A Day at the Beach - Bouctouche

Saturday morning we followed Jason and Amy Cochran, and Bob Roberts, to the sand dunes at Bouctouche. Before going and walking the dunes, we stopped at an Acadian street market. The market was great. People were selling all different types of crafts and baked goods from jewelry, paintings, to soap, meat, and the biggest cinnamon rolls I've ever seen. JA bought me a new anklet, and we got Kara an Acadian flag necklace. We also got a few other things, but since we are giving those out as Christmas presents, I'm not going to expound.

After spending awhile at the market we continued the drive to the sand dunes. The dunes have a boardwalk that extends about 5 km (~2 miles). We didn't walk the entire thing (of which I am glad because I was tired after the little bit we did walk). We stopped midway and got down on the beach to allow the kids to collect shells.

Here Lydia is roaming the beach while Katie and Josiah let the waves lap up on their feet.

Kara and mommy stand in the Atlantic Ocean.

Kara and Lydia sit on a peace of driftwood and watch the waves lap up on the beach.

Is there Love in the air?
I actually think Judah is pulling Lydia's hair in this picture (he loves to play with her hair),
but it made a cute picture of the two of them.

Here is my favorite picture of the day!

Below are a few more pictures from our day at Bouctouche, including pictures of Kara collecting shells and the Cochran family playing in the ocean.

The Dark Knight Unveiled

This past week we had Vacation Bible School -- Journey to Knighthood. Bob Roberts from Kids4Truth came and did all of the preaching for the week. The week was a blessing in many ways, and we had the opportunity to see one girl make a profession of faith. The teens were a great help both in the decorations for the week, and in assisting the various teachers with their classes.

Throughout the week, the kids had to determine who the Dark Knight was that hated candy, ice cream, kids, King Arthur, and most of all the Bible. This Dark Knight appeared every day threatening to ruin the King's impending wedding. Each day the kids would chase the Dark Knight away with their Bibles.Here is the Dark Knight -- Can you tell who he is?

The kids really enjoyed their game time. Here you can see the knights waiting for the next group of kids, and Princess Guineviere taking her students back to class.

Kara, who spent most of the week in the nursury, enjoyed getting out this day and having a sword fight with Mommy.

Here we have the closing program where they were about to announce the winning team.

At the end of the closing program, King Arthur and the Dark Knight had a sword fight. Unfortunately for the Dark Knight, his sword broke about thirty seconds into the fight, so he never had a chance. Sir Big Bob quickly unmasked this heinious villian -- only to discover the Dark Knight was none other than Sir Sagramore (aka my husband Pastor JA). This picture is of the Dark Knight being banished and fleeing from the kingdom.

We had a wonderful week, and the kids thouroughly enjoyed the week. In fact, one of the families from another church had such a wonderful time that their teenagers came to the teen rally and then the entire family showed up in church on Sunday. What a blessing and an opportunity to maybe see another family come to love the Lord.

Some fun Pictures of the girls

A couple of weeks ago, one of the college girls from the church -- Laurie Reed -- came over and took a bunch of pictures of the girls for me. She did a wonderful job both in capturing the girls personalities, and some of the unique things about the farmhouse. Here are a few of my favorite pictures.

Lydia absolutely loves going up and down the stairs. She makes me a little
nervous, but she has been doing so well. She loves to climb!

Both Kara and Lydia love playing outside. Next to the house there is a
large patch of wildflowers that the girls enjoy picking.

Kara, ever my explorer was thrilled when we said she
could go in the garage (only for the purpose of
obtaining this picture though).

Preparing for the Journey to Knighthood

The last few weeks have been busily spent preparing for Vacation Bible School. From canvassing and handing our fliers to teen activities to create decorations for VBS, we have had a lot of fun. Here are some of the pictures in preparing for our Journey to Knighthood (the theme of the Vacation Bible School).

Kiersten drawing circles around a large medalion

Pastor Cochran and Marty moving the tower for the castle

Lori and Hilari hanging a shield on the door

Pastor Cochran and Kim changing the sanctuary into a castle

It has been a blessing to have so many from the church willing to volunteer their time to not only help run VBS, but to prepare the church, go door to door, and pick up kids to bring to Bible School.

An enjoyable day at the zoo

Thursday was a beautiful day. Amy and I took our five kids to the Magnetic Hill Zoo. We had a wonderful time. Lydia wasn't all that interested in seeing the animals; she was content to spend most of the time sitting in her stroller and watching life go by. However, Kara was exactly the opposite. She was eager to see everything and experience it all. We really enjoyed watching the Tiger get fed, and all of the kids loved feeding the deer (even Kara who three months ago was afraid to feed the giraffe). Because Kara was tired, I ended up renting a double stroller for the afternoon. By the end of the afternoon, we had Kara in Judah's umbrella stroller and all four of the other kids in the double stroller. We probably looked like a couple of insane moms, but we had a wonderful time.The zoo had a playground that the kids enjoyed playing on after we finished looking at the monkeys. Here you can see Kara and Judah sitting on the see-saw
This was my favorite picture from the day. You can see Judah was having a wonderful time feeding the deer. In fact, right after I took this picture he walked under the fence and tried to play with them.

No More Excuses

This is Grace Baptist Church of Moncton, NB.















Saturday was a wonderful blessing both physically (because of the sunny weather in the morning) and spiritually.

You see, I hate going door to door. I'm not sure why I don't enjoy it; but there is something about the prospect of having someone slam the door in your face (it happened all too frequently to me when I lived in Chicago) that I long to avoid. Well, with Vacation Bible School coming up a week from today, we were going to pass out fliers inviting children to VBS and teens to a teen rally next weekend.

Thursday night when the group was supposed to go out it hadn' even crossed my mind to go because of course I need to get the girls put in bed. Well, Thursday night got rained out and rescheduled for Saturday morning. I really wanted to spend some time with JA, so I figured we could take the girls out with us (after all, all we were doing was placing the fliers in the mailboxes and talking to people who were outside). It turned out to be such a blessing going canvassing with the girls. I was a little bit leary about taking them, but hey Jehovah Witnesses' take their kids with them all the time. Plus, there isn't a better time to get them accustomed to inviting people out to church.








For the most part Kara had a great time. She really enjoyed helping to carry the fliers, and occasionally I would lift her up so she could put them in the mailbox (probably her favorite part). What a priviledge it is that Canada allows us to distribute literature into the mailboxes!














While we were out, Kara had the opportunity to play with a Sheltie puppy (the kind of dog I hope to own someday). While she was playing with the puppy I was able to have a wonderful conversation with the owner who seemed excited about the possibility of sending his boys to VBS.







JA also discovered some benefits to canvassing with the girls. He and one of the teens took Lydia in her stroller and were walking the opposite side of the road as Kara and myself. At one point he began talking with a lady who immediately put him off, but when she saw Lydia she softened up.

We ended up having a wonderful time canvassing, a great opportunity to train our girls, and a blessing to me to learn that canvassing does not always end in closed doors.

I definately plan to take the girls with us again (although I am still not going to take them out when it will interfere with bed time and other times of the day when they would be prone to grumble and complain. I can't think of a worse turnoff than to have fussy children.)

A Family Day at Hopewell Rocks

Monday was JA's day off, so we finally went to one of the tourist attractions -- The Hopewell Rocks at Hopewell Cape. We had a wonderful time.

Here are the Rocks at High Tide
Here are the Rocks at Low Tide -- As you can see from the picture the difference is quite drastic.Kara had a blast walking on the ocean floor.
I was hoping we would be able to search for shells,
but the ocean floor was all rocks. We saw some kelp,
but no there were no other signs of sea life.

Lydia even enjoyed being on the ocean floor.
She would have loved to crawl around,
but the ground was so muddy and slippery
that we didn't dare put her down

Kara was more interested in looking at the ocean than
getting her picture taken. But Lydia was quite the ham.

We were finally able to get our picture taken together as a family.

After walking all day, Kara was quite tired. Since we were walking uphill (and I was already sore and tired from all the hiking), JA had to devise a way to get both girls up the hill. We turned the umbrella stroller into a double stroller. Kara loved it! Hopefully she doesn't try to convince us to do this everytime we go walking and put Lydia in the stroller.

Between High tide and Low tide we went for a drive to get the girls to sleep. We decided to drive to Cape Enrage. According to the map it was only a short drive away, but after driving for awhile without seeing any signs we began thinking we missed it. However, We soon found it. The drive was tedious in some places, and we wondered whether or not it had been worth the drive, but when we saw the view -- it was incredible.

God's Blessings to Us

I want to thank the Lord for the many blessings that He has given our family over the past week (or has brought constantly to my mind throughout this past week).

• God has been very gracious to us in providing us with a summer ministry and a house to call our own for the summer.
• We thank the Lord for all of you who are praying for us while we minister here in Moncton, NB. We can definately see the effects of your prayers for us. Please continue to pray for us as we continue to minister and seek a permament ministry.
• We have had the opportunity to fellowship with several different families from the church, and we have really enjoyed getting to know them better.

The Lord has given so much to us, and I am thankful for His precious Word. Yesterday in Junior Church I was teaching the kids about God's love for us and how we are to exhibit our love for Him (I John). The kids were really excited about writing a love letter to God telling Him why they love Him and how they are going to show God that they love Him. I was thrilled to see several of the children take the project seriously. Four year old Seth drew a picture of the cross showing that he loved God because Christ died for us. Brendon (I think he's either 8 or 9) started writing and was saying he had so much more still to write even though the class was over.

What a blessing to see the faith of children put into action. I pray that the Lord will give me such a child-like faith so that when trials come my confidence is in Him and not in myself. Why is it that so often as people mature they lose their child-like trust and become doubters of God and His promises?

A Week of Birthdays

We had a very busy week this week. Tuesday was my birthday, and since JA was going to be at the church all day and then going on visitation Tuesday evening, I invited a couple of the college girls over for some games (I just didn't want to spend my birthday by myself at home after putting the girls to bed -- of course I could have taken the opportunity to go to bed earlier).



Lydia's 1st birthday was on Thursday. We didn't do much to celebrate it on her birthday because we were going to be visiting a couple different families from the church. We gave her one birthday present on Wednesday -- her 1st real doll, and then we gave her the remainder of her presents Thursday morning -- the tug boats, and a doodle pad. Kara seems to enjoy Lydia's presents as much as Lydia and has now begun to ask when is Kara's birthday. She walks around the house singing "Happy Birthday to you."


Because I'm having difficulty loading the pictures from Lydia's birthday party, I'll post them some time next week.