Monday, March 19, 2012

Merry Christmas


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to our friends and family,

Since school is such a major part of my life I decided to give you a pop quiz. Circle the letter in each group of statements that is FALSE. 


Warren stayed busy:


  1. Remodeling the sanctuary at Christian Community Church
  2. Getting our Hoop House ready to plant
  3. Eating pie and ice cream every day
  4. Using the backhoe to clean up and landscape our property
  5. Getting the yacht in the water after working on it for 10 years

     
Ellirene worked at:
  1. Sleeping 12 hours a night and reading for pleasure
  2. Educating 4 great kids to think and reason for themselves
  3. Working in the Children's ministry at church
  4. Feeding and cleaning the members of my household

     
Jayce fills his time:
  1. Rebuilding and fixing computers for family and friends
  2. Daily blowing things up as he "finally" gets to take chemistry
  3. Working in the sound booth at church
  4. Being Warren's right hand man at home and at work


Emerald flies through her days:
  1. Reading as much as she can possibly get by with
  2. Working to convince her parents the ranch needs a horse
  3. Directing her sisters in the myriad of pretend games they play
  4. Enjoying the chore of washing eggs


Alectra spends the hours:
  1. Loves to help weed and vacuum when it is her turn
  2. Playing with Playmobil and Barbies
  3. Practicing piano and competing with Alexis over who has harder music
  4. Reading, ballet and holding the cats fill in any free time
Alexis enjoys:
  1. Playing pretend with the other girls
  2. Competing with Alectra over anything that come along
  3. Vacuuming and weeding are her two favorite chores
  4. Kitties, books and ballet


Together we:
  1. Planted and weeded 3000+ sq. ft. of Hoop house and garden
  2. Butchered 65 chickens, 7 Turkeys, and canned 100 pints of salmon
  3. Have canned and frozen a winters worth of veggies
  4. Sell 100 dozen eggs a week


As a family we:
  1. Partnered with some friends and purchased a Laundromat
  2. Learned to make our own hay with our new "old tractor"
  3. Went on vacation to the Antarctic this summer
  4. Enjoy working and playing together


As a family we:
  1. Hope that you have a wonderful holiday season with family and friends
  2. Pray that you cultivate a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ
  3. Trust that you will live life full of joy and contentment
  4. Are all on Facebook every day for several hours
  5. Invite you to check our blog: www.millersmadrigal.blogspot.com occasionally

Love, Warren, Ellirene,
Jayce, Emerald, Alectra, and Alexis
13    11        8        8


The correct answers are: 3, 1, 2, 4, 1, 3, 4, 3, 4,

  May Jesus be real in your life, this season and throughout the year.
Homemade eggnog is SO yummy!

Working on the Washboard

Most of the fall was spent working on the Washboard. We gutted the basement down to the studs in some places. The lights in the dropped cealing were plug-in shop lights hooked together with several different extension cords draped over the joists.  The previous owners had dogs inside and the carpets smelled awful. The kids love demolition!  Warren worked for a week jacking up the beams and joists so the floor upstairs was at least close to level.

We tackled the upstairs as we could after hours and repainted everything, put up new vents, and at last we got to start putting the new floor in.  We closed three days, worked our tails off and with a little help got the main floor in. We put web crete down to patch the huge holes and put new underlayment down over the whole thing. 
Mr. Precision.  It has to be perfectly square and no excuses!
Jayce helped everyday as long as he could. We took off school and I cleaned and painted the concrete under the washers.  It usedto be butter yellow but we went with a taupey gray. Is that a color?  One of the employees came and helped so we tackled one of the walls with some color too, not the gray.
Caulking the crack, tubes and tubes of caulk!
In the arcade the floor already had underlayment so we had to scrape the old tiles off.  That was a chore! We had a blister contest, and Warren won but Emerald was a close second.

The night we were putting everything back together so we could open, the computer died.  Rick Porter, the computer guy, from church came down at 9 p.m. to see if he could resurrect it for the time being.  He and Jayce got it runing by the next day.  It had too much lint in the fans, fins and motherboard.  Thankfully Jayce has several fuctional computers laying around and one of his had the right ports for the cash drawer.  So we were able to open on time.  God is amazing!
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Rene's birthday

Emerald and Jayce made my favorite lemon pound cake for my birthday in Nov. 40+ candles do make a cheery little blaze. It was  so yummy!
I was surprised with TWO new canners.  My old one was too small and sometimes I couldn't get it to hold pressure. Look out Red Salmon, I can do three times as many jars in the same amount of time. Thank you, my family!
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