It Is Finished!!!

This week saw the last of the carrots harvested - so yes, it is finished!!!

Thanks for all those prayers asking for the frosts to stay away till they were done. They did get a frost last saturday, but the carrots till stood tall (and didn't fall over) so the harvester could pick them - God is good.

Alistair is quite relieved that the harvest is done - he can now sit down and take a breath. It was a challenge trying to organize two crews of students, one out in the field harvesting and one in the shed washing and packing the carrots as well as see to all the other jobs that he needed to do. Deliveries have started, so he is off at least once a week to Vancouver or Vernon (both are a 3-4 hour journey each way).

This week has speed by (don't they all).
I have taken on the job as fundraising co-ordinator for the Fountainview mission trip in March. It seems to be turning into a bigger job than I first thought it would be! So I have been busy trying to get my head around all that. I think I will get it sorted.

Friday night at vespers they had a speaker who has only been a christian for about 3 years. He spoke on how he had been using the Steps to Christ in Song DVD's (which Fountainview produced) to share the gospel. It really was amazing the stories he had to tell. Really made one think about how we live our lives and what our focus is.
It is amazing how God has been using these DVD's to touch peoples lives. I am excited that Kyle and Tamzin have the opportunity to be part of the next series Fountainview will be filming in March, which will be entitled Help in Daily Living.

Friday morning the grade 10 class (which is Kyle's class) went canoe camping. They paddled 3 hours to their campsite and spent the night camping. Then returned back on Saturday. Seems they had a good time. No body fell overboard, which was just as well as the water is extremely cold. The rain that was forecasted stayed away, so that was nice.

Last night (Saturday) was another family night. We had 4 young ladies come to our home for tea, worship and an evening of just 'hanging out'. We decided to do crafty things with them as they don't get the opportunity (or time) to do any of that here. Kyle sent to another home for the evening as we didn't think he would want to make handbags!



So the girls spent the evening making mini handbags out of paper - which they can use for thank yous or putting notes in for friends. It seemed like they had a good time. They especially enjoyed the food as they had just spent the previous 28 hours fasting!


Today (Sunday) Tamzin is off at a birthday party which is a brunch. The party is for the sister of one of the girls she has become friends with, so she is helping 'oversee' the proceedings. Then this afternoon we are all going to a family picnic for the earliteen class (which is Tamzin's Sabbath school class). Alistair has decided to go plough up a field and Kyle is doing homework (which he hasn't stopped complaining about!).

I see that some snow has fallen on the mountains around us again - I won't worry about that now as since all the carrots are safe and sound, tucked up in the cool store. Not sure that I want it to get any colder though - it is quite nippy in the mornings these days.

Hope you all have a good week, I guess it is Labour Weekend in NZ. Hope you all have a safe and happy holiday.

Take care.

Our Trip to Seattle

On Thursday Tamzin and I headed off to Seattle to catch up with some good 'kiwi folk'. Evelyn was at Alister and Angela's place for a few days so we thought we would drive down and say hi (it was about a 5-6 hour drive). We were all planning to go down and visit but we discovered that Kyle had to go sing at a church opening in Ashcroft with the quartet, and then they had to sing again on Saturday night for the Festival of Rejoicing (which wasn't meant to be till November - but we won't talk about that!).

Anyway, Alistair and Kyle stayed home.

Tamzin and I managed to find the 'outlet' shops on our way and did a 'spot' of shopping. I managed to find a few clothes for myself, which was nice. Found this great shop that had 50% off everything, then and additional 20% and another 10% - so things worked out to be quite cheap. I think we went back there 3 times!

We finally arrived at Alister and Angela's - all tired out from all our hard out shopping!!!

We had a great time visiting with them. It was so nice be amongst kiwi company that had the same sense of humor as us and understood what we said. (Nothing against the Canadian's, they just don't understand our expressions and sayings quite the same).

Sabbath afternoon we went for a wonder around their property and met their 3 goats, their flock of chickens, saw where the moles had been digging and also found one of their resident snakes. He was curled up having a sabbath afternoon snooze under a left - we soon put an end to that!

Evelyn wore these snazzy boots on the walk - believe it not these are gumboots! Aren't they cool - I want a pair.




Saturday night they had a costume party in their barn for the earlyteen's from church. Tamzin had a great time - stuffing scarecrows and having three legged races - and eating party food of course!


Sunday we had to say bye. I must admit that I felt quite sad saying bye to Eveyln, knowing that she was heading back to the 'homeland'. Part of me wanted to climb in her suitcase and go with her - but I don't think Alistair would have been too impressed, plus I think she would have been over her weight allowance for baggage by quite some!!



Tamzin and i had a good trip back - we got back to F/V about 8pm.

Thanksgiving

Yesterday was Thanksgiving here in Canada.
The students all have a week off and most of them have gone home. Unfortunatly the staff don't get the week off as well!

Alistair did manage to have Friday off so we headed back to Whistler for 3 days.
The Halls kindly invited us to stay with them at a timeshare appartment they have in Whistler, for a week over Thanksgiving. So we all piled into their 2 bedroom place - the overflow had to sleep out on the deck!! Tamzin and Jessica took their mattresses, sleeping bags, wooly hats and socks and slept out on the deck. It was rather chilly out there - I think it got down to 5 degrees C but they had a great time out there. They enjoyed the Steller Jay (bird) that kept coming to visit them on the deck.

Friday the females wondered the shops. Alistair and Steve went walking (and saw a bear) and then soaked their weary bones in the hot tubs. Kyle took his mountain bike and road the mountain. He paid his money and got a lift pass for the day which enabled him to ride the ski chair lift up the mountain, with his bike, and then ride down. He had a BLAST. He managed to come back in one piece - which was good. He was rather weary, but had a grin from ear to ear.

Yolanda is very creative so had us playing some great games. Friday night worship was bible hide-n-seek with walkie talkies round the complex - parents against the offspring! Not sure who won - I think the parents did! We were Adam's and Eve's hiding in the courtyard gardens (pretty good we thought - it had to have a creation emphasis).

Saturday afternoon we had a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner. Tamzin and Rebecca collected leaves, pinecones etc and decorated the table. It looked lovely.
We all ate way to much food - We finished the meal off with pumpkin pie and pavlova.

Saturday evening we played scavenger hunt game - digital camera style. We had a list of about 70 things we had to scout out round the village and take photos of - things like: a bear (could use a statue if a real one wasn't close by!), a turkey, video having some teach you how to say, I love Whistler in a different language, 5 hotel lobbies, and so on. It was a hoot. Again it was parents against offspring. Kyle and Jessica sung a duet in the middle of a hotel lobby - not sure what requirement that was for, but they seemed to enjoy doing it.

At the apartment complex they had a minie theatre that you could take your movie to and have them play it on the 'big screen'. So Yolanda organzied one for us to watch at 10pm on Saturday. We made popcorn and had chips and dip while we watched - it was great.

Sunday we hit the farmers market - it was interesting seeing all the different things for sale there. The favourite thing was the kettle pop corn we found - I have never tasted popcorn like it - I don't think it was healthy popcorn though, judging by the amount of oil the kernals were floating in before they popped! But boy it was tasty.

The weekend quickly came to an end and we had to head back to F/V.

We had a fantastic time. Thanks to the Hall's for inviting us...........

Weekend Activities

This last weekend saw us going to some new places, and some places that we hadn't been to for a long time.
The orchestra and choir had a tour to Kamloops and Ashcroft for Saturday.

We all headed out from the school about 7.15am with the students all dress in uniform and ready to eat their breakfast on the bus (recipe for disaster if you ask me) - we took Kyle and Tamzin with us in the car, and we ate breakfast before we left!

Anyway, we headed out on the 2 and a half hour drive to Kamloops to play for the church service. The church was VERY small - it was quite the challenge trying to fit 85 students and their instruments up on the stage. Some of them had to stand in the font!
After a lovely potluck lunch the group split into 3 and headed off to 3 different rest homes to sing and play for the old folk.
After doing that they all headed to Ashcroft - about an hours drive back towards F/V and did an evening concert there.
We even managed to have about an hour down by the river throwing stones in. Joel, Kyle and Nolan tempted fate a bit by wading in on the very slippery stones to the rocks. I am not sure what they would have done had they fallen over as they were in their uniforms and still had another concert to perform! Boys will be boys!

It was a good day and all the concerts went well.
We were all ready for bed though when we got home round 10.30pm.

Fall (autumn) is definitely on it's way. We saw lots of trees turning yellow on our trip to Kamloops. They looked lovely.
We saw this huge lake at Kamloops. Alistair and Kyle were dreaming of jet skiing on that one. Funny though, we didn't see one boat on the whole thing. Makes us wonder if it isn't fit for boating in. We will have to find out as I can see us paying it a visit come summer.

Sunday, Alistair, Kyle and Missey did a spot of 'pot hole filling' in our drive way. Kyle thinks we should get some ear muffs for Missey!

I planted 150 or so tulip and daffodil bulbs that will hopefully make a wonderful display next spring - if the deer don't eat them.

It was a great weekend. We enjoyed seeing all the students perform and can see them all gaining confidence with their playing and singing.

I am sure after their 2 week California tour with 16 concerts they will be able to perform the concerts in their sleep - actually they probably will be as they get pretty tired out on these tours - so they say.