It's About to Get Loud...er.

Because we're spending more time outside, and the outdoors is great for shouting!

Because Luke graduated preschool and we are preparing to homeschool starting in the Fall.

Because little boys insist on picking dandelions for their mother and slamming the back door every time they bring me some more.

Because of home made ice cream, you scream, we all scream for ICE CREAM!

Because the neighborhood boys found our stash of scrap lumber.

Because Seamus wants to be a big boy so badly.

Because this kid will try anything.

Because we're expecting Thiessen Number 5.

In approximately 31 weeks.

Covenant

We have been attending Covenant Mennonite Church in Winkler for seven months now.  Our first impression of Covenant was a very good one, and so far nothing has happened to mar our impression, only to strengthen it.  Last July we visited Covenant to hear a particular person speak and ended up discovering the pastor, Kelvin Dyck, was someone Derek had been told to seek out to discuss his theological interests.  That first Sunday there was no childcare provided by the church, but when the pastor's wife saw us walk in with our kids she came down the aisle and asked if she could take our kids downstairs to play.  I got to sit through an entire sermon!

After the service Derek and Kelvin visited for an hour and we were invited to a potluck scheduled the next weekend.  Without talking about it much (which is unusual for us), we just ... went to the potluck with a group of people we knew hardly at all ... if at all!  Our children were played with, talked to, Seamus took seven steps in a row from the hands of Don Bergen to me, the food was delightfully healthy homemade, whole food type stuff, mostly from people's gardens, Derek sat by the BBQ with Kelvin and Dave, and I was told by several people that they were "So pleased!" to have us there and if we would continue coming to church we would be snatched up and put to work.  We left with warm fuzzies and once again, with little discussion, we decided to keep going to Covenant.  It just felt good and right.

We continued attending, and our children continued being loved on, and every summer Sunday we would eat lunch in the park or at the drive-in after church with whoever could make it.  People talked to us like we'd known them forever, people called us up when they were heading to the lake, "Want to come along?".  People carried our sleeping baby around the foyer while visiting, people asked us over to their homes for meals.  People asked for book recommendations and actually read the books, and loaned us books in return.  People found out I was a photographer and asked me to take their photos!  Good things are happening.  Different, and good.

A few weeks ago we were having dinner at the Drudge family's house.  I was talking to Rochelle and saying how Covenant just felt like a natural fit for us, and wondering what our lives would have been like if we had found it four years ago, when we first moved to Winkler...less frustrating for sure!  She responded with a phrase that has stuck in my mind and I feel speaks exactly how Derek and I feel at Covenant.  She said, "We came to Covenant and we just felt like we had finally found our people.  These are our people."

So we keep going and in very natural ways, by eating together and spending time together, each week we get to know these people a little better.  These people who are our people, and who feel like they've always been our people - we just didn't know where they were.  We keep eating and singing and praying with them, and they let our children run up and down the aisle and shout out questions during the sermon or children's story, and what's more: they answer the questions with straight faces.

Last week Derek read the scripture out of Luke for epiphany Sunday and Seamus wandered around up front before finally standing beside Derek and leaning his head against his leg.  After a few moments Derek leaned down, picked him up and continued reading.  Nobody blinked.  Nobody grimaced.  Afterwards someone said to me, "Seamus made that passage come alive!"  Thank goodness for community that includes and embraces our children, and values and honors our aged and debilitated.  This church has made these things real for me by loving my family, and sweetly and graciously expecting me to love them back.

Date Night Splurge

This date night was particularly special, thanks to the generosity of Derek's folks.  They loaned us their gorgeous, and very 'cush (the backseat is a couch!!) Harley Davidson for the evening.  And to frost our delightful two-wheeled cake, they baby-sat our boys.  What a date!  What parents!
 

I got to enjoy the wind in my hair (under my helmet, of course) all the way to Altona and back.  Derek got to enjoy his first drive in five years!  We ate at a new-to-us restaurant, loved everything on our plates, and still had everything to look forward to in the open road, gorgeous sunset, and roaring engine all the way home.

 

As I listened to the motorcycle, watched the harvest going on just across the field, smelled the dead skunk up close and personal, appreciated the connectedness I felt with the passing landscape while driving with no walls or windows, I concluded that I married precisely the perfect kind of man.  He grew up riding motorcycles and dirt bikes, and made what I consider to be a very deliberate and wise sacrifice, selling his motorcycle to help pay for college.  He knows how to ride motorcycles safely (from experience and a saturation of wisdom from his father riding motorcycle before him), has a deep love for the activity, looks super cool in black leather, and also values education and enjoys a quiet evening at home reading theology or murder mysteries.  This is the most complimentary set of qualities I can imagine in a man, particularly in my man.  My husband can take me on a ride on motorcycle, or in our imagination, through the pages of a book or sermon.

These are exactly the musings date night is supposed to inspire.

You only turn 27 once

From left to right: Shakatonta, Bozo (holding cowboy), Moustaccio, Li'l Tony, Madame Gigi

Recipe for doin' it up right:

dress up clothes

pina coladas

pseudonymous bowling

chinese fire drills

shakes

poutine

unidentifiable fried food

FRA-ank

failed attempts at re-arranging adverts to read, "have a bitchin' summer"

nail polish

laughter, laughter and more laughter

King Dad, Queen Mom, our subjects

More preparing for Back 40.
(Crowns courtesy of Luke and Auntie Lissa.)

I love my job!

Playing in the Snow, as promised.

We shoveled the driveway, we rolled down the pile the snowplow left on the yard, we threw snowballs (powdery ones, but snowballs nonetheless), we got snow in our socks, we built a tunnel, we climbed through the tunnel, we took photos of ourselves, playing in the snow.

And according to the weatherman, we'd better have our fun while we can.  Plus 10C in the next week oughta do away with all our snow pretty quickly.

PS- that scarf Luke is wearing was made by my great-grandma Ada, Luke's great-great-grandma Ada Bergen.  The toque I'm wearing I actually made for Derek when we were dating.

The news.

Dear Mom, Thanks for leaving me some money on the Northern Reflections card.  It came in handy the other day when I found myself giving into a 60% off sale on this hat.  And isn't it adorable?

Sand toys work just as well in snow, we have discovered.

Playing hockey with Madelyn.  It was amazing how Luke (who has only been skating once before - a year ago!), improved in just half an hour of skating!  He went from crying face-down on the ice, unable to pick himself up, to picking himself up on his own, and even being able to hit the puck with the hockey stick without ending up on his bum!  Kids are remarkable learners.  Leaps and bounds.  Thanks to Karen and Madelyn for teaching Luke a few skills on the ice!

Oh and Seamus had a good time too...in his stroller.  Isn't it great that strollers are allowed on the ice during parent and tot skating?

oh what fun!

 We went to the Children's Museum in Winnipeg on Saturday afternoon with some of our dear friends: Carl and Kathy, and their children Joel, Kezia, Asha, and Elena.  It was SO FUN.  It was good for the kids to let off some steam, run, yell; and it was good for us parents to visit with each other, and watch the kids have fun (and I'll admit, I kind of dominated the suction tube game - that game rocks!).  Every now and then I have to sigh with contentment in my life.  I have a wonderful husband, two delightful sons, and friends - oh my friends! - they're the best anyone could ever ask for, and not least of all, we have opportunities to PLAY, together.  It's a good life.
No, it's a great life.
 

 

 

 

On a drifty day

With snowflakes as big as my thumb falling and a soft downy cover over my garden, I remember California.  People have been asking me excitedly, "SO.  How was your trip to California?!"  You'd think I'd have a lot to say.  We were there for an entire month!  We did so many fun things, visited interesting places, saw people we don't see very often.  But mostly my answer is, "It was good."  And somehow I feel like I should apologize for that brief answer.  So as an explanation . . .

We were in California long enough to get into a groove of our own; long enough to feel comfortable enough that we could daydream about living there.  We did fun things, and saw people we don't normally see, but mostly we just pretended like we lived there.  We took advantage of having my parents at our fingertips.  Dad made salads and BBQd, Mom went to work and we took evening trips to Bakersfield, I went out to the grocery store and left the baby with his grandpa, Luke and grandpa flew balsa wood airplanes and grandpa told the story of putting together a plane with his Dad and just when they tossed it into the air for the first time, a dust devil came by and the plane went up and up and up . . . and they never saw it again.  We held starfish and jumped rope with seaweed and painted our faces with wet stones and walked among the giant sequoias and fed the giraffes and played blocks and dinosaurs and marbles at great-grandma Judy's house.  We walked in the almond orchard and fed the neighbor's calf malva weeds through the fence.  We had a fire in the grotto, photographed old junk in the yard, mowed the lawn and ate cold chicken while sitting in the grass after a morning's yard work.  We picked cotton and got an ice cream cone and wrote words in the leaves piled on the grass and picked lemons and threw the rotten lemons at the pampas grass to see the birds shoot into the air. We had a slumber party with Auntie Lissa and danced to her rap music at Brookside over biscuits and gravy.  We walked to the park and walked to the museum and walked around the block to visit an old friend and walked around town to look at Christmas lights and when we heard the sheep braying down the way, we walked to find them.  We happened upon people we knew and met up with the old men at the donut shop.  We sang songs in the car and did yoga before bed and watched funny sitcoms in between conversations about theology and Life.  It was home again, for a while.  

And that is why I say "It was good."  Because there's not much more to say.  It was. So. Good.

Here are my favorite photos from our trip - sorry if it takes a long time to load; I didn't skimp out!  It's so hard for me to choose favorites from a file full of photos of my favorite people and places.