A poem by Travis

What is Christmas?

By Travis Hedrick

Jesus' birth brought happiness and love.

Angels singing, "alleluia", praises to the Lord.

Gentle shepherds amazed at the angels.

Three, wise kings followed the star.

The star guided to the King of Kings.

A Trip To The Wildlife World Zoo

A rhino lover we know treated us to a trip to the Zoo while we were visiting in Arizona. It was a perfect day, few people and great weather. This was the best trip to this Zoo we ever had! Even if I don't think this rhino looks very pretty. Meleah says, "This poor rhino doesn't have any family. He looks sad."
Travis had a great time. I heard Travis exclaim, "Hey, guys! Come and look at this mouse!" I guess when surrounded by all the wildlife a mouse is unique.

Travis was hiding from this Llama. I think I would be more afraid of the goats. I have never liked them. They did try to eat Meleah's shirt. This llama was just downright pushy.

Feeding the giraffes is always fun.

Meleah says, "He was about to touch me with his gigantic tongue! Aggh!" Travis didn't even want to try. I guess he is better with lizards and mice.

"What 'cha doing" Meleah says. I think I am trying to decide which one is the wildlife.

Duane and Travis, I am sure they are discussing something fun.

Meleah and Kathy enjoying the sky ride. At first, Meleah says that she was scared. But now she likes it.

Duane is telling Meleah that he has given her a lot of rides on his shoulders and now it's her turn to carry him.

Meleah talked Kathy out of her vest right away. She was prepared with the safari hat. We picked that up at a thrift store the day before.

Travis liked these guys. At least they didn't try to eat your clothes.

I think my favorite was the sting rays. We had the whole Aquarium to ourselves. Meleah didn't want to touch them and neither did I but it didn't take long to want to pet them. Those sting rays were as playful as puppies. They would follow Travis around the tank. They would come up to the surface and flap their flippers at you. They were so cute! I asked Bob if we could have a pet sting ray in our pond, he didn't really go for it though.


A great day with some of our favorite people. A wonderful Christmas present!
Thanks again for some precious memories.

snow...snOW...SNOW!

Our children have been asked to stop praying for snow. The night before all this snow fell, Travis prayed for eight inches of snow and boy did he get it!

Meleah loved it! It was also about -10 to -15 degrees so it was hard to make snowmen. The snow was dry and like powder so it didn't stick together much.

Lots of shoveling involved. Thankfully, we bought our snow shovels the night before because there were shortages around town. This is an unusual amount of snow for Grand Junction.
Bob was at work and they had to shovel the melting slush out from in front of the garage doors. One of the guys said, "I bet you never shoveled snow on the Fire Dept. in Arizona!" They have had a lot of hypothermia calls. We have started praying for the homeless in a whole new way. It is very cold to be living on the streets.

When Meleah would get tired, she would just plop down into the snow and rest.

Schools were cancelled. Some businesses didn't open. People were snowed in.
Not many know how to drive on this stuff. It was a lot of fun while it lasted. It finally melted and then froze. So now we have trecherous ice patches all over the place. You get the nice sound of crunching ice where ever you walk. I am hoping that a little more snow will fall before Christmas. It looks so pretty on the trees. Merry Christmas to all of you!

Cody's writing blog

I started a blog for Cody's writing. A new way to encourage him to write. Check it out and make sure to comment on his writing. I know that when writing has a purpose it does seem to be more meaningful.

lifeofcodeman.blogspot.com

I will have a bunch of pictures at some point. We are busy trying to get the house painted and ready to move in. A little crazy here, I haven't even began to think about a little girl's birthday and Christmas!