Another Great Christmas Program!

Last night we traveled to the Beavertown God's Missionary Church for their annual Christmas program.
This years program was an outstanding production called "The Drummer Boy."
Here are some pictures from the program.

Doug Rine played Joseph as only Doug Rine could!

This also included singing a song.

Here is Daniel sharing part of the great story with his sister.

Here, Daniel's family discusses the recent events. I believe this was after Daniel went to the city council meeting trying to get them to change the law that outlawed Christmas.

Here, Simeon (Matt Maloyed) meets Jesus (Cayden Rine). I don't believe Cayden was very impressed with "Simeon"!

Mr. Pablo and Daniel discuss the great story.

Steve Stahl did another great job singing.

The mayor (Jeff Stratton) getting upset with Daniel. I think this was after Daniel walked around the council meeting playing his drum and singing.

Daniel playing his drum for Jesus.

He is then joined by his family - including his father who had given him a hard time.

The neighbor who was getting annoyed with Daniel's drum playing.

Mr. Pablo watching the change that is coming over the city as a result of his gift of a drum to Daniel.

Jeff Stratton as himself closing the service.

"Simeon" was walking around outside blessing the people.

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Maybe They Were The Low Bidder!

I'm sorry this picture is blurry, but I was in a hurry when I took it.
This picture could serve as an example of why it might not always be a good idea to go with the lowest bidder on a project!
Our local Wal-Mart recently had some paving done in their parking lot. As Dad and I were coming across the road on our way to the car this evening, I saw where the painting had been done on the road across in front of the store and I decided this would make a good blog post!
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Brave?

As you might be able to tell, I decided to get adventurous with my blog!
I thought about the possibility of losing my links if I changed the background, but I decided to be brave (or should that be crazy?) and make the change!
Everything went fine and I kind of like it!
Let me know what you think!
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Youth Service

Tonight was another one of our youth services at church. The young people had the whole service.
Here are a few pictures from our special service.
It was good to have Adam Sickler in church today - he led the singing for the service tonight.
Here's our girls trio (Angela, Serena and Julia Sickler) singing a special - they did real good.

Here we have the Sickler Choir - Angela, Linnette, Joel, Serena Hannah, Julia and Adam - singing a song - they sounded great.

Joel led the service and gave a message on praise - he did a good job.

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My Christmas List

I've seen this on a couple other blogs and I thought it was neat, so I decided to do it on my blog.

1 Wrapping paper or gift bags? Depends on what the gift is – I like wrapping paper, but sometimes a bag is quicker and easier.
2. Real tree or Artificial? Real – We used to have an artificial tree, then we had real ones for a while, then we had an artificial for a couple years, now we’ve been getting a real one for the past couple years.
3. When do you put up the tree? I really don’t think there’s any set schedule for that.
4. When do you take the tree down? See answer for number 3!
5. Do you like eggnog? Yes – sometimes it doesn’t like me though!
6. Favorite gift received as a child? There have been so many highlights that I can’t pick out just one.
7. Hardest person to buy for? My Grandmother
8. Easiest person to buy for? My Brother
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Actually, I think we have five of them: 1. The ceramic set that we’ve had for as long as I can remember. – 2. The big lighted set that we put out in the front yard. – 3. The very small set that I take to work. – 4. The small wooden set that I made a few years ago. – 5. I think there’s another old set that we don’t use anywhere.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mom and Dad usually take care of the Christmas cards. They mail quite a few – they might email some, I’m not sure. I usually have these good intentions of sending Christmas cards to a few people, but I haven’t done it yet – hopefully this year I will.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? That would be the time I got some kind of goofy action figure thing in a gift exchange in public school. Dad gave me some money for it and I bought a Slim Whitman gospel tape - I think I still have that tape!
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? I don’t know that I’ve ever actually seen a Christmas movie!
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? No set schedule, but not soon enough this year.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I don’t think so.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Ham
16. Lights on the tree? Colored
17. Favorite Christmas song? Beautiful Star Of Bethlehem – done bluegrass style - Is there any other way for that song to be done?!
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay at home until we go over to my Grandmother’s.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? No
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? I honestly don’t remember – it’s been too long since I’ve seen it!
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas Morning
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? People complaining about the holidays when I’m trying to enjoy them!
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I don’t really have a favorite – I guess I just like the variety!
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Ham, Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, Corn
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Mom has been asking me about this – on the material side, I haven’t given her a whole lot of help. One thing that I would say that I want would be to just have a relaxing time with my family.
Now you know a little more about me! Maybe more than you wanted to know, but isn't that what these blogs are about anyway?!
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A Family Trait?

Could athletic talent run in the family?

In The News

Here is a picture of a newspaper article that we saw recently.

Update - Mom thought I should offer an explanation of this post. If you look at my previous post, you will see that we were at a museum yesterday and that is where we saw this newspaper article. If you click on the picture and enlarge it (or maybe you don't have to enlarge it), you can see that the article is about a Frank Calhoun - but the fact does remain that it's a Calhoun!

I know - we shouldn't judge a whole family by one person!

Just kidding you Tim - again!

A Special Day!

I had the day off for Veterans Day today. I knew we were planning on going to State College, but when we left the house, we ended up in the Huntingdon area. You can tell from looking at a map that going to State College by going to Huntingdon is not the shortest route possible!
Well, here are some pictures of why we were in the Huntingdon area - the Isett Acres Museum. For more pictures - check Dad's blog here.
This is the first building that you go through.
These are the other two buildings.

Mom playing one of the two grand pianos.

Dad standing beside one of the vehicles (a big boat of a Lincoln!) in the museum -

Me standing beside the other one - a Morris pick-up.

This was our tour guide for the last two buildings. I don't know what her name was, but she did a great job!

We stopped on top of the Pine Grove Mountain at the Jo Hays Vista - what a beatiful view!

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A Family Photo

Get your own Family Sticker Maker

I Jumped The Gun!

In my previous post, I referred to a certain fellow blogger who had not attended our Revival Services this week. I posted that before church this evening and lo and behold, who should show up at church this evening but the Prodigal Blogger!
Here he is sitting with his family in church. Yes, believe it or not, he was actually seen with his wife this evening!
Here he is singing "He Didn't Throw The Clay Away" - Bro. Thornton requested that Tim sing, so here he is.

Please excuse the quality of these first two pictures, but don't you think it's appropriate that since I'm posting pictures of Tim Calhoun that I post Tim Calhoun type pictures?!

As proof that we will extend the hand of fellowship to anyone, here is a picture of Dad talking to Tim as he is leaving the church this evening.

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Revival Services!

As you may recall if you read The Happy Pastor blog, we have been having Revival Services this week at our church with Rev. Robert Thornton.
The attendance hasn't been too bad - some that we thought would be here haven't been (there was one individual - a fellow blogger - who Dad made sure got one of the Revival cards, but we haven't seen him either), but we have had quite a few visiting folk in, so we've been thankful for that.
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Wayback Memories

I know, this is probably a shock - I'm actually posting on here two days in a row!
One of my fellow bloggers has an occasional feature that he calls "Wayback Wednesday" where he posts a picture from the past - some from the distant past, some from the not so distant past.
I decided to do something similar here - I don't know if I should call it "Wayback Monday" or "Monday Memories" - I guess I'll have to decide that later.
Here is an announcement for a Penn View Bible Institute service when Dad was pastoring in Berwick. This group actually consists of at least three current bloggers.
The members of this group are: Seated, left to right - Terri (Devinney) Walter, Kim (Helfrick) Hoffman; Standing, left to right - Mike Shiery, Jon Plank
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Follow The Path!

Dad did an object lesson in church tonight.
He had stickers on the floor laying out a path.
He got Dorothy Olnick to help him - she followed the path which eventually took her downstairs. There were things which she was supposed to pick up that were laying on the path. He had planned on getting someone else to help him, but they weren't at church tonight.
There were also other things laying near the path. She said she didn't pick those things up because they weren't on the path.
Dad's point was about not getting off of the path.
In this picture, Dorothy has returned and is showing Dad what she found on the path.

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A Surprise!

No, the title of this post is not referring to the fact that I am actually posting on this blog, although that is probably a surprise too!
It's referring to a surprise that I had yesterday.
I had heard something being mentioned yesterday morning when we were eating breakfast about something in the afternoon. Later on, I asked Mom what that was about and she asked me if I wanted to know or if I just wanted to wait and find out. For some reason, I said I would wait. When we left, I still didn't know what we were doing. Actually, we didn't go all that far from home (about 3.5 miles), but it was still neat.
We went to the Locust Campground where they have a boat that they use to take people on rides on a restored section of the Juniata Division of the old Pennsylvania Canal.
Here are some pictures from our ride.
Click here to see the pictures that Dad posted from our ride.
This is my ticket for the ride.
Here are a couple pictures of the boat that we rode on the canal.

This is our Captain for the ride - Mr. Dave Knox.

Here he is giving us a little bit of the history of this part of the canal before we get started.

Mr. Knox left several of the children that were on the ride take turns driving the boat. This is Noah. Mr. Knox figured he had experience driving a boat and asked if he brought two of each animal on board!

We even had a sing-along time on our ride! There were songs like "I've Been Workin' On The Railroad," "She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain," and others.

This is a picture taken from near the bottom of the second biggest tree in Pennsylvania. It measures 9 feet in diameter and 27 feet around. It is a Sycamore tree - actually better known around here as a Buttonwood.

The Indians would wet the bark from this tree, place rocks on it to flatten it, then use it for their writing "paper."

"Captain Knox" gave us some history not only about the canal but also about how his family came to be the owners of the land that this part of the canal is on. It was very interesting.

This is a scene down the canal from the front of the boat.

This is what they call "the lake." It was at places like this that the canal boats would tie up for the winter. The livestock would be taken to a local farm.

Here is a scene back up the canal from the dock.

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