Missoula Musings: December 2019

2019 Immanuel... God is with us...

God has certainly been with us in 2019. Our grandchildren have grown and flourished. Our children are all doing well. We are blessed.

Apples for Housing

Probably the event that stands out this year is our outstanding Apple Harvest. We have 11 apple trees on our property and some years are better than others. This year we were certainly blessed with an abundance of apples, nearly 10,000 pounds. It was inspiring to see over 100 people of all ages come out (even when we had very cold weather) to pick apples, press juice and cut up apples for apple pies. The donations we received for the juice and apple pies went to a fundraiser to build a Family Housing Shelter to support families experiencing homelessness and domestic abuse. We called it Apples for Housing! We felt so fortunate to be able to share our bounty to make housing available for families. Enjoy this video that shows just how much fun we had!

Family Reunion at FLBC

Another place God was with us this year was at the Fagenstrom Family Reunion at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp in honor of sister Jane and her husband Duane's 50th Wedding Anniversary. We enjoyed a wonderful weekend of fellowship and fun including hiking, swimming, boating, crafting and just relaxing at camp. Oh yes-- we did eat well too! Lots of cousins and their families were there to celebrate and recreate. Here's a little video about our weekend.

Kids and Grandkids

As you can see from our Christmas card, our world certainly revolves around our grandkids- Bethany, 4 and a HALF and Freddie, 20 months. They spend 3 days a week with us and we get Bethany to and from preschool. It has been so fun to be a part of their growing. We did some camping, boating, gardening and skiing with them.

Erik continues to live and work in Arizona. We haven't seen him as much as we'd like- but did enjoy a great Christmas with him.

Liz and Chris are in Louisiana. Chris works for the State of Louisiana as an attorney and Liz is working hard to finish up her doctorate at LSU. We're hoping to celebrate with her in May. They were home in August for our niece Melissa's wedding.

Ike and Kathie continue to work as engineers here in Missoula. We enjoyed a couple of family vacations with them this year. One to Canada in January and one to California in June. They bought a new-to-them bigger house this year and we have enjoyed moving our family activities to their house.

Ron and I continue in our retirement ventures and caring for grandkids. Ron does some consulting across the state for the Autism Education Project, and keeps things running at home and church. He's started building a drift boat this year. I keep busy with church activities, coordinating an annual conference and a women's retreat. (Oh yes- I do like to make little videos-- you can subscribe to my You Tube channel if you'd like to see more of them) I have enjoyed helping with the See Them Home Campaign for the Family Housing Center and many quilting projects. Together we enjoy spending time with some of our surrogate grandkids- Luke, Leo, Gillian and Orlena. We've taken some trips and done some camping and floating as often as possible during the summer.