Highlights of 2006

	Christmas with David’s Family Well, technically this picture is taken in December, but I thought it would make a good transition to the new year’s pictures. Here is me with brightly coloured wooden beads from David’s parents. I got a lot of them for Christmas and I love it!!
	Giving David’s Parents their Gift
	Getting My Green Card! Living in a family of scrapbookers, I thought I had better take a photo of this moment! After working for almost 2 and a half years I now have permanent resident status!!! HORRAY!!
	Our New Bed!! After sleeping on the floor (on our nice Ikea mattress) for over a year, we were able to get a new bed!!! We got it at a great place in Sioux Falls that gets solid wood furniture unfinished so you can do what you like with it! Didn’t I do a good job of trying to give you a full picture of it? ;)
	My New Insulin Pump!
	The close up! See, it’s not so painful!
	Snowman on our balcony!! This March we had a great snow storm and had a bit more than a couple inches of snow. (how is that for vagueness?:)) Ever since last the first winter in our apartment I have wanted to build a snowman on the balcony. I just thought that would be so fun. The trouble is is that the snow melts so fast in the afternoon sun that I had not yet had the chance. Well, this time there was enought snow that the sun wasn’t able to melt it fast enough, and I made my snowman! I got a quite a few comments on it from other residents here too. That was fun!
	Fun Little Cacti It was a lof of fun to see cacti for real since David used to use them a lot in his “guess what” responses! Especially the Giant Saguaro Cacti, he used that variety the most. For example: Rita says, “David David! Guess what??” David might say something like: “You saw a giant saguaro catus driving a car and it was eating pizza.”
	Or maybe NOT so little! Whoa! I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes!! I love the progression of these two photos. In the first cacti photo it looks like they are maybe 5 feet tall, 6 even, but when you see David in the middle of them, WOW are the big!!!
	Rita in a quiet place One afternoon in Arizona I was a bit restless and took a walk to the neighbouring resort. There I found a beatiful court yard to wander in. I almost missed this place, it is attached to the hotel rooms that I almost thought it was one. Then I noticed it was a little sancuary where a person could sit in the shade and watch the birds. I ended up sitting there for quite some time and even saw a number of humming birds! It felt like a gift from God and it really made my week!
	Allison on her wedding day!! :)
	Jenna as Maid of Honour!
	David checking out the car. What a handsome Guy!
	David’s family on his Birthday (At a friends wedding)
	A short in the wires on the fourth floor.
	Boston harbour David and I were delayed in Boston for 24 hours on our way to NB. It was sad for me to loose a day at home, but we made the best of it. After finding a church to attend, having lunch and checking in our luggage at the airport, we took the train to town town. After getting downtown I felt completely lost and David lead us to a beautiful spot on a pier of the harbour. I’m glad this sailing ship went by or we wouldn’t have taken a picture of the harbour, it’s great! Actually, I think David took it even! :)
	Family camp for a day! David and I were able to go to camp for a day and a bonus for me was being able to take Jack and Jacob with us!! Here David and I were digging a large hole while Jack and Willimijn watched and helped
	We got to visit Grammie!!!
	Van Oord Family Reunion Here we are, all of us that were able to attend! Wearing St. Andrews t-shirts :) What a great time we had!
	Rita’s Car Rally group What a family reunion!! Here is a photo from the photo rally we had the first morning.
	David’s canon
	Knee High by the 4th of July! The corn outside out window was growing like crazy! I couldn’t wait until July 4 to take a picture. I had heard once that farmers like corn to be at least knee high by the fourth of july. Well, this farmer didn’t have to worry!
	My Little Garden
	Final Fitting :)
	Dress Sewing My girlfriend helped me make a dress for our San Fransisco trip with David’s parents. She did the most of it, and worked hard for me! What a friend!!
	Headquarters Tour Just after getting to San Fransisco we went to the hotel, left our luggage, and went to registration so we wouldn’t miss our tour of Shaklee Headquarters.
	Shaklee Headquarters
	Opening night For Opening night at the Shaklee 50th Anniversary they rented a ball park for the evening.
	Opening night caricature! Free caricatures have to be about the funnest thing ever! While in Arizona, David and I got our caricature done at their family night, and at opening night at the Shaklee anniversary convention they had caricaturists too. The man was *very* nice to do our picture even though it was closing time. We were the last of the night. It was worth it! I even look like me :)
	Feeding the Birds Oops, it’s not allowed. :-/ But I sure did enjoy it! Throughly!!!
	Closing night dinner
	First Digital Shot
	tested positive A photo to go with the November 13, 2006 entry.
	Trying to show David my new hair cut. Ahhh, the beauty of getting a digital camera! I needed a trim and wanted to show David what it looked like right away. I went shorter yet again. We will see how short I go next time???
	Dean Hjelle Family Thanksgiving day, 2006
	A picture Jon took of me
	Jon took this great photo of us at Hopperstad Stave Church in Fargo ND
	Hopperstad Stave Church At Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center
	Trolls I love
	David at work David had to go back to work one Saturday evening and asked me to come with to keep him company. I thought it was a good chance to take his picture in his “office” since I don’t want to do it in the day time and distract his co-workers.
	Rita distracting David at work ;)
	Birthday duck!
	Tinsel Girls Decorating for our Ducky Christmas Party
	The tree is complete!!
	Good thing we have those cinder blocks!!!
	Just before reading Luke 2
	A gift from Mom and Dad Hjelle
	My fun Norwegian girl! I have so much dutch decorations, and no Norwegian stuff for David’s part of our family, that I am very interested in getting some. Mom and Dad Hjelle started it off for me with a very fun girl. I love it!
	Horray Horray! David is opening my gift to him!
	He found it ;) Eariler this year I asked David if he would mind that I opened my own bank account to save money with out him knowing the amount. I wanted to save up quietly to give him/us a special gift or trip that we are not saving up for right now in our main budget. I was so excited at the end of November because I knew I had enough to tell him what the gift was! And come February, when we will be able to go to L’abri together, I will have enough money to make it an extra special trip :) God is good. He has blessed my efforts to save, and give David the best gift I could think of to get him. Thank you God.
	Our great find! Mom Hjelle and I were doing a bit of post Christmas Shopping, looking for good bargians on Christmas cards and wrapping paper, when we thought we would take a detour to the antique shop. After finding and purchasing the plaque (previous photo) Mom found this great cook book. Who would have thought, Scandinavian and Dutch together!?! It was such and exciting find, that we had to get it :)
	A visit from Allie-son :) Allison is in town for Christmas, and after a “chance” meeting this morning, she came over for supper with us this evening! And we played a game of Settlers. It is good to see her again :-D
	My first time seeing a Cedar Waxwing! I love it when I learn about a new bird, or see a bird I have never seen before. On my way home this morning I saw a flock of waxwings which was new for me. I was so excited I went back with my camera to see if I could get a picture. God was good and I was able to! I have always loved the colouring on this bird, at least in the pictures I have seen of them, so it was even more exciting to finally see them in real life! Sorry the bird isn’t really clear in this picture, it’s blown up from another picture I took.

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