New Metal Dino

Enjoy one of Buddy's newest dinosaurs!!

Bethlehem Blessing

This week has been a very busy one at the Creation Museum. Everyone has been getting ready for the opening for the Bethlehem Blessing event. We went last night and really enjoyed the entire experience. It is a must see event here at the museum. There are two dramas in the Special Effects Theater. One is on Elizabeth with a great actress (Geri Campbell), and the other portrayal is of a Temple Guard. Both are wonderful and very professional. Outside the museum, you travel thru the marketplace and then to Bethlehem where you see Jewish dancers and an archaeologist explaining what he has found thru the light of the scriptures. Then you see Joseph and Mary with the baby Jesus. It is a powerful presentation. From there you travel thru the gardens and enjoy the beautiful lights and find one of the wise men telling about his encounter with the Christ child. Going further you go to the petting zoo and see all the wonderful animals. You won't want to miss this wonderful time here at the museum. The evening events start about 5:30 pm. Oh, and don't miss seeing the new dinosaurs that Buddy made out of metal. The newest one arrived this week and today should get all of the lights on it. It should be lit up tonight. We will check it out!

We had almost 1200 people here for the Bethlehem Blessing event last night. As Buddy and I walked around there were a lot of people who greeted Buddy and lots of children who were excited to meet Buddy and get their photo taken with him. One gentlemen was thrilled to meet Buddy because he played guitar and would often put Buddy's DVD on and play along with him. In fact, his wife told me that she got the DVD originally for her Mom but her husband had taken it to practice along with Buddy so she had to get another one! Another couple recognized Buddy from the Answers Magazine. It was a lot of fun to meet the visitors.

We shared last week about Buddy getting a piece of metal in his eye. He had to go back to the eye doctor this week because it was still bothering him. The doctor found some rust from the metal still in his eye and removed it. He is on two different types of eye drops and has to go to the doctor Monday morning. We were going to go home tonight but will stay here until Monday. Pray that Buddy's eye will be completely restored and he will have not further problems with it.

This week has been special because we have had lots of guests here that were coming to a conference in the Cincinnati area. They came a little early to come to the museum. Buddy had lots of children in his workshops this week and his concerts had lots of people in them. Sometimes at this time of year, the numbers are down at the museum but this week was very special. We even got to meet Kirk Cameron who is the actor that played in the "Fireproof" movie. He told Buddy that he had seen him in some of the videos that Buddy has done. Kirk was given a tour of the museum with Carl Kerby. We enjoyed meeting him.

God bless you this Christmas season.

Christmas Lights

You ought to see the beautiful Christmas lights at the Creation Museum garden area. They have the dinosaur that Buddy finished before Thanksgiving all lit up and it looks fantastic. They are picking up the 2nd metal dinosaur, Triceratops, tomorrow and they will be busy putting lights on it to have it ready for the Christmas Nativity starting for the public this Friday night.

We did a wild game supper in Indiana on Friday night. There were about 140 people (mostly men). They had a great meal with lots of game such as squirrel, elk, deer, turtle, rabbit, etc. with all the trimmings. Buddy did his Alaska - Hunting in the Last Frontier talk and gave a mini-concert. He always gives a gospel message with his talks. 7 or 8 men raised their hands that they made a commitment to Christ that night. That is why we are so excited about this type of ministry. It reaches out to hunters.
May God continue to bless this aspect of our ministry.

Kay's Mom is doing somewhat better but it is a day by day battle. She is on oxygen off and on and the stroke has affected the right side of her body including loss of vision in her right eye. She was able to pick up a water bottle and drink out of it which is a great step for her.

One of our retrievers, Buffy, has cancer and is not doing too well. It is a difficult time.

We are at the museum this week doing concerts and workshops every day. We will be here thru Saturday and then will be off for two weeks. We are going to visit some family and friends over the Christmas break. We are also going to go deer hunting for a day when the 2nd season is in. Kay's brother, Mark, harvested a buck on their property and he said he has two bucks picked out for us. I doubt if we will even see one but you never know. He gave us some deer bolgna and deer sticks which were really tasty!

Hope everyone has a great Christmas season. May we always celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Smokey Mountain Retreat

Thanksgiving evening we traveled down to Kentucky to spend the night before traveling on to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We wanted to stop for coffee on the way and stopped at least three times trying to find a shop that was open. We did find one but they were closing in a few minutes. We got our coffee and ordered a donut but to our surprise they gave us six boxes of donuts FREE as they wanted to get rid of them before closing!!! Buddy had a big smile on his face and knew this was a great day.

The next day was a sunny travel day down to the Smokey Mountains. We stayed in a gorgeous log cabin in the mountains. It was at the top of the mountains with a beautiful view of the surrounding mountain. We went to Country Tonight variety show that evening in Pigeon Forge. There are several different shows that you can see each night. The next day we spent in Dollywood going to different music shows including one with the Kingdom Heirs, an Appalachian Christmas show, and Smokey Mountain Christmas. We really enjoyed them. We even rode two awesome roller coasters. We stayed until dark just to see all of their Christmas lights. There were thousands and thousands of lights... That night, we went to see "The Miracle" which is about the life of Christ. The next day we went to the Cowboy Church for Sunday services and in the afternoon went to the Ripley's Aquarium. The aquarium had a lot of cool fish and other creatures like cuttlefish, leafy sea dragons, stingrays, etc. We really enjoyed it. We got to touch a horseshoe crab there.
The next day we went to a dinner show that featured the Smith Family. We enjoyed their singing. The weather was quite nice the entire time but it did start raining on Sunday evening and it turned cooler. We traveled back to Kentucky today and the weather is nice and sunny. We really enjoyed our time in Tennessee.

Thanksgiving

We can't believe that Thanksgiving is next week. We will be going to Kay's nephew's house for dinner. She is from a large family so there are always lots and lots of people. We are very thankful for the wonderful year of ministry that we have had this year and for our family. Kay's Mom is in a nursing home now and she is not doing well at all. We were hoping that she could come to the dinner but she is just too weak.

We have had a busy month with ministry in Wisconsin at Living Waters Bible Camp and we just got back from Westfield, Pennslyvania. We were in the mountains of Penn.and it was a very beautiful place. There were lots of dairy farms which we love.
The towns are small and just like Buddy's "Blackpowder Rifle" song, we were so far in the country, the cell phones didn't work!

We did enjoy ministering to the people there. As always we met a lot of wonderful Christians and had lots of great fellowship as families had us over for lunch and dinner.

Buddy has finished another large metal dinosaur for the gardens at the Creation Musuem. He is working on the second one which is a Triceratops. He will finish it next week. They will have lights put on them and you can see them at the Creation Museum. Because of working on the two metal dinosaurs, Buddy was not at the museum on his normal schedule this month. We will be back at the museum on Dec. 3-5th, and then Dec. 8-12.

We want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

Our Bee Hive Adventure

We have had honey bees for about 4 years now and have never gotten any honey off the hive. Because we just have one hive, we do not have any extracting equipment to get the honey out. This year we were determined to get some honey. One of the extra soupers(this is just another partition for them to make honey in. It goes on top of the hive) was full of honey and we were excited about finally getting to taste the honey. We were unsure as to how to do it. We have a friend at AIG who is very knowledgeable about bees so we asked him for advice. He was very helpful and told us how to do it. First, we had to take the souper that had the extra honey and set it on its side. This would allow the bees to escape and go back to the hive. We were supposed to let it set out all day and then go retrieve it. Hopefully the bees would be gone from it. Sure enough, there weren't many bees at all on the souper so we took it to the house. The souper had about 10 frames inside that we were hoping were full of honey. We got some cheesecloth and a 5 gallon bucket and were ready to get the honey. We took the frames one at a time and scaped the honey, wax and all onto the cheesecloth. Most of the frames were pretty full. After we scraped the honey off, we put the frames back in the souper outside. The honey when warmed would drop through the cheesecloth and separate out the wax. At one point, the honey and wax was so heavy, the cheesecloth couldn't hold it so everything dropped into the bucket. Needless to say, there was honey and wax down in the bucket back together. We had to start over again with the bucket and cheesecloth. This time, it worked and we got 9 1/2 pints of honey. YEAH!! We finally did it.... It seems like there was honey all over the kitchen but that was cleaned up and we were so proud of the fact that we actually got honey this year. We put the empty frames outside not knowing what to do with them next. The next day, there was a lot of bees around the frames. We decided to put the frames back on the hive so that they could clean up any remaining honey that we missed. We also fed them sugar water.
It was a new experience for us.

Buddy is in Montana hunting with our Pastor. They also went fly fishing in Yellowstone. They saw a lot of wildlife there (buffalo, elk, deer). They are having a great time. Buddy did a concert at a small church on Sunday evening for the rancher who was allowing them to hunt on his ranch. Friends of ours from Baker, Montana attended the concert. They have seen a lot of mule deer but none have been where they could get a shot at them. They have one more day and they will be returning home. We love Montana!

We are getting ready to start planning for a missions trip to Kenya,Africa next November 2010. We are going with a church in Michigan. We met a couple that have gone two times and were planning on going again and invited us to go along. We are so thrilled about this opportunity. Buddy will be singing and sharing not only with Maasai tribe but ministering to the children of missionaries at their school. We are so excited to see what God will do.

Next week, we are at the museum for three days and then home one day then off to Wisconsin to Living Waters Bible Camp.

Greetings! Fall is Here.

I'm sorry that it has been a while since you last heard from us. We have been busy with traveling and working. Buddy has been working hard to get two metal dinosaurs finished in time for the Bethlehem Blessings in December. We have two great welders that are helping Buddy. He is doing a Parasaurolophus dinosaur. (That's the one with the huge crest on its head.) He is hoping to have it finished in a couple of weeks. Then he will start on a triceratops. They will be placed somewhere in the garden area with lights on them.

Well, fall is here and we are busy getting the 5th wheel ready for the winter. We are hoping to have it fixed so the water doesn't freeze up. We had a little trouble last year and the water froze a couple of times but thankfully it didn't bust any water pipes. We are at the museum now and will be here next week as well.

We are ready for fall at home as we have all of our wood chopped and split and ready for the wood stove. We also moved our washer and dryer upstairs from the basement without too much trouble.

The crowds at the museum are pretty good for this time of year. Buddy has had good concerts and good workshops. A family from Oregon was here on Tuesday and they said they came to see Buddy!
We have had wonderful families and children in our workshop. We started a brand new workshop on how Buddy builds dinosaurs. The kids even get to build a dinosaur sculpture and take with them. They are also creating a dragonfly! What fun they have!!

We were near Buffalo, New York last weekend doing a wild game supper and Sunday morning services. We flew there on Saturday and back on Sunday. We drove down to the museum on Monday. It was a hectic schedule but it was a great time.

We are traveling to near Indianapolis this weekend for ministry and will be back at the museum on Monday.

Last Week - A Very Challenging One

Last week was very challenging for us in many ways. We arrived home late Sunday night after Buddy did church services in Winchester, Indiana. We had a great time of fellowship at the church and were able to arrive safely home at 11:00 pm.

We got our dogs out of the kennel and noticed Buffy's (our Golden Retriever)leg was swelled. Just three months earlier, we had a tumor removed from Buffy's leg that was cancerous. We were told that they got it all. We didn't know what to think about this so we took Buffy to the vet on Monday at noon. The vet told us that this didn't look good because she was pretty confident that the cancer was back. We were given options on what to do. Needless to say, we were heartbroken. The cancer was in her lymph node in her leg and the kind of cancer that she has spreads rapidly. They gave us some antibiotics and diuretics for the swelling. They also did a biopsy to see if what they had suspected was true. The result was what they had suspected so our options were to take the leg off or just make her comfortable. We chose not to have the surgery and we took her home. Right now she is doing OK. Her leg is still swelled but she is eating and actually running around. She seems to feel pretty good right now. We are going to spoil her and keep her as long as she is not in any pain.
That was our week.

We also did some work on the new workshop coming up. We took step by step photos of each craft and worked on the content of the talk that goes with the workshop. We are now putting together a PowerPoint of the crafts.

Buddy is going mule deer hunting in Montana next month with our pastor so he is busy doing a lot of walking and exercising. He is looking forward to the trip.

He is hoping to take Cricket (our English Setter) out for a pheasant hunt before he goes to Montana. He really enjoys this type of hunt because it is a lot of walking!

This week at the Museum

We had a great time yesterday at the museum. There were 1500 people who visited on Labor Day. Buddy's 3:00 concert had a full house and they were very enthusiastic and sang along and had lots of fun. The workshop was well attended and the kids made lots of cool looking spiders and dinosaur sculptures.

Today we had a special visitor, Dan Breeding and his two children from North Carolina. Dan is an animal handler and has a wonderful ministry all over the U.S.
Dan brought with him a six month old Red Kangaroo that he brought into the office. He said it takes about 5 bottles of milk a day. It was very cute and we all got our pictures taken with it. He let it down to hop all over the office and when it was time to go, put it in a pouch to carry it.

We are working on getting the new workshop all finalized. We are still working on the craft. We have a triceratops dinosaur sculpturing project and a dragonfly craft. We start the new workshop in October.

Getting Things Done!

We are back at the museum after having two weeks at home. We finished up at home by digging out a small pond that catches the sediment before going into the big pond. We had neighbors help us as they removed 40 dump truck loads of dirt. Each load had 14 bucket loads from a trac hoe that we rented. That is a lot of dirt!

We also cut some firewood and now have enough to last the winter. We cleaned out our chimney and put new rope insulation around the wood stove.

Buddy wrote more new songs and now he has enough for the sequel to "Let the Rain Come". If the sequel doesn't happen, he will use the songs that he wrote for a new CD.

Yesterday, we had about 40 in the children's workshop. The museum crowds have gone down because of schools starting up.

Catching Up at Home

I can't believe it is Friday already. This week has gone by very fast. Buddy and I had dentist and eye doctor appointments this week. No cavities, YEAH!! The eye doctor was another story. We both had to get new contacts/glasses.

Buddy has been writing new songs and we have been recording them just about every day this week. He has been writing songs for a new sequel to Let the Rain Come. He wants to have them ready before the script is finished. He records on an 8 track recorder and then I make a cd and from there separate the songs and put them in order. It takes a long time just to do one song because Buddy plays all of the instruments. He eventually wants to go to a 16 or 24 track recorder. As long as it is fairly simple to run, that would be a great thing for his new songs.

Today Buddy got on the barn roof and fixed the part that the hurricane tore off last October. We had to replace some of the boards and 3 pieces of tin. It took us most of the day to get it finished. Our neighbor, Lee, helped us put the tin on. We have such good neighbors here.

Tomorrow we are renting a track hoe to dig out our little catcher pond. This small pond catches sediment that would normally go into the big pond. It needs to be cleaned out about every 4 years or so. The track hoe will dig it out and we have a wagon to put the sediment in and haul it away. We have the hoe until Monday. We will have to see how long it takes but we think we will be finished tomorrow by 6:00 pm.

We are excited about getting some things done on our list that before fall arrives. There is always wood to cut for our woodstove too! We do have a head start on that job.

We'll see what next week brings!

Last Let the Rain Come Performance

Yesterday we had the last performance of "Let the Rain Come". We had a great audience. Buddy and Geri (Mrs. Noah) did a great job as usual and everyone enjoyed the music comedy. They have been asked to do a sequel. We'll have to see what happens. That will mean coming up with a script, Buddy writing new songs, and a new set design.

Busy Friday

Today is a busy day. The first thing this morning, the grounds crew cut a large willow tree down that was right next to our trailer. The branches kept breaking off when we had any wind and we were afraid the whole tree would come down on our trailer. They put a chain around it and put tension on the chain to make sure it did not fall toward the trailer. They did an excellent job and within 15 minutes the tree was down and our 5th wheel was saved.

Buddy has an interview this morning with God's Great Outdoors ministry and he will be doing a talk for them this afternoon at 4:15. He is going to do his Alaska Hunting in the Last Frontier talk which is his adventures hunting caribout and black bear in the far north of Alaska.

Buddy has a children's workshop at 1:30 which is on God's design of animals. There are two really cool crafts that he does with the kids as well. We will be starting a new workshop in October on Sculpting Dinosaurs. We have been working on new crafts for this workshop.

At 3:00 Buddy does his music concert in the Men and White Theater. It is a fun, family concert with Buddy playing a variety of instruments and doing songs that will touch hearts and put a smile on your face.

Normally after the concert, Buddy goes into the Bookstore to meet people and sign books and CD's. But today he has the talk with God's Great Outdoors members who are visiting the museum right after his concert. After this talk, we will be heading home for the weekend.

Busy Week at the Museum

Buddy has had a very busy week at the museum. Besides doing children's workshops and concerts every day, on Thursday he did "Let the Rain Come". This musical comedy is about Noah and includes 10 songs that Buddy wrote. It is fun and entertaining with a wonderful message that you can trust God's Word. We head home for the weekend and are back at the museum on Monday morning. The Dinosaur Dig sponsored by Answers in Genesis scheduled for next July is already booked up. Answers in Genesis is considering adding a second week.

Friendship Community Church

We had a wonderful time at the Friendship Community Church in Covington, Ohio this past weekend. Buddy did a talk on Dinosaurs on Saturday night followed by a mini-concert. After the concert, everyone enjoyed pie and homemade ice cream. We got to meet a lot of wonderful people. Sunday morning Buddy spoke on the revelance of Genesis in the morning worship service. This was followed by lunch provided by the ladies of the church. At 12:30, Buddy started the afternoon off with a concert and then spoke on Noah's Ark to end the day. We packed up and headed to the Creation Museum where Buddy will be doing workshops and concerts all week.

Weekend in Shenandoah Junction, WV

We traveled on Saturday to Shenandoah Junction, West Virginia. It is close to the Maryland border. It was a beautiful drive through the mountains of West Virginia. On Sunday we got to the church at 7:30 am to set up for Buddy's presentation. He did two worship services with about 400 total attendance. He did a couple of songs before he spoke. In the evening, he did a concert and there were over 400 people there. He did about 14 songs and gave his testimony about how he became involved with Answers in Genesis. At the end of his concert, they gave him a standing ovation. There were other churches that had cancelled their evening service to join with Fellowship Bible Church for the concert. We met some wonderful people and the pastor and his family were like family.
It was a big day.

On Monday morning, Buddy did a children's program for over 250 kids. The church was having a Day Camp all week and Buddy started the week off with a talk on Dinosaurs. We took some fossils with us for the kids to see. It was a lot of fun!

We drove back home after the session with the kids. We got home around 6:00 pm. The next day we had to mow our yard. We got it finished before the rain came. We are going to another church this coming weekend in Ohio and then back down to the museum.

Happy Birthday!

Last Friday was Buddy's Birthday and what a great day he had! At 8:30am, he was at the Creation College to do a mini concert to start the day. Ken Ham got up and said we have a few announcements before Buddy gets up to sing. Buddy did not suspect a thing and Ken started teasing him about his birthday and got Dr. Tommy Mitchell to help. They had a lot of "over the hill" jokes and props and it was a lot of fun. In the end, everyone sang Happy Birthday to Buddy. When that settled down, he did his concert. At the end, the audience gave him a standing ovation. WOW! What a way to start the day.
We went to the creation museum after the concert and in the early afternoon, Buddy had a children's workshop. They sang Happy Birthday to him as well. We had about 52 in the workshop.
At 3:00 Buddy did a music concert at the museum and before he started, they brought out a cake with a few candles for him to blow out and everyone sang Happy Birthday. After the concert, Buddy usually goes into the Bookstore to meet the folks and sign books and CD's. Everyone there again sang Happy Birthday to him. I don't think he will forget this birthday soon. It was a fun day!!

Creation College 3

We got up early this morning to arrive at the Creation College to do soundchecks at 7:00am. Buddy did a mini-concert this morning to a full crowd at 8:30am. He did the following songs: God's the Author of Creation, Soar, a mandolin song called At the Cross, and ended with I'll Worship My Creator. The audience sang along and even though it was early, the crowd sang quite well. We met a lot of people we knew and met some new friends. We are back at the museum for a concert at noon.

The museum has been very, very busy the last week and this week is no exception. We have had over 2,000 people every day.

Before we came down yesterday, we had a group of people from New York (a busload of 55 people) stop by our farm for a visit. This is the second visit from this group of New Yorkers. Buddy is doing a men's conference for them in February 2010.

Buddy will be singing at the Creation College on Thursday and Friday.

Vist to Old Testament Tabernacle

On Sunday we had the opportunity to visit Messiah's Mansion near Fredericktown, Ohio. This was a full scale replica of the Old Testament Tabernacle. A guide took you through each part of the tabernacle explaining the articles found in each area and what they represented. They were very knowledgeable and quoted several passages from the Bible so that you could follow along or check it out later. The entire idea of showing the tabernacle was to bring you to Jesus Christ. It is a free exhibit that is traveling around the country. We recommend that you go to see it if it is in your area.

We are getting ready to go Creation College. Buddy will sing every morning at 8:30 am. He will then go to the Creation Museum and do workshops on Thursday and Friday (1:30-2:30) and concerts at noon on Wednesday and at 3:00 pm on Thursday and Friday.

Dinosaur Dig in Montana

We just got back from a dinsosaur dig in Glendive, Montana. We had an interesting time getting there. We fly out of Columbus, Ohio and went to Atlanta. From Atlanta, we were to fly to Billings, Montana. When we arrived on time in Atlanta, there were thunderstorms coming into the area. Well, we were supposed to leave Atlanta at 7:00 pm. The thunderstorms arrived and the air traffic control basically shut the airport down until they left the area. We didn't get on our airplane until 8:30 and then we set on the plane until 10:00. We arrived in Billings around midnight and then had to get our rental car and find our way to the motel. It was about 1:00 in the morning Montana time which is 3:00 am (home time). Needless to say we were very tired!

We got up and drove to Glendive the next day to start the dinosaur dig. Before I get to the dinosaur dig, let me tell you about the location. It was about 4 miles off the main road. It was like going back a cow path. There were cows all around! Most of the road was fairly good but we had a few times when we didn't know if we could make it thru. We had to go over dried streams and up the other side which was an adventure. We did drive to the site but decided we would walk in the last mile the next day. It was too hard on our all wheel vehicle! The other team members were already on site digging away. You just don't start digging. There is a process of taking several tons of dirt away to get down to the layer where the dinosaur bones are. We spent a lot of the morning shoveling dirt to get down to the bones. We used shovels and picks. Then we went to smaller items such as paint brushes and really small picks like screw drivers. There was a hard clay level that you had to go through. At this point, you had to be very careful not to dig into the bones. Buddy found a dinosaur tendon and a raptor tooth. Others found tendons and other bones. When you find something, you take it very slow and careful. The site had produced several bones of Triceratops last year and they were plaster jacketed and removed and were at a lab ready to be carefully removed from the surrounding rock. Sometimes you have to remove the rock surrounding the bone and then remove the bone.

We spent two days excavating dinosaur bones. The rest of the crew would be there for the next two weeks. We are excited about taking some people from AIG with us next year.

We spent our last day touring. We love the Montana countryside! We actually drove into North and South Dakota as well. After a long drive we arrived in Billings on Wednesday night and got up at 4:00 am to make our way to the airport. We arrived home last night at 7:30.

We had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back next year.

VBS Video Shoot

Yesterday Buddy was busy with workshops and concerts at the Creation Museum. He also worked on a video that will be used for next year's VBS that AIG is working on. He sang his song, "I'll Worship My Creator" while children did motions to the words. It was filmed down at the gazebo by the pond.