Florida Trip - Our first Quinces Ball

Our week trip to Fort Lauderdale was primarily to help our niece, Camila, with her Quinces coming-out affair/ball. The main ballroom at the Marriott Hotel was the site for the formal occassion. We spent our first three days, assisting Cami's parents with their last minute arrangements. Cami had already posed for the formal picture below a week before we arrived. This framed photo was on display outside the ballroom doors. Since the theme for the Quinces was "A Venetian masquerade ball", Cami & 16 of her high school friends had been practicing waltzing for almost a month on the week-ends with a hired dance instructor. Cami had chosen teal & gold for her colors. The next picture shows part of the table settings. There were 20 tables of ten settings in the ballroom for the 200 guests. Each centerpiece was unique & designed by Cami's godfather, Eladio, who is a florist. We watched him construct the centerpieces the day before.

The men all wore tuxes & the women formal gowns. I borrowed a gown from my sister-in-law, along with shoes & purse to match. She and I went for a manicure & pedicure the morning of the ball. This was my very first manicure or pedicure in my life. I felt quite pampered.

Cami waltzed with her Dad, as well as two high school partners, at the beginning of the evening.

A delicious dinner followed. Then Cami had relatives & friends light the 15 candles around her cake before the D.J. began the dancing that lasted until nearly 0100 a.m.

Here is Jerry, Louis' brother and family. Natalie, the older daughter, flew down from Welsley in the Boston area, to attend her sister's Quinces. Jerry & Nancy are both physicians practicing medicine in Fort Lauderdale. Camila is a Sophomore in High School.

Another Florida Trip First ...

Can you tell that Louis was pleased as punch to be attending his first professional football game & to be seated in the second row at the 50 yard line right behind the Dolphins' bench? His brother has season tickets for this spot & gifted us with the tickets to the Miami Dolphins vs. Oakland Raiders game while we were visiting in mid-Nov. He loaned Louis all the proper Dolphin duds, as well. The weather was perfect for football...in the 60's & low humidity for Miami. We participated in the cheering & "the wave". We could really hear the impact of the blocks on the field! Our location allowed us to watch Dan Carpenter, the ex-kicker from the U. of MT Grizzlies, who is in his rookie year with the Dolphins. Dan warmed up before each kick right in front of us. It was easy to see that he still wears his Grizzly shoe on his right foot, although his left foot was in the regular Dolphin shoe. His fieldgoal kick in the last seconds of the game, won the game for the Dolphins. I caught Dan in midstride with my camera, as he prepared to kick that last fieldgoal. What a great memory to take away with us!

Happy Veterans' Day!

Happy Veterans' Day! The results of the election may tarnish this day in the future. After 23 years in the Army Nurse Corps, it is still near & dear to me. A few of my co-workers have yet to retire. A couple of the children I taught in Sunday School are now military in Iraq & elsewhere. It's great that a couple of days a year are set aside to help us to remember to pray for them.

We celebrated this day so far by wrangling our big ram, who shoots blanks & our largest, most skitish ewe into the trailer & taking them to the cull market. They weighed 470 pounds together. Louis is now on his way to St. Patrick Hospital to talk with a Jewish man who just had Triple Bypass Surgery. He asked for a Jewish Chaplain & Louis received the call. Such unexpected "open doors" are cropping up more often now that Beth Tephila has been in the Missoula community for over ten years.

In less than 24 hours, we will be flying to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Our niece, Camila, is turning 15...which is a huge "coming out" time for daughters in the Hispanic culture of her Mom. It's as big as a daughter's wedding. We have been invited to a masquerade ball at the Marriott with 300-400 of their closest friends & relatives. We will be waaaay out of our comfort zone. Mixing with large groups who are drinking, dancing, telling off-color jokes & making superficial conversation is something I usually try to avoid. Our brother & sister-in-law would not take "no" for an answer. So I am now asking the Lord to keep my mind off my own discomfort by directing me to others in the group who appear to be left out.

Louis is excited about the trip, since his brother has offered tickets for seats on the 50 yard line to us for the Miami Dolphins vs. Oakland Raiders game. We have never attended an NFL or AFL game, much less had such wonderful seating. I'll take my camera along. Who knows what photo I'll be able to share with you.

Simchat Torah - Rejoicing in the Law

Today was Simchat Torah - the day to celebrate & rejoice in the Law as the Torah cycle is completed for the year. Our Torah study is restarted this next Shabbat with the first few chapters of Genesis/ B'reisheet. Orthodox Jewish communities often parade their Torah scrolls & dance around them during this celebration. Beth Tephila has just bought a Torah scroll, but since a new cover is being made for it, the Torah scroll has not arrived yet from New York. We are told it is about 150 years old from Poland. Hopefully, we will learn more of its history when we receive it.

After Al's 10-day, post-op stay at our home, he returned to Sandpoint, Idaho & I drove to Spokane to pick up Esther at the airport. She had spent a week in Tampa, Florida visiting her birth Mom & extended family.

The Fall foliage along I-90 was gorgeous. This is Alberton Gorge after just passing the homes of Alberton spread along the highway for a couple miles.

I-90 was a bit wet from the rain & snow of the day before. This day was in the 60's & showed off God's creation. The tamaracks (American Larch) were at the height of their color, as were the Aspen, Cottonwoods & brush along the Clark Fork River.

Since I arrived in Spokane about 90 minutes before Esther's flight was to land, my good friend, Julie, took me to a great breakfast/lunch place in Spokane off the Maple St. exit. As you take the exit, you turn on to Walnut Street & drive about three blocks north & see "Frank's Diner" on the left before going over the river.

We were seated in this train dining car next to a fake window, through which a conductor manikin grinned at us throughout our meal. Once we started catching up on each other's lives, I was able to ignore him. Julie had Eggs Benedict & I had an Oriental Chicken Salad. Both were delicious & medium-priced. The service was excellent.

Esther arrived safely & we repeated the beautiful 3 1/2 hour drive over two passes. Missoula was just getting dusky when we turned off I-90 onto the Reserve Street exit.

Autumn in the Montana high country

This photo of the "Three Sisters" was snapped from Lost Horse Creek Road during one of the last Fall hikes. This area is southwest of Hamilton, MT & gorgeous. The Women's Retreat speaker that we had at the end of September, Nelda Thomas, died at her home this past Friday. She lived only three more weeks after her diagnosis of metastatic pancreatic cancer & teaching at our retreat the next two days after her diagnosis! I'm envious that she is now seeing Yeshua face to face. I keep looking up. So should you.

Hag Sameach Sukkot! (Happy Feast of Tabernacles!)

The eight day Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) started last evening at sunset. Jews build booths or "sukkah" for this feast, which remind them of the booths in which people dwelt in Sinai enroute to the land of Israel. These men are carrying the lulav (branch bundle) & etrog (citron, like our lemon) which recall the ceremonies at the first & second temples during the Feast of Tabernacles. They have their prayer shawls pulled up over their heads, so they were probably caught praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I borrowed this photo from an Israeli e-mail site titled "The Lekarev Report".

Yom Kippur - Holiest Day of the Year

Today was Yom Kippur. It's the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Like most religious Jews, we fast on this day. As Messianic Jews, we believe that sometime in the future on Yom Kippur, the remnant of Israel will turn in repentance to accept Yeshua as its Messiah.

Karen, a Jewish woman who just retired from her legal secretary position, started attending Beth Tephila on Rosh HaShanah. She grew up in a religious Reformed Jewish home, but has attended nowhere for years. She asks many questions about our belief that Yeshua is the Messiah. Karen says that she doesn't believe that, but she likes our friendliness & acceptance of her at our services. She returned on Shabbat & then to the Yom Kippur service today...& plans to come back on this coming Saturday. Please pray that she will continue to be drawn to her Messiah through us.

L'Shana Tova! (Happy New Year - 5769th since creation)

L'Shana Tova! We are already six days into 5769 (years since creation according to rabbinic reckoning). Much has happened since my last posting:

. my 59th birthday & making several batches of apple cider

. more gorgeous Fall hikes - Lost Horse Canyon Overlook & Camas Lake

. defrosting our freezer so we could find our frozen food once more

. lambs taken to market

. Teaching the first three sessions of the neighborhood women's Bible Study - "A Woman's Heart- God's Dwelling Place" - with 12 attendees.

. The Hallelujah Hikers hostessing a Women's Retreat on Flathead Lake.

. Teaching 3 Puggles sessions at AWANA. Did you know a puggle is a baby platypus? The 2 & 3 year olds in AWANAs are also termed "puggles". They are so fun to teach - about creation at the moment.

. More harvesting of garden produce & pears and processing/canning of these.

. Picking up a Fall cold virus.

. Rosh HaShanah & Tashlikh services kicking off the Biblical High Holy Days.

. Hosting some of the Tucker clan for a week as their wife/Mom/Ruth was dying up the hill from us. What a privilege!

Ruth went home on Rosh HaShanah. Her memorial service was yesterday after our normal

Shabbat service.

The missing ducks...

Upon rereading my previous post, I noticed that the photo of Georgetown Lake did not show the ducks well. Here is another photo I took of the lake. The ducks are swimming in the middle of the lake under the low-lying cloud.

Georgetown Lake & Lost Creek State Park

After exploring Granite, we arrived at Judy's lakehouse as it was getting dusky. Judy & her husband built this home completely themselves from logs taken from the part of the ranch near Philipsburg that Judy inherited. Her husband is a carpenter & electrician. The quality of their work inside & out showed they are both perfectionists.

This is the view of Georgetown Lake from Judy's boatdock. If you click on the picture, you can enlarge it enough to see the ducks in the foreground. We drove about 20 miles from the lake to Lost Creek State Park, north of Anaconda, for our next hike.

Unusual geologic formations, home to bighorn sheep & mountain goats; Lost Creek Falls & an old Forest Service road through a forested canyon were the backdrop for this wonderful hike.

We found a couple of old cabins to explore on this trail, as well. After finding what appeared to be rat droppings, we chose to stop our thorough exploration. :)

Crossing the ice-cold creeks was a highlight of our hike. Judy tried crossing on the couple of tree trunks that had been placed across the creek. The makeshift bridge was unbelievably springy, dumping her into the water shortly after I snapped this photo. The rest of us decided to roll up our pantlegs & wade across. Our feet were numb by the time we reached the other side.

Fall Hikes - Varied Terrain

As beautiful Indian Summer weather has returned, the hiking group traveled to
Philipsburg, once a mining town & now a farming community & tourist town. We "hiked" around this quaint town with its many historic buildings now housing gift shops, the sapphire gallery & the Sweet Palace candy store. I learned that sapphires & rubies are both aluminum oxide crystals. All the colors except red are considered sapphires, whereas rubies are the red ones. Did you know that the next hardest substance after diamonds is sapphires/rubies? They are harder than stainless steal. My birthstone is a sapphire, so I own a star sapphire ring. Guess I won't worry about scratching it anymore. I bought some chocolate truffles & a chocolate-caramel Bear Paw to take home to Louis, my chocoholic sweetie - even though the candy store is known more for its homemade taffy.

This building, housing about 30 swallow nests, looked like an old time saloon on the bottom floor & a boarding house or place for "ladies of the evening" on the top floor.

Philipsburg is located on the outskirts of the Pintler Mountain Range. We entered the foothills above Philipsburg to find the ghost town of Granite, where millions were made mining silver.

We explored the mills, the mining shafts and what remained of the town of Granite that once housed around 5000 people during the height of the mining days.

The buildings were not built to last long, but some tin-roofed shacks are still standing.

Apricots & more apricots

This last couple of weeks have revolved around giving away & processing our bountiful apricot crop. Our apricot tree is the first to bloom in the Spring. Often the blooms are blown off the tree or newly formed buds get frozen. Not so this year. I had to thin the buds just so they would have room to grow. Our tree yields two varieties of apricots: some larger, orange apricots & many more of the smaller, yellow type. They taste about the same, but the yellow ones tend to ripen first. We have learned to pick our fruit before it is fully ripe to beat the wasps, birds & other natural robbers. This year the grasshoppers not only ate almost all of our green bean plants, but flew into the apricot tree to eat the fruit while it was still green. As shown in the picture, we laid the fruit on tarps in a spare downstairs bedroom to ripen. We gave apricots to friends & family and I started canning 7 quarts at a time. I stopped at 50 quarts & began cooking & canning apricot syrup (7 quarts) & jam (2 quarts, 1 pint). All my deserts for the Beth Tephila meals on Shabbat have featured apricots... apricot crisp, apricot bars, plain apricots in bags to take home. Louis & I are fighting diarrhea from eating so many recently. Actually, I don't want to process another apricot for at least a year!!

Photo missing - Jewel Basin

Somehow this photo got dropped from my post on the Jewel Basin hike. This was the view into Jewel Basin when we topped the ridge. You can see the "China Wall" of Glacier National Park in the first main ridge of mountains dead center. The colors of the lakes reminded me a little of the pools around Mammoth in Yellowstone National Park.

August minivacations - Trip to a family wedding reception in Red Lodge

The day after the Flathead Lake area hikes, I drove my parents across the state to Red Lodge, where my cousin was hostessing a wedding reception for her oldest daughter, Annie. They live on a ranch out of Red Lodge, with their own pond. I shot this first picture as the moon rose over their ranch, We were attending the large family BBQ out by their pond.

At the reception itself, all the greatgrand kids roamed the area & constantly kept their parents busy.

Annie & Andy were actually married over north of Seattle close to where they both just graduated from college. They showed a video of their growing up years & their wedding, then cut their cakes for the guests. We had already been served a large meal before the video. In three days, I gained three pounds. If I could only take off weight as easily as I put it on.

The newlyweds, Annie & Andy Scott.

August mini-vacations - Jewel Basin Hike

Our second day in the Flathead was spent hiking in the Jewel Basin Hiking Area Northeast of Big Fork & the lake. The whole area was gorgeous with blooming plants, some of which I had never seen in the Bitterroot.

The slopes were steep so the trail zipzagged up the mountain-side.

As we neared the top of the ridge, we saw this strange looking building that appeared so out-of-place. We walked up to & around it, learning from a couple of signs that it is a Bresnan microwave tower that had been covered with a yellow foam & painted a light grey.

Looking over the ridge, you could see five different lakes. These two were the easiest to spot. Beyond the lakes were rows of mountain ridges, some located in Glacier National Park.

We followed the ridgeline trail to the peak of Mt. Aeneus.

All types of alpine flowering plants grew near the remaining snow. We have seen this lavender Milkvetch plant on several of the mountain peaks.

You can see the ridgeline trail all along the mountains to the side & in back of me in this photo.

Two small peaks from the actual summit ...

...we sited a nanny mountain goat & her kid. She had been nursing her kid right on the trail, but nimbly walked along the rocky face of the peak a ways until she felt safe again & lay down. I used my telephoto lens to get the close-up.

Elderberries were ripe, as were the Huckleberries we picked & ate as we climbed. Fireweed in full bloom is in back of the elderberries in this picture.

This was a new plant & flower to me. Do you know it? After looking over my Montana wildflower books, I think this is Elephanthead (Pedicularis groenlandica) with some similarities to the Lousewort or Alpine fernleaf we saw at Como Lake.

Here's another unknown, but oh so pretty. After researching this wildflower, I'm fairly certain it is Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum), which originally was a native of Europe.