Christmas Pictures 2009

Skipper at Christmas

Skipper, all decked out for Christmas

This boat is the Skipper.  It was owned buy two of the Weborg brothers of the older generation.  Howard and Emery fished together until Emery became unable to go on the boat.  Then, Rick took Howard (when he was 91!) along with him for another couple years because everyone knows a fisherman’s life is no good lived out on dry land.

They were so sweet and seeing their boat has resurfaced lots and lots of memories  of them and commercial fishing.  They were old school, no EPIRB, GPS, or even a cell-phone in those last years of fishing.  They did things the way they had done them for well over 50 years.

Howard and Emery had those beautiful blue eyes and the weathered faces of men who had exposed themselves to the elements of nature far to many times.  But each wrinkle told a story, unfortunately un-kept for the most part.   The best wrinkles were around their eyes as they had the sweetest smiles which would cause crow’s feet to appear, telling the observer that they had laughed much in their life.  I think I mean more like a chuckle as I do not remember ever hearing loud laughter from them, just chuckles with blue eyes twinkling.  I can imagine those faces at the portholes in the picture, checking the winds, looking for buoys and watching for the dock as they headed home.

The Skipper is in the process of being put into our local fishing museum and she sits now in our neighbors field.  Mark, a second generation fisherman himself decorated the boat for Christmas.  It is beautiful and poetic.  It fits well that this little fishing village should have an old-time boat decorated for the holidays.

I can’t help but smile when I think what Howard and Emery would think if they were still alive.  I think they would stand their together and chuckle, eyes twinkling, shaking their head at this foolish waste of money to run those “expensive” lights.  But down deep I think they would like it, a boat is a fisherman’s pride and maybe, just maybe, the hearts of these plain men would be warmed at the beauty of their boat decked out for Christmas.

Beautiful snow!

Although the snow is beautiful, it has brought damage. We were without power for a time and without land-line phones until late into last night. This antenna came crashing down early in the morning and branches are everywhere.

Twas the Night before Opening Season……

Well, the off season of fishing has come to a close.  We call it the “off” season but in reality it is a crazy time of playing catch-up on all the other projects in life left un-done since Spring.  We accomplished many things on our list but as always did not complete the dreaded list.  With Rick’s mom being hospitalized much of the last two weeks he has had many other issues to contend with beside our home.   On top of it all Rick also came down with a serious eye infection.  After a week of drops to the eye every two hours, or when I could get him to come home and do the drops, his eye is much better.  We are thankful.  Not only does he need his eye sight as we all do, but he has the most beautiful blue eyes on the planet…….. I am not prejudice, just stating a fact!   I would hate to see them damaged in any way!

So yesterday Rick got the good news on his eye and then set to making plans for opening day of fishing which is Dec. 1st, today.   I could hear him discussing the weather with other fisherman and then making plans to do the midnight run to set nets.  This is a normal event and proving of one’s being a die-hard manly fisherman, kind of like the ice-breaking in April.  I didn’t think twice about it until at supper the winds started to pick up and roar.  It sounded terrible and so I started hoping that they would not go out and set.  But no………  the winds did not seem to concern Rick at all.

I went to bed after 10 and listened to the wind shake the house and thought to myself that certainly Rick would not head out in this storm.  It was even snowing, much to the delight of our girls, winter arriving with a blast.  Rick came in at 11 to wake me and tell me he was heading out.  I tried to talk him out of it, telling him it was too dangerous, blah, blah blah.   He told me he would be fine and left.   I prayed for him, imagined the worse and thought about being the good fisherman’s wife and staying up to wait for him.  Then I decided I was way to tired for that and fell asleep.

He got back in safely at two in the morning!   The alarm went off at 5 and over coffee he told me that other guys were out there, it was a full moon, wasn’t to bad for seas, and that it all went just fine.  I just glared at him and told him how scared I was when he left.  He just shrugged his shoulders.  Fear is a choice at times and I should have known better!  Life of a fisherman’s wife.

Blessed in this crazy life,

Joyce

 

 

There was a beautiful full moon the beginning of November. My sister Laurel commented on it and so I thought that although we are thousands of miles apart, we can still see the same moon. I went outside and called her and called Mom and Angela and we all watched the full moon together. Wisconsin, Tennessee and Florida, sisters and daughters, three generations with eyes seeing the same sight at the same time. I can’t help but think that other than the moon the only thing we will all see at the same time is Christ’s return. How cool is that?

Jazmin is a true Packer fan, when Brett Favre took the field she turned and faced the other way!

I have a love-affair with fish boats. I will admit it. I stand in awe of steel and wood, of shapes of bows and sterns, of roaring engines whether Cummins or Volvo-Penta, of these machines which are made to transport brave men over miles of seas whether smooth or rolling, open or ice-covered. I also adore a God Who created sea-gulls to all stand facing the same direction– without exception! And how about those beautiful fall colors He created! Praise Him, for boats and men and creation to enjoy!

This is Rick with our favorite hired man of all time, Andy! You can see Rick is smirking in the picture because Andy is trying to convince me that if he and Rick were arguing I would take his side over Rick!! He cracks me up! I told him that I love him like a son but that Rick wins hands down! We always enjoy being with Andy.

Oct. 24th 2009. This was the last day before the fishing season closed. As you can see, there were lots of fish, thousands of pounds to deal with. Many hands make light work and a few of these guys only work the weeks of October. We are thankful for another good and safe season despite incredible winds. God is so good!

Fall fest fun

The famous Northport Rd. dressed in fall colors.

Matthew’s new truck….. sweet ride, he actually let me drive it last week!

Beautiful Door County Sunset

Some days ……..

Yesterday started out beautifully.  Rick headed out to work at the usual time with full lunch-pail and having had coffee and oatmeal.

I have to explain the oatmeal because I KNOW you are all wondering????

The other night, just as I was falling asleep, Rick asked me if I could make him oatmeal to have with his coffee in the morning.  This was an unusual request because oatmeal is healthy and my man will eat the healthy food that I put in front of him (well, most of the time ), but he NEVER requests it.  I have never heard him ask me to make that healthy chicken with roasted mushrooms and garlic or request the whole wheat pasta instead of white.  Just saying. This startled me so badly that I sat right up in bed and asked him WHY?   In my mind were only thoughts of him having suffered chest pains recently, his blood pressure rising, concerns of some kind that made him think eating healthy would alleviate the problem.    He rolled his eyes at me, well I was facing his back so I can not verify this but I am pretty sure  ;).  He responded by telling me that lately the new vitamins I have him taking are upsetting his stomach and he thought a little cereal would help!   I was so relieved.  I offered him my home made granola but he declined. That’s hippy food and one hippy (guess who) in this family is enough!  So making oatmeal has been added to our morning routine.

After Rick left for work my dear friend Kari came in and we had coffee by the fire and had a prayer time together.  She has eight children and we now have seven  so you can see how we need time for prayer!  :)

Bible was wonderful with the girls.

Took Melody to the dentist…  no cavities!  Only child of ours to reach 11 and not have had a cavity.  I think we may have to buy her a car….  just kidding sisters.

School was wonderful.

Then we started to do our cleaning chores.  I decided to do all toilets and our tub with Rust-Out.  I cannot do it often because it is toxic and bothers my lungs but with the breeze through the windows I thought it would be a good day for this job.    We got all the bathrooms looking beautiful and then I left for a cleaning job.

I came back from the cleaning job to find Rick digging a trench from our well casing along the side of the house.  We had had water pouring out of the well for weeks but had recently thought that maybe something else was the problem.   Sure enough, about two feet down it was evident there was a crack in the pipe between the well casing and the house.

Thankfully Rick is a man of may trades and talents.  He went and got his dad’s back-hoe and started the process of digging to find the pipe.   That is when he called me out to help.  This is when I started to wish that  I had paid more attention to plumbing things when we have built the addition.

Rick told me to watch as he dug so that he did not snag the pipe with the bucket’s teeth.

I panicked because I had no clue to what size pipe he was talking about, and I wanted to ask if it was a certain color which would have make it more visible, like bright yellow, or hot pink?  I didn’t ask, I just started praying.   Being in Gills Rock with the key work being ROCK, you can only imagine the scraping and jerks as huge rocks were dragged out of the hole.  My heart would lurch as I hoped that the grating sound was not the pipe being yanked from the well.  Rick would dig with the back-hoe, dig with the shovel, dig with the back hoe, dig with the shovel,  I think you get the picture.  I would watch, forcing my eyes to stay open as I usually shut them when I am nervous, then run down into our creepy crawl-space to give Rick other info that he needed.  You can be proud of me because I refrained from giving any advice during the whole procedure, none what-so-ever.  I think Rick appreciated it but I can’t verify that either.  :)

At one point, a thin tubing came up and Rick thought it was the gas-line.  He yelled to me to go shut the propane off at the tank.  My blank stare told him that I knew nothing about propane tanks.  They are on my list with chain-saws, weed-wackers, battery cables and steering a fish tug straight.  Sorry, no-can-do.   It ended up being a strange ground wire.    60 years ago they did things differently.

Rick found the leak with the pipe intact, isn’t God good?   He called his good friend Paul to discus what to do only to find out that it was Paul’s anniversary and so he was not able to come over, good man!

So I then figured out I was through being Rick’s right-hand-woman and went into scrounge around for something to cook for supper that would not use water.  It was an assortment of items, all good and basically Mexican.  The bummer was going into the house to bathrooms which were spotless but unusable and a kitchen that did not get cleaned and so the sink was full of dishes.  Oh well.

We survived the night with no water, minimum flushes and using toilettes on our hands.

This morning Rick and I sat in the dark coffee-less, I offered hot-chocolate but Rick has never been real fond of that drink.  I could have offered granola and milk but, you know how he feels about that!

So another adventure with living with Rick, Commercial fishermen by day, plumber by night!

Blessed, to have electricity even without water because my man does not do electricity.  Everyone has their own No-can-do!

Joyce

Mighty winds. We have had gales winds for the last four days. On Monday Rick came running in the house saying that the dock was giving way to the waves. Annie and I bundled up and went down to the dock to see what was happening. The waves had collapsed the dock corner between two slips. The fear was that the dock could completely collapse on the boat, pinning it in the slip and damaging the side. Annie and I watched as the men discussed how best to back out into the waves to move the Freitag to the ferry boat landing about 1500 feet north on the shore. My stomach sickened as I heard them discuss timing the waves so backing into a wave would not roll the boat. After much discussion it was decided that the trip to the dock in 10-12 foot waves was not worth the risk. Better to let the boat be banged then risk lives. I was relieved even though they were still talking moving it in the night if the winds stilled. The life of being married to a Commercial Fisherman! I can see little Ruby Weborg shaking her head at the guys when they would head out into the waves. She would shrug her shoulders and say that we need to pray for them. We did indeed pray! Wisest words a Commercial Fisherman’s wife could share.

Good friends. Fishermen came to check the boats and then gathered around Rick weighing out the issues with the dock and the risk of heading to the ferry dock. I am always blessed to see these guys work together, one heading over to tie a line while being beaten by a wave, four of them down on their knees working to brace the boat with wenches. They are so brave and calm at the same time, working quickly as a team instinctively knowing what ropes and chains to get to solve the problem. Quite the group these men are! Love them all.

Fun nights at PC Junction. Kari, Robyn Weborg, Lyle, pedal-car racing in the dark! We had such a good time together.

Monday, only written on Tuesday!

I really did intend to write yesterday morning, but then life started to happen and did not stop until 9 last night in which I gave up the house-wife ghost and went to bed…

Yesterday was our first day of school, I know, freaks me out too!  I have never started this late as I have been an end of August starter for the last 20 years of our home-educating.  Life dictated differently for me this year and so here we are.

I spent the two whole days last week organizing books, finding books and frantically ordering books that I had probably given away or that the curriculum had changed.  If you remember pre-wedding, Melody had already arranged most of her books as she was ready to start school at the normal time, we are creatures of habit!

As I did this preparing I started to get REALLY excited.  Annie and Melly are both starting with Ancient History.  Annie is also studying history side-be-side with church history.  It should be good.  I just love educating our children and it has been the best choice for our family.

So, yesterday I woke, had coffee with Rick, did the lunch-pail thing,  started our laundry and made the mistake of going to get meat out of the big freezer.  Usually this is a good thing and a form of a miracle when I actually get the meat thawing before 10 or even noon!  But, upon opening the door I realized that the freezer was not working properly and really needed a de-frosting.  I must interject at this time that RARELY does my life run according to MY schedule…. anyway.   I thankfully had Rick’s huge cooler out on the lawn from all the entertaining with the wedding and with a quick run to the shed for another cooler I was able to empty the freezer.  In the process I found things that I needed to get rid of and quick.  I also found that I am good on freezer jam for the year and have enough ground beef to last until Christmas!

In the midst of this chaos we did start school.

We started our school year by listening to James McDonald preach as we did much of last year.  You may tune in to his sermons at http://www.harvestbible.org/   Pull down MEDIA menu and click on THIS WEEKS MESSAGE.

He has just started a series on Revelation and it was so good.

The day went not as planned with Annie’s little Gracie here and stuff happening.  It was 6 last night when I decided that we were done for the day.  Rick was running late and since he was bringing the supper home (fish), we were able to do this.

Today will be better.

We are going to pick the tomatoes and get them stewing to can later and then get right on to school.  It is supposed to be warm and so we may have to head to the beach to swim one last time.

First I have to go get my laundry moving because it is not my day and the girls have words with me when I use their days to do my laundry.  They stand their with their hand on their hip, finger wagging at me telling my that I made the chart and so I had better stick with it.   WHERE did they learn that behavior??????    

I will have a post about the wedding soon, I promise.  So many thoughts and memories still rolling around in my head…

Blessed so much,

Joyce

God is good!

Psalm 25:8 says; Good and upright is the Lord.  So TRUE!

I have lived by a principle for many years of stating what ever good thought come to my mind out loud.  God challenged me to this years ago as the power to bless is within the tongue.   So…… if I think something good about someone, I tell them, even a stranger.  And when I see God’s goodness in my life I will speak out loud “God is good.”    This is a fact, the Bible teaches us this.

After the last week of out life, I am able to say over and over again that GOD is GOOD.

Here is why:

God brought us dear friends and family to celebrate this wedding with us.

God provided the most beautiful weather for us over this week, and sunsets galore.

God provided wisdom for us to work with flowers and decorating the tent which was all done beautifully.

God provided the love for Jeni and jason

God provided our family times together where we could love and support one another

God helped me find things that were missing, keep track of very important things, have enough food in the pantry and fridge and trunks of cars ( very convenient place for storing liters of soda and canned items when you lack storage areas as I do! )

God provided a friend to take care of a need I had

God provided friends and family who helped, filled in the gaps, did what we could not do, stood with us to see this wedding to completetion

God provided patience for me with the bathroom only getting done on Friday, and the ability to NOT see the tools that were left in the living room and outside that bathroom…..    ggrrrrrrr.

I could go on and on.  I will in later posts, but I just have to praise Him right now and say that He is indeed good!

Blessed, so blessed

Joyce

Beach fun in Sister Bay. It was beautiful in every way.

Labor Day fishboil. Lots of fun with neighbors and summer friends. The view was beautiful and the sun warm. Jeff and Mark did the fish boil. I always enjoy seeing the guys hanging out together on the truck, and we all wonder what they are talking about and laughing at when we watch them! We brought a salad that was completely from our garden other then the fetta cheese as Rick won’t let me have milking animals………….. yet! Wonderful time!

Annie’s Day At The Beach. First we arrived and set up our chairs facing the late afternoon sun as all good tanners do! Then Annie set up camp and started to relax, listening to her new i-pod. Then I started the process of getting the girls to go in and swim. This story tells how it went! :)

You cannot bribe us mom, we will not go any deeper, we have trusted you before when you have said it is warm, and then we FROZE! No way, we know better. Melody is young and doesn’t know what we know!

This water is too cold. My ankles are numb.

Meanwhile, there goes Melody. Always the first to go in and the last to get out. What a good little Scandinavian girl!

OK, I said…. do not splash me, I do not want my dress wet, do you hear me??

You said WHAT? You don’t want to get splashed? You have got to be kidding, I am your older sister and I will splash you if I want to!!

That’s it, now my dress got splashed and my hair may have gotten wet, I am OUT of here. Besides, the water is freezing!

I will sit here and work on my tan, and take pictures while listening to my i-pod, it is your loss family! And it was. The End.

Melody and my drip castle. We made it too close to the water and even after shoring up the water side with rocks, the waves washed some of it away. Oh well! Lots of fun anyway.

This was the wedding shower for Anna, dear friend’s daughter. Anna has been blessed with a godly man and they will do great things for the kingdom of God. Anna and Coltin will marry in Oct.. Mandy is a bridesmaid. The shower was at the lovely beach-house of Anna’s grandparents and gives you a picture of the old Ephraim style of doing lake houses in the 30-40’s. The house and view are just beautiful.

Playing at the beach yesterday. I even went in and swam. Although cooler it was refreshing and fun.

On Monday we had four children that we were watching, here are two of them. Sammy, our big kindergarten boy who started school yesterday. Annie and Gracie, who is so funny and cute. What a fun and VERY busy day!

Ellison Bay Beach fun with Annie, Gracie, Sammy and Melody

This weekend we had a cookout with dear friends at Peninsula Park. It was a beautiful night with dear friends, enjoying God’s creation.

Things accomplished —

This has been a good week, although tiring as usual.

Here is what we have accomplished.

4 cleaning jobs

dog sitting for T and L

finding a bridesmaid dress for Melody

test run on the reception bouquets

purchasing more of the candles, votive holders etc..

purchasing the flowers and items to make the hair wreaths for flower girls

going though dresses to find my dress…. actually have two to choose from, one is black which I would pair with pink shoes and pink shawl, or a blue one with beading on the bodice and empire waist.  I will model that for the girls later today and get their opinion.  Pray for me….. I face a tough crowd!

returned almost all of the dresses we have tried.  I know this sounds wasteful but we live 100 miles from malls and stores so this has worked the best for  saving time and money in the long run.

we have Kristi all signed up for Liberty University and she starts classes on-line Sept. 21.  She is going for her bachelor of arts in Education.  She can get her degree fully on -line for $30,000  where to attend a state school it would be $64,000, let alone the price of a Christian college or private university.   She may only do the on-line for a year or so but the savings will be substantial.

Dealt with a second inner-outer ear infection for Annie.  Her doctor told her she can enjoy the rest of summer but only up to her neck….. so no getting her head wet at the beach.   Bummer!

Canned green beans from our garden.

Melody blanched and froze 4 bags of broccoli from our garden,  all by herself!  Not bad for an eleven year old.

Took Mandy to dinner in Green Bay and got to spend some time with her.

thoroughly cleaned out our closet and bagged up clothes for Goodwill, and I even kept myself from taking a second look through the bags!  Ridded myself of a number of shoes I cannot wear, except for a couple high-heels for fun nights out on the town!  Otherwise it is Birkenstocks for me,    very satisfying for my “inner hippy”!

Checked in a very grumpy couple to our cottage and stayed happy and pleasant despite their bad attitude!

Delighted in rain for our gardens,  good fishing, my sensible and wonderful husband, flowers on my dining room table, beautiful daughters, happy son, cooler weather and God’s faithfulness.

Been blessed

Joyce

Sorry this is the wrong way, It is our woodstove lit, in the middle of August. See story below.