Aaron and a couple others from church worked hard and made and put on baseboards in the church's hallway/lobby area. They look very nice!
Since we both love salsa, we had fun making some together - we might even try a batch sometime with twice as many peppers...
Aaron cutting peppers...my hair was a mess or something like that, so he got to be the model. I thought when we planted this big garden, I was going to have to harvest it all myself, but Aaron enjoys the garden work and he's the one that decides what needs to be harvested each day.
We used a gift card we got for our wedding to buy this Kitchen Aid attatchment. We canned 8 pints that day and have done 7 more since and hope to get another couple batches ( and maybe some other tomato things.) I know that doesn't sound like much to all you big-family-expert-canners, but we were pretty happy :)
Aaron and our cabbage - we've also been harvesting more peas, corn, beets, and cucumbers. I have a feeling this cool September weather is going to slow things down now though.

On Monday, Aaron surprised me in the morning by telling me we were going to the "Fall on the Farm" day at the Mennonite Village Museum in Stienbach, MB. That's one of my very favorite places to go, and Aaron enjoys it too, so we had a great day! One of the main attractions was the old fashioned threshing machine demonstration.
Aaron enjoyed all of the old machinery - this is a steam powered tractor. Here it was hooked up to a sawmill type operation.
On special days like this one, they have people in the different buildings demonstrating different skills. I took my few-second turn at butter-churning. Although...I had to buy butter yesterday and it makes churning not seem like such a bad option :)
The windmill - we chatted with the "miller" (as well as several other people) and he said the wind in southern MB is too sparodic to keep up a windmill all day.
Aaron on the deck of the windmill. On the drive up, we talked about our memories of the last time we went there together - about a month before I even knew he was interested in me :) My family was suspicious though and paid attention that day, but at the end, they concluded he really didn't like me - it was just the farm! I'm sure glad we were wrong :) !!

Aaron in the "Semlin" - basically a sod house. We figured we could probably make one of those fairly quickly and cheaply....

They butchered a hog that morning and were working on it all day, then concluded by having an auction to sell the different parts. In this picture, I believe the man is making "head cheese". I've never had it, but I've heard it's something like bologna.

Since there's only two of us...we bought a couple treats.

We shared a "waffle with vanilla sauce" - it was very good and a lady gave us the recipe, so I'm going to try it one of these days. Maybe she felt bad - when Aaron gave her American money, she said, "oh, you don't look like Americans." Is that a compliment or an insult? :) We certainly don't look like Canadians, but she must have mistaken us for Mennonites...It actually was kind of nice, there were soooo many ladies in skirts of one kind or another, that I didn't feel like I stood out :)

Aaron in front of an oak tree that came from the acorn of a famous oak tree in Southern Russia where many of the Mennonites came from.

3 New Posts

Hello! I think I say this every post, but we've been very busy the last few weeks...In July we took some of the Sunday school kids fishing off the docks in Warroad - we didn't catch any fish, but I think the ice cream afterwards made up for it :)

Aaron and I went to help out at the Good News Tent at the fair one evening - it was very slow, but we got to help a little. I told the Evangecube, instead of the wordless book, to children who had been there a couple years in a row.

We've had a couple days already of freezing beans and peas - and on Thursday we tried making pickles - we'll find out in a few weeks if we did it right!

Saturday, July 31, we left for Camp JIM, near Baxter, MN - On Sunday the campers arrived (about 78 - including 3rd graders through high school) and we had a great week.

Aaron was the "camp pastor" so he kept very busy - he preached Sunday night and Friday morning to everyone, then the other days, he did children's chapel at 9, went right to preach to the teens after that, and in the afternoon he did a Bible study for the teens and one for the children. Plus he did cabin devotions a couple nights...

The above picture is during children's chapel - Aaron taught for a little bit, and also told a Bible story. I helped with playing piano, teaching a verse, and doing a review game.

This is during children's Bible study - Our theme for the week was the "armor of God" and they had the same emphasis each day during chapel, Bible study, and devotions, so hopefully they'll remember what they learned - I know I learned some things!

This is the chapel building (they have chapel in the morning because it gets very warm in here in the evening...) and below it is the dining hall.

The first few days of camp it seemed like the campers, particularly the teens, were very unresponsive to the preaching and spiritual things, but the Lord worked, and by the end of the week about 18 boys and girls accepted Jesus as their Savior! and many others gave their lives to Christ. It was pretty exciting!

I got to pray with one little boy - he was crying - and in all the years I've worked with children, I've never seen that. Aaron got to lead several children to the Lord and we also were able to talk to half-a-dozen teens or kids that had some questions about eternal security and other things like that.

This was the outside of our cabin -

We were very spoiled - you know how camp normally is, well, they let us stay in a brand new cabin that looked more like a hotel than camp!

The last morning, they had a baptism for a few of the children who had been saved.

We had to pull this big trailer to Badger on Friday afternoon, so we borrowed this big desiel truck for the week - it was kind of fun :)

This past week we helped out with a Vacation Bible School in Badger, MN (about a 40 min. drive) Aaron did rally time at the beginning and end, taught the 8-12 year olds Bible time and led game time. I just played a little piano and sort of helped out wherever. It all went well - there were about 18 kids enrolled.

The hat Aaron is wearing in this picture belonged to the pastor's father - it's from the early teens!
The begining of this week was very warm, so the kids enjoyed this sponge-and-water relay :)
The ladies at the church did a great job with the crafts and snacks.
Just because a post wouldn't be complete without a garden picture....here you are -
On Saturday, Aaron and I walked in a 5K walk/run that our town has - Very good exersize!

In case any of you are wondering about the baby - he/she is doing well - or at least that's what it seems like - and so am I. Only 2 and a half months 'till October 28! - and if it's born early, it'll be even sooner, so pray for us!

We're planning on actually being home for a while now, so hopefully I'll stay in better touch - Have a great week!

Summer work at the Satchwills

We've finally had a couple whole weeks without any trips! Here's just a few pictures of everyday life around our home -

This is me cleaning blueberries. We went blueberry picking three times - the mosquitos were horrible! (at least a couple of the times) We were dressed like we were prepared for cold, only it wasn't the cold we were worried about...It's such a blessing to just be able to go out and pick berries though without having to buy them.

We made a bunch of blueberry lime jam again (we did last summer too) and had fun doing it together :)

Aaron and I sort of have a method of operation worked out - I'm very glad not to have to do all of that work myself!

We also made strawberry jam (above) and raspberry jam -

Aaron checking something out on his truck - I have a lot of pictures of Aaron in these posts, but that's just the way it worked out. He wears many hats!

Normally church people mow the lawn, but sometimes that's Aaron - the lawn is very wet, so he tries to mow it when he has a chance to do it dry!

We went out to the farm one day last week and Mom helped me with some wedding picture stuff (speaking of which, I'll try to post some more of them sometime...) and Aaron helped Dad and the guys with baling hay.

More garden pictures...thanks to Aaron's care and the Lord sending us good whether, the garden is doing fine - we've been eating lettuce and radishes from it and the peas will be ready soon!

Aaron having fun with the tiller :)

More 4th of July

Hello! I noticed the my Mom and Rachel have already posted 4th of July pictures, so I'll try not to duplicate their posts.

It was a beautiful day - Aaron took the above picture as we were driving home from the parade

Sunday morning, our church (Westside Baptist) had a patriotic service down by "The Point" - We were pleased with the turn-out (about 40 people) and everything went smoothly. At the last minute, we decided to have it inside the picnic shelter instead of on the trailor/bleachers - a good thing because halfway through the sermon it started to rain!

Someone found this keyboard for us to borrow - I've never played piano outside before, especially connected to a big speaker! There was no pedal, which was a little odd, but overall it went ok.

Aaron started and ended the sermon with history of our nation's founding and in the middle gave the gospel - telling how we can each have freedom from sin and it's eternal punishment.

Jeshua, Joshua, Matthias, and Caleb (there were a couple other boys around too...) - they "chased" Isaac to the house with cap-guns.

Miriam and Hosanna and someone's teddy bear...We went over to the Ortmann's for a picnic on Saturday, but sadly, I don't have any pictures from then, and on the 4th we had a picnic at the Krahn's -

One of the nice things about getting together in the summer is there's more room! This is Rebekah and David, and Joanna (Rebekah's sister) admiring the new puppies.

Elizabeth and Grandma looking at Aaron and I's scrapbook -

Abby, Benjamin, and Uncle Bruce playing Baulderdash in the evening -

Abby, Rachel, and Priscilla (and a few others...) playing Rook -

Then later in the evening we all caravaned down to the lakefront (about dusk - 10:15) and watched fireworks - Actually, Aaron and I watched the fireworks together last year - only a lot has changed since then...this time we held hands :)

Rhubarb!

Last week I made some rhubarb jam - it was my first time really canning without Mom there to answer questions - I think I only called home once....It went really well (it should have considering all the jam Aaron and I made last summer! - he helped me with putting the jam in jars) and looks nice in our pantry.

The rhubarb cooking down -

What else is new? We just started a Bible study Wednesday evenings on a little book called the "Treasure Principle"...Aaron read it and enjoyed it so much he had me read it and now we're going through it at church. It basically says that giving isn't a drudgery, it's smart b/c it's storing up treasures in heaven where they'll last forever.

One last thing - it was Aaron's 31st birthday yesterday! We were in Grand Forks, so I brought his gift along (even though I ordered it with his money...) and we went out for supper.

So Happy Birthday to the best husband in the whole world ! :)