...to ask for your prayers. Two weeks ago, we found out that our baby was in heaven. She was born a few days later. Yes, we need your prayers a lot these days. I know that God is good and sovereign, and I want to keep believing that in the days ahead.



Morgan, we miss you...

Last week we butchered seven hogs with the Wagler clan (Gabriel's mom's family). There are seven sisters in that family, and it's always good times when they and their families get together for butchering. This year Gabriel's parents were missing as well as another sister's family who lives in Virginia.


Grandma Wagler, who is 70 something and still going strong.


Cutting up meat and more meat. They even save the skin to grind up and put in the liverwurst. I'm not sure how I could eat it after seeing what all went in to it, but I did. It tastes a lot like scrapple, which I grew up eating and liking, so I suppose that helped.


Gabriel's (red-headed) brother, Conrad and his wife Chris, mixing up sausage. I couldn't believe it when, the first year I helped, I saw they weren't putting red pepper in the sausage! Guess I'm used to it now...it's more a garlic flavor.


Aunt Mim is never without a story to tell.


Sheldon and Chris stuffing sausages.


The little cousins ran around, ate food, and had fun cutting out the eyes from the hog heads (which we threw away this year, thankfully. Every other year the meat has been cooked, picked off, and put into the liverwurst--no wonder people have trouble eating that stuff!)


My man, vacuum-packing sausage.

I'm browsing through xanga this morning and looking at pictures of daffodils on Christy's site and thinking, "What? How can they have daffodils this early?" I remember it hit me last year about this time, too. We're still buried under FEET of snow in Ontario, and at home they have ... daffodils. Sigh.

When Gabriel and I came home from Buffalo (where he had to go to write the MCAT) on Saturday night, I stepped out of the car into snow drifts that came above my knees. And they have daffodils at home.

Someone measured our snowfall so far this year, and it came to FIVE FEET of snow, and winter is far from over. And they have daffodils in SC.

HOWEVER, lest I get too gloomy, I have to say that I've really been enjoying this winter so far. Despite fighting the bad roads, cold, and snow all the time, there's something satisfying about having REAL winter with real weather, instead of the gray, rainy, chilly, damp winters I grew up with. There is absolutely no outside work except occasionally shoveling the walks, so it gives me a chance to hole up inside with a cup of tea and work on some scrapbooking and sewing projects that got pushed off this summer.

So...I'll try to enjoy my winter and look forward to that long-distant day when we see daffodils popping up in the fields. Meanwhile, enjoy your spring, southerners. :)