APRIL

Kona after diving in the snow! John & Kona...in the street during our last blizzard!

Sorry for the delay in posts. We've been keeping busy!

Last month John spent a week in Omaha for some training for the Corps. Kristi has been busy with school...making presentations to various area churches, trying to solicit more financial support for the school. She continues to see how God takes care of the school in so many ways. The school has struggled financially this past year...people come in with donations just at the right time. The "thorn" in Kristi's side all year have been the positions of a worker for Before/After School Care and the custodian. This past week, the custodian she had hired in October, literally walked off the job. The school staff was amazing as they pitched in to help Kristi with the cleaning...vacuuming their classrooms and the hallways, taking their trash out, even helping with the bathrooms. A few days later, Kristi called a recently retired member of the church who also serves on the Properties Board for the church, explained the situation and asked him if he'd consider helping out. Without any hesitation, he said, "sure!"---you can't begin to know the relief this brought. Not only is the position filled---but with someone far better than she could have ever hoped for! The previous custodian did not do the best job, so it wasn't a great loss when he quit. The new hire is a man who cares very much for his church's property, and will take great care of the building.

The other position that had been hard to keep filled all year was our Before/After Care. It literally has been "pieced" together this year...sometimes with the school staff having to cover the mornings. On Friday, another member of the church approached Kristi and asked if she still needed help with the position. She said yes. They offered to take the mornings and afternoons for the rest of the school year as well as being interested in doing it all of next school year as well! He had worked in this position in previous school years...and is someone the kids like being around, while at the same time providing structure and discipline needed in the position.

We continue to work on home improvement projects...keeping up with regular housework, as well as Kristi still having boxes to unpack. John has done a lot of work adding additional insulation to our home. He took wood trim off in the lower level to discover no insulation had been put in on that level when the house was built. He's gone through a lot of cans of expandable spray foam! You can really tell the difference. We used to always have to use a blanket when watching tv in our family room, but now it is comfortable without! We're hoping to notice a difference in our utility bills next winter!

We recently enjoyed 17 inches of snow...despite the hassle to shovel our way out...it really was pretty. We had been debating most of the winter about purchasing a snowblower. About a month ago or so, John was out shoveling when the lady across the street came over and told him that she recently acquired a snowblower. She was willing to let him use it on our driveway as long as he took care of her driveway as well. DEAL! You can't beat a deal like that!! The total snowfall amount for our area this winter is just over 100 inches! We are less than 2 inches from setting a new all-time snowfall record in the Bismarck area. Kristi has been asked how she feels about this record during her 1st ND winter...she says, "Bring it on!" She figures it would be a fun fact that her 1st winter was a record breaking one! For those friends and family down south...don't worry that it is now April...we can get snow in April, and sometimes even into May. John says it has even been known to snow in June here!

All that talk of snow...and we're making plans for our summer garden. We bought seeds this weekend and plan to start our garden indoors so it will be ready to plant outside when it does finally warm up. We plan to plant tomatoes, green beans, carrots, potatoes, peppers, cucumbers, peas, watermelon and more. We decided that we should be adventurous and plant something each year that neither one of us has had or would under normal circumstances consider planting. This year's pick: spaghetti squash. We'll let you know in a few months how that turns out!

Kona continues to amuse us! She has had so much fun in the snow this winter, we're a bit concerned how she'll handle the outdoors when the snow is all gone! We've had snow on the ground all but 2 weeks since we adopted her! She loves to dive into the deep drifts!