The photo is our 'old Trusty' 1994 Marquis taken on December 30, 2006, ready for Paul and I to drive to Spokane with my Toyota truck in tow. It has been a good car. Yesterday we picked up our 'new' car, a 1987 Ford Tempo with just 60K miles on it. What a blessing--it was a gift from a Life Center family, and had belonged to her mom who had passed away last February. Thank you Edmistons and God! I had taken our Marquis into the shop for a checkover before our Portland trip, and just got news that it needs over $1000 of repairs to the front end. It has been a good car, but Jeanette is not fond of it because 1) it's too big and hard to park, 2) gas mileage, 3) rear wheel drive not good in the snow, and 4) it's getting long of tooth.

The new car is actually longer of tooth, but it seems really solid because of the low mileage, and it has front wheel drive! Should be easy to park, too, and get good gas mileage compared to the Marquis.

Cheney Seasons

I'm the only one up right now, drinking a cup of coffee, catching up on my Bible reading, feeding the wood stove, and thinking about the day ahead. Cheney is really a beautiful place to live and we're very thankful for this spot to be in for now. The snow (what a winter!) is almost gone--time to remove the studded tires. Our seasonal ponds are filling, and we'll have water in them for the next 2 months or so until things dry out. Springtime is an orchestra of colors with all the different wildflowers out and about, so we're looking forward to that.

I was thinking this morning of the Cheney 'seasons' we've experienced here over the last year. Here is a tongue-in-cheek list of them. :)

Mud (that's what we're in now, and we have to clean up the paws every time the dogs come in)
Mosquito (they'll be here soon, and until the seasonal ponds dry up)
Dust (the ground that's not rock turns into this fine Palouse dust the more it's traveled)
Firewood (to make sure you have enough for the season that follows)
Snow Plowing (self explanatory)

Back from Waxhaw!

I just got back in from Waxhaw today, where I was helping at a Check-IT-Out (computers in missions) event (my first!). Jeanette stayed back home in Spokane to handle the details for Dr Miriam Adeney's seminar last Saturday and get everything ready for our Perspectives class tomorrow night. I left the Wycliffe JAARS Center shortly after midnight (our time) for the airport, then flew Charlotte to Dulles, Dulles to Seattle (5 hours!), and then Seattle to Spokane, finally arriving back about 1:30PM. While waiting in Seattle I pulled out my mandolin to kill some time and met an Angel. OK, it was a young man named Angel who is an assistant chaplain in the army and headed for Texas. He really liked my mandolin playing and we chatted some more on arrival in Spokane, and he promised to send me an email. I am still trying to figure out why he was routed through Seattle and Spokane on the way to Texas (and he started in Florida!). Go figure.