Getting caught up after many months of...

Thank you for your patience. Four months is too long to go without posting, but you see, what happened was...

My wife and I have been foster parents to five children the past year. They are from three different families and require a little more work than the typical family faces - establishing new routines & habits, getting used to new foods & meals, weekly visits to court, visits to counselors, visits with their birth parents, extra visits to doctors & dentists, etc. My wife was also traveling frequently to Oklahoma the past year, to visit her aging parents, 87 & 88. Her beloved Father, Jim, lost his battle with cancer and passed away at the end of October. His funeral was the day after we put K7 on the plane to Ghana in West Africa to begin his 2 year Church Mission. Then my Aunt Margaret passed away in December. She was my sole remaining close family in England. And our little family farm was busy bringing us the most success and profit since we began ranching 5 1/2 years ago, so you see, I haven't been napping this whole time...just really, really busy. And to top it off, we have been involved in a long, stressful, legal battle to adopt our youngest foster son - the big court battle was 30 December. More about that next week.

So, what are the highlights you missed during the past four months since my last post?

 We had to redesign and renovate our basement laundry room. It involved tearing out sheet rock walls and re-routing the exhaust vent line. It is finished, walls re-painted, and a much improved lay-out in the space.

My Aunt Margaret's health had been failing all year. I got the word she was in hospital, and if you know anything about British National Health (the model for obama care), old folks eventually become a low budget priority, and even get fast-tracked to death's door, so they can free up the hospital bed. I procrastinated too long before buying my plane ticket to get over to see her. I was at the Orlando, Fla, airport, waiting to board a Virgin Atlantic flight across the pond, when I got the email from my cousin informing me that our Aunt had passed that same day. I decided to continue my trip to England regardless, because I wanted to visit our ancestral home one last time, and attend her funeral. This is actually a shot of Irish country side on my flight back to States.

My Scottish grand parents bought this house north of Liverpool in September 1934, and moved into it when my mother was a month old. I first visited here in 1958 when I was 3 years old, and came back frequently with my parents, or my sisters, or on my own, and then brought my wife and later our children here for wonderful visits. I have many great memories and a sense of eternal family from my time spent within the four walls of this old house.

The ashes of many of my family are buried in the soil of this tiny backyard garden. I was lucky enough to pluck a blooming rose during this visit. 

It's a small house with a steep, narrow staircase leading up to three small bedrooms. Downstairs has a tiny kitchen straight ahead, in which I had many a fantastic meal cooked by my grandmother and later my aunt. There are two more small rooms, both on the right in this pic: the first door leads into the front dining room, and the second is the living room...

This is how it looked upon my arrival in late December. I stayed for a few days, visited some friends, and found out the funeral would take place the first week in January 2016, so I headed home.

I returned to England ten days later for the funeral, and to help my older sister and my niece with cleaning up.

Here is the living room after most items were removed. This was my favorite chair to sit in and read newspapers or books, or chat with family. Beautiful home, with beautiful memories. 

While I was in England in January, the bull dozer arrived next door to our house to dig a basement for the new house that my mother-in-law is building. We are excited to have her move to our farm. I am her contractor, and have mapped out an ambitious and fast paced construction schedule. I have lined up a great group of sub-contractors and hope to be finished by the end of April, weather permitting.

I flew back to England on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and after the funeral, I flew home on Air France via Paris. This is a shot of French countryside. It's as close as I would get to it this trip...

...I spent my two short hours in France at the Charles DeGaulle Air Port "people watching" and shopping for chocolate. 

I returned home in time to watch the concrete being poured for new basement. We have been blessed with a very mild winter, which has allowed us to get things moving fast.

And what about that handsome young 18 year old Missionary we sent off to Africa during my last post on Nov 5th? He has been busy adapting to a very foreign climate, culture, food, language, and life style. He also has been working hard serving The Lord, and, in spite of getting malaria three times(!), finding success. He is a changed man, on his way to becoming a spiritual giant.