What a woman!

I think all of you should be aware of the greatness that is in the form of my beautiful wife. I am so proud of her. I usually let her do all the blogging, but tonight I must give a shout out to her prowess.
As many of you may know, Kristin is teaching the boys school at home. I chip in on occaisson when I am home, but she does english, math, etc. while keeping tabs on the littler ones with periodic feeding feedings in between subjects. There are of course the many normal duties around the house...laundry, cooking, general cleaning and putting out fires (not real ones thankfully). She is also in the primary presidency and without her organizational skill things could be a little scary. She is also a devouted wife. The best a man could ever hope for. She is here in Minot North Dakota of all places because the Lord and the Air Force brought us here. Its a nice place but it is far away from all her loving family that at times she truly longs to be with.While I am gone for close to 36 hours at a time several times a month, she willingly presses forward alone, doing things on her own that would be a whole lot easier with two parents instead of one (bath time and sacrament meeting for instance). And to top it all off, she has become the tool belt diva at the construction site known as our house. Our latest project has been the kithchen in which Kristin textured and painted the walls...but, even cooler than that, while we were intalling the new countertops, sink, dishwasher, garbage disposal all in the same night, she single handedly solved the plumbing issue underneath the sink. While my brain was to tired from the whole experience, she directed the succesful intallmentof the p-trap, t valve, drainage hose and disposal all on her own. It was magnificent! I also came home yesterday to find that she had hung four doors and screwed a small countertop onto a cabinet in the laundry room. Wow. Way to go Kristin.
I am sure you all do great things and even try new things from time to time. I guess life's all about overcoming our fears and discovering we really can do "stuff".

Grandpa Wes, Jim and Karalee

This is Cherrie. We got a christmas card from Grandma Vera with these pictures. Can you tell who is who?

Benge Family Blog

Benge Family BlogToday is Tuesday, Dec. 12. This is grandpa writing. Ruth and I are at Kirk & Cherries and will be all week. Kirk had some special training to attend in Dallas, Texas. (He is learning to run some special computer aided machine that will help him identify strange, obnoxious-behaving life forms--his family background made him an obvious choice for such training.) Mom and I came up here to be sure KC was fed. Now Kianna is babysitting all of us. We will be here the rest of the week, or more correctly, we will be staying three days then taking the kids to our place for a couple of days, and then returning to pick up Kirk and Cherrie at the airport. Mom encouraged Cherrie to accompany Kirk. I am sure that is wise. Now, I would encourage Kristin to accompany Ben on a special mission to Phoenix. I am sure that I saw evidence of enemy activity when we were in Phoenix. However, I may have been misseled. (Or is that evidence of enema activity and I was misled?) Whatever.
We read of the Schlenske's car problems and our hearts went out to you. We knew the Mazda was barely clutching to life, but we did not expect her to betray you so quickly. Ben, I will try to call and tell you of a possible remedy.
One other report I must make: we are living rather closely with the Wilson crew and already it seems as though we are all family. (We scream at each other, trade insults, and just generally act like siblings.) But now to the news. Tara was divorced as of Nov. 30. That next week she was asked out at least three times. Mom and I undermined the first two dates she had by not being able to babysit until late. So the men in each case canceled the dinner plans, picked Tara up at 8:30 pm when we were home and the kids in bed (or was that vice versa?) and then she went out on the town until about 10:30 both times. (I think they went to Wal-mart for both dates.) But, hey, a shopping mall social life is better than no social life.
We are looking forward to getting home as I really do miss swimming every morning. Kirk has borrowed our camera, but I will try to get mom to load a picture or two for this site. In the meantime stay warm. I thought it was cold here, but then I read Kris' letter. It made me feel all warm inside and out. Our love to all of you.

North Dakota

Certainly our storms cannot compare to that in the Philippines, but i must share our experiences in North Dakota. "Why not Minot?" is a slogan here. The answer is "freezin' is the reason." It is seriously cold! It is subzero temperatures with wind chills diiping into the -20's or so. Right now we are having wind gusts so hard I'm afraid our house will blow down! We got ready to go to church this morning and our van wouldn't start. We have a block heater ( a must here) so that our gasoline won't gel, but we think the cold outdid our battery. Luckily we had a nice neighbor friend who made double trips so get us there. The little black Mazda Ben got from Mom and Dad won't work either. The clutch won't work. We're not sure if it is frozen, or if it just popped and needs to be fixed. The same neighbor friends have been kind enough to lend us an old beat up truck, so that at least Ben can get a new battery (hopefully that is the problem) and use it for work temporarily. Anyhow, does anyone want to come visit North Dakota! It is adventurous! We are still alive and happy however. The boys are as cute as ever and would love to see anyone that wishes to come our way. We are sad we couldn't be there for Rachel's blessing, but thought of the Dave Benge family all the while. That is the hardest thing about being so far away. We miss being there with all of you. We love y'all.

Typhoon wreaks havoc in the Philippines

Well, we've been watching and waiting, and finally last night at about 1:00 a.m. we were able to contact family in the Philippines. That little house we spent the last few years building was completely destroyed, but everyone is OK. It's been hard to make contact because the first big storm to hit the area several months ago knocked out power throughout the province. That limits every body's ability to recharge cell phones, and makes it hard for us here to be able to contact them.
We spoke a few days ago with Cherrie's brother living in Manila, and he was on his way out to Manito (the little town where Cherrie's parents live) to see if they were OK. He was especially concerned, as he had left his young daughter (about Kianna's age) with them to babysit for a while. So yesterday he finally made it down there, and we were able to talk to everyone (he brought a fully-charged cell phone with him). During the storm, the wind blew out every window, and then ripped the door off it's hinges before tearing off the entire roof and causing the joists to collapse. Cherrie's Parents and her niece took refuge under the kitchen counter and sink and waited out the storm.
We actually fared much better than many. One of our good friend here in Salt Lake has her whole family living in the same area. They were unfortunate enough to be living right at the base of the Mayon volcano. Luckily, someone in the family noticed the approaching torrent, and the entire family was able to climb to safety as the mudslides completely buried their home. It appears that they, like many other thousands, lost everything but the clothes on their backs.
Cherrie's dad says he plans to rebuild everything. We are grateful that they had a good little cinder block home, because at least all four walls are still standing. The next-door neighbor had a house made of traditional bamboo with a thatched roof, and nothing is left.
So now we are going to try to help them purchase some materials to at least repair the roof so that they can be out of the rain. It might be hard though, as the whole area is affected and I am sure that there will be significant shortages of building materials, not to mention the difficulties in transportation.


KIRK