Bluegrass? Honey sales? Avon? Bulldozing? You may be wondering exactly how these seemingly unrelated categories came to be on one web page.... click on "read more about us" to find out.
"Horsehair... tree rosin.... catgut??? Tell me fiddles were intended for classical music only." -John Keim-
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Gotta look out for number one... By that I mean THE number one- Jesus. Before you say, "Another Bible thumper." and scroll down, remember- word of mouth is the best advertisement. I wouldn't recommend it to you if didn't work. I promise to keep it short. To learn more about Him and this little test we are all taking, we attend the First Congregational Church of Sabetha, Kansas. Our kids participate in small groups Bible study on Sunday night, and on the first Wednesday evening every month during the winter, we go to "Family Matters." Every Wednesday, the kids go to our youth ministry "The Building." Once I became a believer, it took me about three years to fully trust The Lord and consult him in every matter, but I believe there is a constant growth in learning trust and reliance on Him. Because it is so totally unnatural for human beings to do this, a great deal of concentration and dedication is required. This is the reason we should go to Church weekly if not more and read the Bible daily. I can't say enough about the religion part of Christianity being unimportant, but your walk being exclusively paramount. I could care less what church you go to (as long as it is Bible-believing, NOT open to skewed interpretation.) Too much emphasis is put on and individual's church preference as being the 'only way.' Please don't get caught up in this, either in witnessing, or if you are looking for a place to go to church.
Our family I'm married to a fabulous lady named Joann (Jo). She is from Missouri, she loves horses, cooking (lucky me) her sheltie dog, Sammy and me! She is a very kind and beautiful lady. Jo is tolerant of my bluegrass 'affliction' and usually comes along to jams and festivals. I'm also very blessed to have two children. Carissa is our oldest. She enjoys most animals, especially dogs. She hopes to be a language Translator some day. Carissa also enjoys comedy and is almost constantly giggling about something. She's really growing into a pretty young lady. I'm glad to be her daddy. Woody is only 15 months behind her. He plans to join the A.F. ROTC, then Air Force as an officer. About any sport you can think of, he is interested in. KU is his college of choice, and he'll likely graduate with and aerospace engineering degree. He leads a prayer group before school, is a good athlete, a good drummer and he's active in the Church youth group. He's a great kid and I know whatever he does he'll be good at. Our friends, Eddie and Linda Shafer of Stella, Nebraska go to quite a few bluegrass jams and festivals with us. Eddie is the finest bluegrass guitar player for miles and miles. I'm fortunate to have such a talented friend. (When he reads this, boy will he be big-headed...) In the last two years, I've made several additional friends having to do with music... One would be MR. BLUEGRASS himself in northeast Kansas, Mr. Gary Bell. Gary has taught me a lot about music, musicians, and even a little about life. Thanks for all you do, GB. Another couple of new buddies I've made would be first, Mando Joe (Joe McElroy) and secondly, Tom Mock. These two are in a band called the The Boiler Room Boys, and we get together at least once a month and jam, usually until the wee hours. Joe is fabulous on the mando and a great musician on other instruments. He plays everything F A S T! Tom is the most rock-solid rhythm players around and has a great voice. I've yet to spring a new tune on him that about the second time through he doesn't know the changes. He's an old rocker and he has an insatiable bluegrass appetite; the more crooked the tune the better he likes it. At KPPA's Praire Lake Festival, we had and EXCELLENT time. We played everything we knew, and several we didn't. The next week, these guys were nice enough to come up and play a 45 minute set at our festival, and you guessed it, we picked until it got light in the east again. What a great two weeks! One I won't soon forget. Me? I'm having the best time I have had so far... Our family is very blessed, and I am thankful for a multitude of things, especially our health and our friends. I'm fortunate to live in the greatest nation in the world, and am extremely proud to say I am an American.
Here are some images of our family: We heat our home with wood. Here are the kids helping load wood. Our sheltie, Sammy is the animal that resembles a skunk.
We have several veterans in our family, and we observe all patriotic holidays. Shown here are our kids preparing to hang the flag on Memorial Day, '03. Eat that- Osama!
My father in law, Brad McIntyre, his son Ed and Ed's two boys, Justin and Ty are shown here. Ed and his wife, Dina live in California, and Brad lives in northwest Missouri. images/Brad and Ed and boys.JPG
Our family went to Camp Galilee in Arkansas this summer and this image shows some of the campers line dancing during a talent contest.
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I decided it had been a while since I've added anything to this page, especially when I looked at the pictures of the kids, so from here down are more recent images. (December, 2005.)
Here's one of my daughter's 8th Grade graduation, showing off her cake from the spring of 2005.
Our son Woody is keenly interested in military aircraft, to the extent that he plans to earn his degree from KU, then enter the Air Force. His mother and I are very proud of him. Here he is showing off one of his model planes; if I'm not mistaken, an SR-71 Blackbird.
The summer of 2005 Woody, Joann and I went to the Defenders of Freedom Air Show at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska. The demos were excellent, but cut a half an hours short because of an approaching thunderstorm. The ground displays were captivating too, and in my humble opinion, the most noteworthy was a Russian MIG 17F. Below is a picture of it and it's adversary the U.S.A. F-86 Saber. A mock dog fight was held between these two, and being a child during the cold war, seeing the red star on the MIG as it flew by literally ran chills up my spine on a hot August afternoon. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd see one on U.S. soil.
Christmas morning at our house always brings out the digital camera. The first image is me opening my circular saw. It seems Jo always buys me power tools and I buy her cooking utensils. Could it be that we are sending each other not-so-subtle messages about home-improvement and food??
Here is Jo holding categorically, her favorite present at the get-together at her grandparent's house, our brand new nephew Jacob.
Our dog, Sam apparently wanted some help with his Christmas Stocking...
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