Thank you for the prayers for the family. Cindy's husband, Chet, rededicated his life to the Lord last weekend. They both had recently gotten back in to church and were serving the Lord. Thank God. Chet has made the decision to end the life support around 9 in the morning. He wants to spend the night with her. He wants the family to all be there. Blain's Mom and Dad are holding up amazingly well. I'm sure it is due to all the prayer support. Remember Blain and Vanessa and numerous cousins. I was amazed at all the cousins that were there when we got to the hospital.

Rita and Blain , just know that you all and Blain,s family will be in our prayers In this hard time Love you both.

I think Chet is having trouble making that decision so they are doing a brain scan, more for Chet than anything.  Please keep Chet and the girls, as well as the rest of the family in your prayers.   

Mom wanted me to post an update on Cindy.  There is no brain activity and basically no hope.  They just need to decide when to turn everything off.  Please continue to pray for the family. 

Rita, we'll be praying for Cindy.

It snowed here this morning...then the sun came out, not it's gone again. I thing it's supposed to be in the 70s on Monday. Welcome to WV I guess.

Here are a few pictures I've been meaning to put up.

Here is our beaker of wool, cotton and grass. It made a really pretty green color in the water.

And here are the final products...the color is kind of weird on the picture, but as you can see it's pretty pale. The wool is on the right, and it dyed the best in all of the beakers.

This is the first good pan of biscuits I've made (since switching to Hudson Cream, lol). I cheated with the browning though, I had to turn the broiler on for a little bit at the end to get them to brown. I put oil on top of them like Grandma did but they were still white before I broiled them...any suggestions?

Blaine, Rita, yes we will pray for Cindy. So sorry to get this report. God is able to intervene, to heal, and to comfort when no one else can.
Love you both.

Blain's Sister

Please pray for Cindy, Blain's Youngest sister.  They took her to the hospital last night and she is on life support.  Blain's mom said they lost her 3 times and they got her back. They don't know what's wrong, they said something about it possibly, being her heart.   I'll keep you posted but we appreciate you praying.
 

Rita

yes, it does make you appreciate Daddy's struggle to make a living for us even more after seeing the story about the coal mines. Dad would never had made it if it had not been for mommy's prayers. I can remember him coming home and telling mommy how bad something had been that day ,and remembering mommy praying at that time for him , and staying up at night waiting to see his headlight's coming up the road , then she knew he was safe at home again.praying and reading her bible, that the Lord would take care of him, and he did.It had to be a very hard life for them as young parents, with all of us kids to care for. and Daddy was a very proud man. But I think they did a great job in all.

I recall the days when Daddy would take the little Radio Flyer red wagon to the mines with him. He used it to haul his dynamite in, if my memory serves me right. The coal was so low that he would carry his lunchbucket in his teeth and crawl into the mines pulling the little red wagon with his charges and his little pick, which I assume what for digging the holes for the charges. I remember, even as a kid, thinking how difficult his job must have been. Seeing Coal made me appreciate even all the more all that he did to make a living for us, because I thought the program was quite scary. I do not know if I would have had the courage to work in the mines. When you try to put yourself in those men's shoes, you can kind of understand it when they say: You do what you gotta do! And even after terrible disasters, they go right back in and Do What A Man's Gotta Do to provide for his family. I do not know how the wives of miners have any peace at all if they do not know God.

Mornin Ya'll
Everyone must be busy

MP3 and Zac and Emily, so glad you got to have a lunch date. I know that was fun. Isn't Marleigh just the cutest, happiest, baby you've ever seen. I don't think I've seen her cry...ever.

Bobbie, Janet DVR'd (Ha) "Coal" so Blain could watch it. He had to go out at 2 this morning. He'll get 13 hours today and has to work tomorrow too. At our house, it has always been either "Feast or Famine".

In Daddy's early years of mining coal, they would Dynamite it out and then hand load it onto buggies. They didn't have a roof bolter, they would set timbers to hold the roof up. That was before the machines. Before Daddy left the mines, They probably had some of the machines by then, but most of his mining was done by hand. Can you imagine???

Blain said that he has roof bolted 10 cuts and as much as 500 ft a shift (He became a member of the 500 ft club) and yeah, they had pizza and it was quite a big deal. They were running 2 Continuous Miners and When they would shut one off to be serviced or moved to another section, they would start the other one. One Bolt crew (2 men) would bolt all the top. Would you believe, he said that was his favorite job underground. The last bolt machine Blain ran was the kind that 2 men could Bolt at the same time. I think it was called a "Double Headed Fletcher"? I might be wrong about the name.

It snowed here last night, just enough to cover the ground, but it is pretty. However, I hope it is our last. I want to see flowers!!

Yes Rita, We did see Coal, one of the most dangerous jobs! And yes it was most interesting! Made me appreciate Dad all the more for the life he carved for us out of the coal. Did Dad do all of those jobs in his lifetime or was he good at a certain something? I don't know. I wish I did now. Ask Blain if he knew through their conversations, what it was Daddy did specifically. I want to catch it next week too, so remind us again on that day OK. So, Blain's job was a Bolter for the top? And everyone's safety in there depended on the job they did, is that what I heard? Thank-you Blain for the job you did all those years! And seven cuts a day is a really good day?

Hey All
I loved the videos. Those 3 can really sing. I see a Bus in their future.

Coal was really good. Blain was taking a shower abut 9:30 getting ready to watch it (He is usually in bed by 9, Up at 4) but as he was getting out of the shower, his work called and they needed him out at 2:30 this morning. Sooo, he didn't get to watch it. It was real interesting to me though bc I've heard Blain talk about all that stuff. He operated the roof bolter side-by-side with his dad for years, he has ran the continuous miner underground AND outside by remote control...I've heard him talk about guys running over the miner cable and it stopping production...all of that...The bad top...flooding of the mines (that is coming next week). I am sooo glad he is not underground anymore. If you missed it, you need to tune in next week.

I'm out the door to go to Janets and keep Olivia and Kaiden. They are both sick.

Hey, Everyone! Hope you are all great; we are. Loved the pics of the table, Teresa. Did you do the top? That must have taken a long time. It is beautiful. Emily, hilarious videos, I found them on youtube and put them on my facebook.... speaking of which, I am jumping into facebook. All of the cousins out their, and anyone else on it, look me up. Michelle Roberts, look up in Germany....there shouldn't be too many. I realized I don't even know some of your last names! How out of touch am I?! But of course, there are so many of us....LOL. Tarin has made up her mind she wants to teach AP History for high schoolers. How cool is that? We will see if she changes her mind before graduation, ha ha, she is only a freshman. Joe's stitches came out, his headaches are gone, and the scars are minimal. Thank God. Love to all of you, Michelle and girls

I liked that video Emily, the Today Show had it on there this morning. I don't recall the boys ever having any conversations like that when they were babies, however, it sounds quite familiar now a days LOL!! :P They would coo to each other at times though. We watched "Coal". It was very interesting. A few things seemed familiar to me probably from David's book. Rita, what did Blain think about it? Mark was wondering how often the tips had to be replaced on the 'continuous miner'?

twin baby boys have a conversation - part 2 ORIGINAL VIDEO

This video is hilarious...Bobbie, Monica, were Adam and Corey like this?!

I posted that video from youtube, first time I've done that before (Mark helped me LOL) so if you go to youtube and search for them that's where you'll find their website and info :) I remember seeing an advertisement last week about "Coal", I told Mark we was going to have to watch that tonight :) The Midkiff obit., is he Vera's husband?

Sorry, If you have Direct TV, it is Channel 241 instead of 308.

Amazing Child Singer - Daves Highway performs "Jesus Messiah" by Chris T...

Carol sent us a video the other day of a baby laughing that was from godvine.com. I came across these siblings on the same website. They have such beautiful harmony. I cried the first two times I watched them and still get a little teary eyed. They have a CD available if you go to there website, it should be listed under the video. We had a great time with Emily and Zac yesterday!! :P Love to all and hope you are blessed by this video as much as I am :)

Coal Runs Deep

Rita, I had seriously just opened the blog to post about the same thing when I saw your posts about it. Here is a link to the trailer for it...I think it should be interesting.

Coal Runs Deep

Monica texted me yesterday saying that her, Mark and Marleigh were going to be in Princeton and wanted to know if we wanted to meet them for lunch. It just so happened that Zac's day off got switched this week from Thursday to Tuesday and I had a break between classes from 12:15-2:30, so we were able to meet up at Cracker Barrel. It was goooood...and Marleigh was so cute and funny! She really liked her brown beans and mashed potatoes and gravy. She is so good at saying 'apple' too, lol!

I dyed wool and cotton yesterday in my med plants lab. We got to choose any type of plant we wanted to try. One group used black berries and it made a really pretty pink. Red onion turned out really yellow (which I thought was weird) and carrots made the wool orange and the cotton pinkish. The grass did dye it, but it turned out to be a really pale green. I will post pictures of it later.

10 Episodes

Spike TV's new reality show "Coal." Ten one-hour episodes will debut at 10 p.m. March 30. Producers say the show details the extreme conditions and underappreciated work of underground miners.