Praising the Lord....

This is Jordan's van after she hit into this train on Thursday.  She came away with only a broken bone in her ankle.  We praise God for protecting her during this accident.  It looks much worse than it was.  She was traveling east under 30 mph on this sunny day.  It was a small, country road where the tracks angle across the road.  She had looked both ways and didn't see the train.  It was sunny, the train was short and there were some trees so anything could have been a factor.  She heard the train first and slammed on the brakes and slowed down probably to about 10 mph when she veered into the ditch.  The second train car caught the front of the van and spun her around. The train was only traveling about 25 mph.  She showed some quick thinking and we are proud of the way she handled it.  It is awful strange to not see a train, but Jordan was not distracted this day, her cell phone was in her pocket and she can't text on it anyway.  She had just come from a music lesson and just turned onto this road and there wasn't a great distance before the tracks.  People have commented how could you miss a train but it is possible.  We know Jordan, she is a very cautious driver and she knows she looked so some other factor like sun or the trees prevented her from seeing this on time.  There are no other warnings that the train was coming except they blew their horn when they saw her.  She is doing so wonderful and we are praying God could use this to witness His Glory to others.  With different speeds on either vehicle's part or any other factor different, this could have turned out very differently.  God knows why this happened and God can use it for His purposes. 

Moriah goes skiing for the first time....

 Moriah, Gideon, and Rebekah getting ready to brave this very cold day and go out on the slopes skiing!

 Moriah went down the bunny hill a few times before going on the lift.  Here she is coming down another successful run down the bunny hill.

 Got a shot of Isaac coming down Hawaiian Cruise.  He is in the tan jacket.  It was a bitterly cold day!

 Emily, Yenta and Clara taking a break to eat lunch and warm up a bit. 

 Moriah coming down the slalom on the bunny hill.

 Rebekah had a good day despite getting off to a rocky start.  She left her bag of gloves, hat, and snow pants in our laundry room.  I gave her most of my stuff so she was able to keep going.  It was too cold for me so I just went down the bunny hill until Moriah got good enough to go on the other slopes by herself.

 Emily just makes skiing look good.  She had to borrow a coat from someone.  We do not own the right kind of coats for this!  She came in after 15 minutes of skiing and said she was ready to be done.  It was just so cold, did I say that already?  She came in to warm up a lot but we did manage to ski until 5:00 p.m.

 Here's Caleb!  He had to purchase a ski mask from the store there and then he had a lot better time coming down those slopes with the cold wind.

 Emily is the first skier, with Moriah the second one coming down this hill.  Moriah did a fantastic job her first time out!  She came in the lodge to ask if she could go on the lift herself.  I said she could if she wanted. 

Here's Clara all bundled up and ready for another run!