We've Come A Long Way, Baby!

Christmas 2010 has come and gone but the impact on our spiritual lives will remain. From watching little tikes innocently singing about the birth of Jesus, to enjoying choirs singing praises of/to the Christ Child, to partaking of communion in a candlelight sanctuary we were truly blessed. And, of course, on the lighter side, (no pun intended)visiting with family, sharing presents, feasting on a bountiful supply of food, reveling in each bite of sugar laden piece of candy, and then dumbly wondering how we are going to take off the extra pound/s gained. The Christmas Season is a blessed time and for those we didn't get to interact with personally we pray you had a great time of worshipping, sharing and fun. We extend our wishes for a year of peace and happiness - 2011.

Since our home was sold in Dec. we have been living in the Holiday Inn in Sioux Center and I must say our siblings and kids really fed us well while homeless. The motel supplies a good breakfast but the siblings and family really spoiled us with terrific home made meals. Thanks each one of you for being so generous and kind!

The pictures shown here were taken very near to the first Christmas we were married. Hopefully you can see now why I entitled this blog what I did. Several things stand out to me. No, the picture of us is not 400 mega pixels like we take now days. I am just glad it turned out as good as it did with the little box camera and attached flash. I am not exactly liking the looks of us or me in particular in the picture. Do people improve in time? The baby looks as good as always, no improving on perfection, right Linda? The women wore dresses or in my case a jumper that I wore the tar out of because there were not too many other dresses hanging in the closet to wear. I must mention the blouse I am wearing, how could we be so steeped in conservatism and wear a blouse that was no less see Thu than a sheer curtain. Go figure. Hand crocheted doilies for sofa arm and back - and every available table top. Drapes were of the huge flower type. Usually the wall paper vied for the same attention with its big floral design. And usually the rooms were rather small so we could have had a closed in feeling. Funny, we didn't feel that at the time. But individual creativity was not practiced, we mostly did what the rest were doing. Came across a saying the other day which I shared before which says," they laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at them because they are all the same." Don't know if it fits but we all get that feeling at one time or another. Didn't worry about that in the '50's because we all conformed pretty much.

The other picture is, again, Linda, with her great grandma Sandbulte. She was a very interesting person with many quick comments or come backs and she always loved a good time. Did that trait carry forward to anyone you know? Dad remembers one comment she always said was, "moost ales ope aten" (our poor dutch is easily seen in how we spelled those words). Anyway, it meant "must eat it all" or a more literal translation "must all up eat.". That probably shows because she did what she said and it probably carried through to us and you kids when you were told to eat all that was on your plate. I came by that practice honestly - honest! She and my grandma Kuyper lived across the road from each other and did a lot of visiting together and would have tea together. Tea time came at 2:30, between dinner at 12 and coffee time at 4:oo. And those "breaks" would not be observed without a cookie or rusk with cheese. Olden days - weird, fun, interesting, simple, complicated, hard work, etc. Good times!

Life is so different now. Now in a few days we will take off in the Montana for family in Colorado for a few days and for work in Arizona for 3 months. Then we will spend time with California kids and a couple of months in places we haven't decided on yet and then back to Sioux Center for activities we want to take part in in June and spend time with the families around Sioux Center. Since we sold our home we plan to RV full time for awhile before we settle down. No one could have convinced us at that Christmas in 1954 that we would be living like this or that we would even have wanted to live like this. Now we find it exciting and the work fulfilling and even strengthening to our physical well-being.

Hope this finds each of you well and enjoying a good life. If anyone is in the Mesa, AZ area in Jan. or Feb. give us a call. Our phone number is 712-441-4370 and our mail address is a forwarding address _ 3700 S. Westport Ave. #97, Sioux Falls, SD 57106. All mail sent to that address will get to us no matter where we are.

Love you all, Dad and Mom/Wilmer and Marilyn

I could never write a book because I would ramble on for 1000 pages.

Humor and hard work!

A lot has happened since the last blog. We did take a leisurely time getting home and that was a good processing time for us. But when we got home we hit the road running because we had just 2 1/2 weeks to get the house empty. It helped a lot that I had worked on it last summer but still it is daunting to think that every last little dinky thing has to find a new home. Our last trip to Good Will we had to take the little trailer because the Trail Blazer couldn't hold it all. I must say I am a little embarrassed by how much stuff we still have stored. We were able to do most of the work ourselves except for a couple of hours on two occasions when Dordt guys came to help us with the heavy stuff. And the house would not have been left in such an immaculate condition if Kim hadn't come to give the final "mopping" to everything. Thanks so much Kim!

I have said before that "revisiting stuff" is cathartic and when I say that most people look at me as if I came from a different planet but I hold to my philosophy because it is true for us. The hat Dad is wearing was bought years ago when we went to Producers meetings. We were to the third annual meeting of the year and one of the extra curricular activities was to go to Sheplers western wear store. Dad bought this hat but never wore it. This hat made the move from the Orange City place and every move since. Yes, it is in storage!!!!! So I guess to justify the move to the storage garage he wore it briefly while packing things up. Interesting to me is the fact that it is fairly easy to dispose of big items without much emotion involved but it is harder for us to get rid of smaller seemingly insignificant items like college papers, seminary books, small family treasures, etc. I have a SMALL doll that is half the size of a match box. I remember making clothes for that doll and treasured/treasure it and have kept it. (my fingers would not cooperate with me to make such small stuff now) The brown wooden doll bed that was home made is rustic to say the least. I don't remember if it was made in my life time or before that but it carries a lot of memories with it. So when we finally do make the final clearing of stuff I hope we can be with that to tell the story of why we kept the items. Dad has similar items like the combine shaft that displays revolutions per minute. Probably not something many would even know existed, like me, but it played a new and important function way back when. I find such processing and sharing intriguing. So the hat does bring back an era in our life that was good and we recall some details about it. So on the 4th of December, 2010, we moved out of the house and into the Holiday Express here in Sioux Center. Henry, the manager, did give us a great reduction or we would not be in this place but it is so nice I think we could get use to it even tho it has its limitations with cooking being one of them. I should have more siblings because we have been to each of their houses for a meal. I know you will find this just exactly like us but last night we were wondering where to go to eat and I looked thru the Shopper and saw Rob Schelling was having an open house for his retirement. We weighed the idea of whether we would be classified as one of his customers and decided we fit the bill so we helped him celebrate his retirement with good food at the Golf club right here. Have to be creative with such stuff and the picture shows the creativity of trying to fix meals here even tho I have to resort to using the bathroom counter to get the food ready. It works. Remember that little fondue pot we took on many vacations and also used for fondue years and years ago? Well that is the pot I use here and it still fits the bill. Dad keeps saying he feels the work with RVICS has strengthened him so he was more able to do all the lifting, etc. he did with the moving. I agree.

He now has the little trailer packed to go to California (some day). Jason is going to help us with the transportation of the trailer that has all the items that need to go to California kids but all the details are not exactly worked out yet.

We plan to leave right after his doctors appointment on the 29th. Would appreciate your prayers for good road conditions at that time.

Hope this finds you busy with the holiday rush but also mindful of the tremendous gift of salvation given in the person of a baby laying in a manger.

Love, Mom and Dad

The new address we have now is just a mail forwarding address. This forwarding service will send our mail to wherever we are (we will supply them with that information) because we do not have a permanent home or home address at this time. We will get your mail if it is sent to Wilmer or Marilyn Rensink, 3700 S Westport Ave. #97, Sioux Falls, SD 57106. This makes us officially SD residents at this time.