza for supper and generally just enjoyed being together.

Good thing someone brought cards since our hotel had no pool. "Spoons", "King's Corners" and "Seven Up and Down" were the games of choice.
[No one drew blood so I'm not sure if it counted as an official game of Spoons or not.]

Ken enjoyed his Newsweek.

As the evening progressed we turned into 4 Sissons on one bed, and Kyle, Ken and Matthew on the other. In this picture, my children pushed me off the bed!

We were able to settle down finally and told stories of childhood memories at Grandma and Grandpa Lainio's cabin in Wisconsin.

Sunday morning we headed out to a little country church to hear George's father, Samuel, preach. Here are Samuel and Jenebu in traditional Nigerian clothing.

Samuel is wearing his wedding clothes from the day before. Jenebu had a dress to match made out of the same fabric. It was beautiful.

We are thankful to the Lord for His blessings on the wedding, His protection as we traveled and for the wonderful fellowship that we had with everyone.

The Wedding

We were privileged to be able to attend the Miller wedding held in Champaign last weekend. What a marvelous, God honoring celebration!

I'm afraid that I was a little excited and forgot to take pictures. Fortunately Ken did take a few. I love this sequence of Krista and George coming out of the church.

Catch the look shared between Chris and George. :-)

What a beautiful picture they are of the unity of the Body of Christ.

New Camera

Yep it's true. I got a new camera. In February the old one began to put lines through every shot. Yikes! So we finally stopped borrowing everyone else's and got our own. Now I just have to figure out how to work everything. =)


So here is my first attempt at playing. These two are some of my favorite subjects, and I hardly even have to say "smile".


I still have so much to learn and you all will have to suffer through it with me. Sorry.

More Convention Pictures

I've gotten family pictures up from the convention, but not the many pictures of friends! The convention would be totally impossible without the prayer and work of so many of you.

Krista and George's wedding is tomorrow! They were so gracious to come and share their courtship story with us all.

Dave bravely took on the AV for this year.
You can't imagine what a blessing that was and how much work it takes.

They've walked the road before us and a wealth of wisdom came from these folks!

These ladies are incredible. Their sacrifices are too many to count.
They are truly love in action.

Jason our salesman!

Justin and Megan's baby is due in less than 3 weeks! Pray!

It was great to have Kyle at the convention so that he could see what it was that takes up so much of our family's, and Gretchen's time. =) He was a tremendous help and seemed to get around everywhere.

Craig didn't throw a single cheese stick at anyone this year! Instead he threw Popsicle sticks. Hum-- we know what he's been eating.

One of the three engaged couples at the convention. We couldn't help but smile when we were around them.

We loved Chris's nuggets of insight even if he does have a thing about possums.

Paul has been such a dear friend and his work with the volunteers is indispensable. He is also one who is calm in crisis. Another valuable trait.

Kathy, I don't have a picture of you to put up. You are always just too busy working to stand still for photos. Kathy is one of the MAJOR wheels that works the convention. She's in charge of volunteers.

I feel so privileged to be on the same team with these folks. I love working with you guys!

Where would we be without Susan! Here she is in the command center. Ever cheerful and always working!

Laurie is the Blog Queen. She did a fabulous job. I loved working with her in the command center!

These are not even half of all that I'd like to put up. I am out of time today so I hope that you don't mind waiting for installment 2 yet to come.