LMC staff Christmas lunch & some keepers

We have been having internet problems....again...at the LMC which has prevented me adding to the blog. Two years ago I barely even did email and now I use the computer & internet for 3/4 of my job and a lot outside of my job. I've learned that people really get cranky when the computers or internet goes down. We had our annual staff Christmas lunch complete with "crackers". I described them last year and hope you can remember what crackers are. That's where the paper crowns come from. There are about three staff members that couldn't make it and Ed is taking the picture. After lunch we had a nice walk through a local park, then back to the Centre where we exchanged gifts and played charades. Dora-Marie, the one in the red hat in the fore front is leaving in the middle of January. She will take a 3/4 time position with MCC Canada in Montreal where she will work as program director. She will be greatly missed. She was our Interfaith, Peace & Justice Liaison. She got to get out the most, interacting with interfaith, peace & Justice groups. She has the "What is a Mennonite" speech down pat as she was asked to give it frequently. She had Ed's name for the gift exchange and he got a beautiful knitted red and white scarf which we had all been coveting while she had been making it, thinking that it was for a friend at home.

Ed has been working on going through a bunch of his digital photos on the computer and putting ones he is especially fond of in a folder that shows up as a screen saver. The type of screen saver that shows different pictures in a folder like a slide show. Here are two of them.

This was taken in Harper, Kansas sometime before 2007 out on our (then) front lawn looking West at the sunset. It must be winter as there are no leaves on the trees.

This one was taken around 2003 or 2004 in May during tornado season also outside of our house in Harper. There had been a lot of rain, wind, etc. and we had gone outside to look as all was quiet. We could hear a whirring sound above and when we looked up we saw this long skinny twisting rope-like tornado or something like it. It was strange as it was perfectly quiet and calm on the ground and this thing just passed over us looking like an umbilical cord. In true fashion, all the neighbors were out gawking at it instead of being sheltered in their basements.