Our trip to CHilliwack/Christmas

It is absolutely pathetic how many pictures I took while in Chilliwack. I am usually the queen of taking pictures.. and my kids know it.  We left for Chilliwack on Dec. 23rd, a Friday. John worked in the morning and we left right after lunch, arriving in Chilliwack around 6:00. We stayed at John's sister and bro-in-law Gord and Ev's house.  John's mom and dad came over that night yet to see us.  Saturday morning, we had buffet style breakfast (basically every morning we had several choices for breakfast: eggs, toast, yoghurt with granola and fruit, cereal, toast, rasin toast, etc).  Saturday was basically a lazy day, had a few of John's family visit.  Saturday night we went to the Christmas program at the Broadway Mennonite church.  This is the 3rd year in a row that we have gone... and it's a very nice program.

Sunday we went to church and had a delicious ham dinner at Tony and Marilyn's.  Throughout the week we were able to visit several different friends and family.  It was a very busy and enjoyable time.  I had mixed emotions about coming back to Quesnel. I think if we would have had our own house it wouldn't have been so bad.  I was glad to get back home to get away from the rain (John works outside and hasn't worked a day in the rain since he started in November!) It was really nice to be with family. It was nice to meet John's new neice, and getting to know Gord and Ev's kids better.  We haven't made too many friends here yet so the fellowship has been lacking.  So with all the visiting that we did, it was pretty lonely when we got back.  but now that we have gotten into the swing of things again, we are both quite busy and are ready to just sit back and relax at night.

Here's Emmy displaying a present that she got from Uncle Gord and Aunty Ev- a dressup set plus a traveling pillow

The shoes fit Caleb better than either of the girls.  I don't get why they can't make those shoes a bit bigger!

The cousins did a book exchange.  Both my girls got 3 books from the Animal Ark series about ponies and puppies!  Perfect for these animal lovers.  It's funny actually how Emmy talks.  "When we get our new house, and have animals, I can feed the horses and milk the cows and Kenna can collect the eggs."

Baby Emma.  She is sure cute.  She was 3 months old when I met her.  This is the negative thing about living away from family.  One of my nephews was 8 months old before I met him.  There is also another nephew whom I haven't met yet.  I don't know when he was born (me bad, my apologies) so I am not sure how old he is right now, but I am sure he is more than 6 months old.

This is at the RCNA church hall where JOhn's family had a get-to-gether.  We had a lovely meal of awesome appy's plus there were crafts and coloring for the kids.. We never really got to the craft part.  The kids were really good and having lots of fun together.

 There was yapping...

 and game playing..  2 of the girls actually put together a  game of Jeopardy.  We didn't get to finish it, but it was fun nonetheless.  It was guys against girls.. I can't remember who won ;)

So that was our Christmas in Chilliwack.  We got home about 5:30 on New Year's Eve.  We stopped by the Painted Chasm on our way home.  Will post pics of that next.. maybe on Thursday.



Mr. and Mrs. D

Hugs for Mr. D...

and Mrs. D

 opening on of her presents from Mr. and Mrs. D... a fuzzy zebra lamp, a lifesaver book and jelly belly jelly beans!

Kenna got a Anne of Green Gables 3 stories in 1 book plus the same candy as Emmy

And then in a box labled for us all, was 4 plates and 4 bowls with this decal on them.  They are sooo cute. Almost don't want to use them.  The special thing about them.  Mrs. D made them!  The decal is a sticker... she didn't draw them!

This is what John got as a joke for his birthday... along with a nice work vest.  It is a walking cane with dentures, a magnifying glass, a pill bottle (see pic. below) a horn and a poem (see pic below).  It also had a squeaker on the bottom of the cane so that when you walked, it squeaked.

Sorry for the upside down pic, but I am having problems loading pics so I don't feel like fixing it!!!

 Geezer anti- gas tabs.. old fogey fiber pills.. wrinkle eraser gels... hot flash chill pills.. elderly energy enhancers... baldie's nu-hair capsules

We are so blessed to be part of this family.   I was joking with Donna the other day that I was going to have to find someone else to live with for 6 months so that I could learn some more tricks!  She has taught me so much.. and we will never be able to repay them for what they have done for them.  My prayer is that God will richly bless and repay them for all their hospitality not only to us, but to all those who they have taken it and will continue to take in.

the work that John does

These pictures were taken about 1 1/2-2 months ago.  But you get the idea of what he is working on.  This is the new co-op feed store.  The front flat roof part is the retail store and the back pitched roof length is the warehouse.

The is already roof metal on and the side metal is started.  It is too cold outside to be working so they are putting up drywall in the boss's house.  This works for me because the faster that house gets done, the faster we can move into the rental house.  For those who don't know, we will be renting the house that John's boss is renting right now while his house is being built.

Christmas/New Years

So.. I started this post on January 8th.  So I had good intentions. Nothing just came out of them... until now! On December 19th, we had a potluck supper at the Kersley hall. Kersley is an amazing community that gets

together quite often for events.  On Halloween, we had a costume parade with hotdogs and hot chocolate followed by fireworks.  Then for Christmas we had this potluck.  What really got to me was that before we ate, they asked Dave to say grace. Prayer is seldom heard at community events. After we were done eating, we had a skit and then sang carols together. 

 

This is Emmy's wish list.  I love how she numbered how many of each she wanted.  No, she didn't

get everything on her list.  She did get skates, and a Bible.  She loves her Bible and considers

the crucifixion her favorite story. It is not an actual Bible but it is written in language that she her self

can read.

I can't remember exactly how the story went from this skit.  But the girl in bed did not know who Santa

was.  But she was a very smart girl because she used large words that even I didn't know the meaning of.

Here the elves are talking.. this is the part that I forget.  But I do remember that they were talking about what Christmas was about.  It was about doing good and being good people. 

Then Santa showed up.  At the end of the skit, her Mom and Dad came back and the girl was all excited to tell them about Santa since she never knew who he was and thought they didn't either.  But it ends up being that Dad worked with Santa and Mom did his accounting!!

Emmy and her friend Aliyah singing carols.  Aliyah is in Emmy's class, but is only in KG. SHe absolutely adores Emmy and will be quite sad when Emmy leaves Kersley school.

 

And of course Santa came.  He gave them both a teddy and a goody bag. Emmy's teddy was a prayer teddy that had "Now i lay me down to sleep" on it

Kenna's was a teddy with a removable dress on.

Together, the girls and I made a batch of stroopwafels to take to Chiliwack for all of John's family.  We also made turtles, peppermint bark and caramel corn.  It was a hit!

Kenna was quite proud of her ability to operate the iron.  We watched a few Christmas movies while we were in the kitchen.  I think it took close to 5 hours to finish them.

Another post coming up soon.. like in 1/2 hour!!!

of stink and of mold :(

About a month ago, I went to our storage unit to get something out the fridge that we have running there.  Yes, our storage is heated and has power!  To my dismay, the fridge was not running, neither was it cold.  I assumed, because it is an old fridge that we got for free, that it just kicked the bucket.  So I emptied it out and left.  Well, on Friday night, JOhn and I were going to town to do a few groceries and Donna asked us to pick up berries for the pancakes that she wanted to make for breakfast the next morning.  Since, berries are so expensive, I thought that I would use the ones that I have in the freezer in the storage unit.  Well, I closed that freezer lid faster then I opened it.  I was mistaken when I thought that the fridge had kicked the bucket.  Both the fridge and freezer was on the same plug, which had been nudged out the wall and so the fridge and freezer were no longer freezing.  I think that it had been like this for a few months.  As it was my fruit/veggie freezer, it had a strong fermented smell.  It was already covered in mold too. So, we went back another day... prepared with garbage bags and gloves, and emptied out my moldy and soggy apple pies, carrots, beets, berries, cookies ( 1/2 batch of stroopwafels), icecream,  juiced blackberries that we were saving to make into wine, etc.  All I can say is that I am thankful that it wasnt the meat freezer!  And I guess this fall, we are starting all fresh!

Anyways, I can't believe that it has already been 2 weeks since we came back from Chilliwack (post coming up).  We had lots of fun there and although it was quite busy, we enjoyed seeing friends and family again.  These last 2 weeks have been busy.  I house clean 2-4 days a week, depending on the week and I still had my ladies fellowship on Thursday.  The Tuesday ladies Bible study starts this week. 
 It is looking like we will be able to move into our own house (rental) by the end of March.  I know it will be difficult for the girls to change school so late in the year, but they will make new friends fast!  Maybe I should bribe Kersley school that if they give me a full time job as a teacher's aide, I will keep my girls in their school. (this school has been threatened to be shut down because it is so small)