We made it! We are here with Joe’s family, and we are having a great time.

Needless to say, Nana (and Papa) are especially happy!

And poor Evan is not having any fun at all ; ) He can’t get enough of playing outside! We spent most of Friday enjoying the great outdoors, including a picnic! We are just trying to enjoy every minute we have here…more to come, soon!

 

Texas, our Texas, all hail the mighty state! Texas, our Texas, so wonderful, so great! (from the state song).

We are flying to Texas tomorrow (in an airplane, of course)! We have been planning and talking about this trip for many months, and we can hardly believe it’s here. It will be great to see our friends and family after moving to Canada almost 7 months ago! It will be a whirlwind trip, but we have some exciting things planned. We will celebrate Evan’s 2nd birthday; give updates at five churches; play outside; eat Tex-Mex and barbecue; go to SONIC; have picnics; meet our niece, Ashleigh, for the first time; eat more Tex-Mex and barbecue, and mostly just enjoy seeing those we love.

Please pray for us as we travel all over Texas throughout the next month.

We’ll update from the road when we can, so ya’ll come back now, ya’ hear!

Many people here are surprised to learn that we are from Texas because we don’t have typical southern drawls, we don’t carry guns, and we don’t say “ain’t” and “ya’ll.” They say that Alberta is the Texas of Canada. True, there are many similarities. But “the snow” is not one of them. Please understand that “the weather” in Canada is a big deal. It is talked about almost as if it is another member of the family. People think about it before they even get their morning coffee.

Snow in Texas is a big deal. Everyone knows that you should get out and enjoy it or you just might miss it. Neighbors you might rarely see otherwise get out and frolic and play in it as though their inner child has not been let out in a long time. You see snowmen all over town, (even though there’s typically only enough snow to make a “snow-child” or “snow-youth).” Here’s a masterpiece that Joe and I created a couple of years ago at our house in Lubbock:

Not bad? Well here’s the poor fellow just 2 days later:

Snow is just a fact of life in Canada, even though Alberta does not get nearly as much snow as other provinces. We have yet to see a snowman. You just accept that it’s really cold and then go about your day as normally as possible while still hoping that it will stop snowing so that you won’t have to shovel the driveway… again.

Because people here know we are from the south, we often get asked, “How are you handling winter?” Well, we are handling it just fine. At least Joe gets some exercise while shoveling the snow, and Evan loves to play in it, walk on it, and eat it (even if it’s from someone’s shoe in the front entryway):

“Shoveling the drive” is a foreign concept in Texas. For those of you that don’t know what it’s like, take a look:

And here’s a birdhouse that looks more like a bird-igloo:

Pictures don’t do justice to how tall the snow piles actually are. And they keep getting bigger! Here’s a picture from October for comparison:

Our first winter in Canada has been quite an experience, and we can absolutely say that we are still happy to be here…even though we are really looking forward to our first summer, too.

I mentioned recently that we drove to Vancouver, British Columbia for MissionsFest. The drive through the mountains was beautiful…

and LONG, but Evan found ways to get some sleep…

We thought this “outhouse” on the side of the road was useful…

And we only had one unplanned stop for about 45 minutes because of an avalanche up ahead…

God kept us safe the entire trip, and we found out the first day of our drive that we just missed an avalanche that would have held us back at least 4-6 hours (or longer if we had been in it). Yikes!

Once we arrived in Vancouver, we spent 3 days working at our GoodSeed booth. Over 200 missions organizations were represented there, and we had a great time meeting people from all over Canada and the U.S. We were able to answer questions, and we had many beneficial conversations about The Bible, GoodSeed’s resources, and how much we long to see people understand WHO God is. Here’s Joe talking to one of the many people who stopped at our booth:

It was so fun to see people as excited about GoodSeed’s resources as we are!

Stay tuned…we’ll be bringing our 2007 calendar to you soon so that you can hear about some exciting opportunities we have in the months ahead.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Evan with ginger-colored hair. One morning, he went for his usual walk into the kitchen to see what he could find to play with. To his delight, he came upon a cupboard full of mixing bowls of many sizes.

“Hmmm, what could I do with all of these?” he thought. Maybe I should sit in them.

“This chair is too small,” he thought. So he tried another one…

“This one is bigger but still too small. Maybe it will work better as a hat,” he thought.

“This hat is too big.” By this time, Evan was beginning to feel a bit tired, so he decided to rest…

“This bowl is too hard for sleeping in,” thought Evan. “But surely these bowls are good for something! I know just the thing…”

“I could hit them with wooden spoons and make lots of noise! It’s JUST RIGHT!” he exclaimed.

And he lived happily ever after.

THE END