About 28 hours after the Conns left, 🙁 we had the joy of hosting the Staddon family for a few days!! While passing through on their way back to West  Virginia, they blessed us by spending their New Year’s Eve with us! It would take hours to tell about all of the JOYFUL activities that took  place; but we’ll spare you the time and just give a few highlights. 🙂

– watching “The Star of  Bethlehem” and then discussing the incredible power, sovereignty, majesty, and wisdom of our Creator

– playing many games, including Dutch Blitz, Occupation, Catan, Duck-Duck-Goose, Swap, Kings-and-Peasants, etc. 

– listening to the Staddon family practice beautiful family harmony – with voice (esp. the quintet 🙂 ), piano, violin, and handbells

– getting to feed many large appetites 🙂

– spending quality times around the table, reading the Bible, relating our most embarrassing moments, sharing spiritual insights, singing, laughing, writing  lists of everything else we wanted to do, etc. 🙂

-gaining experience and knowledge regarding photography and operating a website and blog (special thanks to James and Robert!)

– staying up to a record time of 4:00 a.m. on New  Years  Eve

– blowing up our gingerbread house

  Well, needless to say, when the “Staddon  Wagon” pulled out of our driveway on Friday, we were left with a sense of loss but also one of having been wonderfully refreshed! One   particular thing we appreciate about the Staddon family is their constant JOY!! (That comes from having Jesus first, Others second, and Yourself last.) Whether in helping prune our fruit trees, eating a peanut butter ball, helping  clear the table, or playing Catan, they constantly had smiles and words of encouragement!  Thank you, Staddons!

Note: For more stories and  pictures, please visit the Staddons’ blog!! (We promise, it’ll be worth it just to see the incredible gingerbread-house-explosion shots!!!)