Nan Arrives & School Closes down!

Yesterday Alistair's Mom arrived from New Zealand. Here they are at the airport.
She has come to stay with us for 2 weeks. It is great to see her and have her come visit us in our patch.

The snow was kind enough to stay around for Nan to see - usually they don't have much snow here so it is nice that it is still here.


Tamzin, Nan and Kyle out enjoying the snow and sun!


Missey is just loving have Nan here, as Nan gives her lots of cuddles and scratches! Missey has been feeling a little neglected these days since Kyle is gone all day and I don't have the time to sit and cuddle her. So she is 'in heaven' with all this attention - I think we might find Missey cuddled up in Nan's bed tonight!

Today school has been cancelled and everything has been shut down. There is some sort of 'bug' going round and over half the kids are sick with it - high fevers, aches, pains, some vomiting. So they decided to shut everything down and try and stop it spreading. It couldn't have come at a worse time - next week are the students provincial exams! They have been busy in classes cramming in last minute topics and doing practice exams. We are all praying that this bug can be stomped out and the kids can focus. They are also in the middle of doing all the recordings for the up coming new DVD series - so there is quite a bit going on round here at the moment, and getting sick isn't in the plan!

Alistair and Cassidy have fled the property - they are off in Vancouver delivery carrots today. They left at 5am and should be back round 8pm. Alistair enjoys having Cassidy along with him to help keep him awake and keep him company................

Well I better go make some supper (tea) for Nan .

Sweet 16!!

Today our #1 son turned 16!!

Where has the last 16 years have gone.
Everyone said they would grow up before you knew it - and they were right. Mind you it sure didn't feel like he would ever grow up when he was first born and screaming at 3am wanting to be feed!

God has blessed us with a wonderful son. We thank God for the gift He gave us when He delivered Kyle into our lives 16 years ago. We are so proud of the young man he is becoming and pray that he will continue to be the caring and loving person he has become and that he will continue to include God in his every day life.

To celebrate his birthday we had 5 extra guys from the dorm for lunch. We had pizza, chips and savories - it was yum.



Here they are trying to work out how to fly the remote control helicoptor that Kyle got for his birthday.

We all ate way too much food, and still have heaps left over............

I guess I should tell you what we got up on Friday night - which I mentioned in my last post.

We all got dressed up and drove down to vespers on Friday night. While we were in the meeting it snowed - quite a bit. When we came to come home the car wouldn't get up the hill - there was too much ice. We managed to get up the first hill and drop the boys off at their dorm, but it just wouldn't go up our drive - so out we all got out and had to push the car! Bear in mind, we weren't dressed for tramping in the snow - high heals and skirts - we didn't have our snow boots or gloves.
We finally managed to get the car up the hill - after Alistair had taken 3 runs at it and we pushed too.
We were all very wet from the snow - they were huge snow flakes and very wet.

Meanwhile another staff family were having problems getting up their drive, which is much longer than ours. We could hear the spinning of their wheels ringing out across the campus as they tried to spin their way up the mountain they live on. Alistair and Kyle quickly got changed and headed out to help them. The boys dean jumped on his snow mobil and headed up to help them also.
There was no way their car was going anywhere, there was way too much ice. So the dean ferried them home on the snow mobil, then bought Alistair and Kyle home.

It was all very exciting, there is something about the snow, it seems so magical! Cassidy thought it was the greatest of fun!


Here we are after pushing the car up the hill. We were all rather wet. I just love Kyle and Tamzin's expressions - Alistair got them at a bad moment - they really were having fun!

More pictures

Thought I would post some more pictures from Christmas.......



Here we are at Wayne and Kim's place for Christmas dinner - with our 3rd child - Cassidy (my neice) who has been staying with us since the beginning of January.
Kim got a stomach bug so wasn't up to having Christmas dinner on Christmas day, so we delayed Christmas till Sunday.



Aunty Maureen, Wayne, Kelvin and Uncle Ralph. Wayne, Scott, Kim & Hannah



We went snowboarding/skiing one day at a mountain called 'Powder King'. It sure lived up to it's name. We had a great day - along with about 5000 other people on the mountain!!!



Jordan & Kyle - Jordan is one of the boys deans from Fountainview, he drove 4 hours to join us for the day on the Mountain skiing.

The 3 handsome dudes are Kyle, Alistair and Jordan!

I even skiied for the day - it was fun. Haven't skiied for about 15 years.


Check out the icicles.


Kelvin took us up Morphy Mountain on the snow mobiles. It was fun - apart from the bumps!



This was at the top of the mountain - it was a repeater station or something. I loved how the ice had coated the steal. I looked quite erry in the twilight, almost like something from in the ocean.


We have just had a very exciting Friday evening - but I will tell you about that in my next post............

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!

I thought is was time that I updated the blog! It has been awhile - I don't know where December went!!! I think we slept at home for 6 nights for the whole of December. Between the school tour to California and Christmas up in Mackenze - we weren't home very much.

I have uploaded a few photos - they aren't in order as it is very time consuming to get them just right. So I have just 'flung' them on here - I am sure you can work out what they are.

The school tour was a great success - they managed to raise twice as much money this year as they did last - which was fantastic. I didn't enjoy having to keep track of all the money thought - I was the official sales person, offering person and petty cash women! It was much more stressful than I every thought it would be. I had lots of good help though - which was nice.

We arrived back from tour at 8.30 Monday night - had Tuesday home to do washing and repack to head up north 10 hours to Prince George and Mackenzie for Christmas. We headed out to Prince George on Wednesday morning and stopped off at Glen and Yvonnes place for a couple of nights. We opened our presents there on Thursday evening (Cassidy wanted to beat all our Kiwi friends to open presents!) No, we thought we would open them before we got to Mackenzie as they weren't doing the 'present' thing up there.
We got some nice gifts between us all - my favourite was the lovely peach/orange belliclava that Kyle and Alistair bought me at the auto shop!



Check out the roads we had to drive on and the wild life we had to dodge on the roads - it's a moose.



Kyle using Uncle Ralphs snow blower.



Hanging out round the fire while everyone snow mobiled. The fire was a life saver - kept us from freezing.


We put this wood down to get Missey off the cold snow - she enjoyed digging in the snow.


All of us at Yvonne's place about to open presents. Check out the Christmas lights, while we were on tour, a couple that we were billeted at took us to see a street done out with lights - it was amazing! Cassidy couldn't get over them all.


Alistair modelling his 'spoils', my lovely hat and Kyle's new shirt (which he is very proud of with the fox logo and Monster Energy logo!



This is one of the Churches they played/sang at while on tour. It was pretty impressive.


Look at all the candles behind the guys. Here is Tamzin playing her heart out! Unfortunatley something went wrong with wrist and she is finding it very painful to play - not sure if it is over use or what. She has to wear a arm brace thing to help stop it aching. We are praying it will improve as they are about to start recording for the next DVD series and that will include a LOT of playing.


Kyle was lucky enough to be able to sleep in with us on several occasions and not have to bed down with all the guys - we usually got our own room at the schools or churches we slept at since I needed space (and privacy) to sort money etc. Cassidy was my 'cheif' helper at the sales tables - she helped me 'hold the fort' till the students could get off the stage and come and help sell. It was crazy at some concerts - people everywhere wanting to buy products. At one concert we sold over $8,000 worth of product in about 1 hours, so you can imagine how busy it was. They all did a great job.



I couldn't get over all the 'wood peckers' - better known as oil wells - it was amazing to see so many so close together. This was in California - as was the famous Hollywood sign.

I think I better end this post. I still have quite a few pictures to add, but I think I will do another post - hopefully in a day or 2.

All the students arrive back at school tomorrow and we will be back into it again on Tuesday - much to Kyle's displeasure! I must admit that I aren't overjoyed about it myself either - I have enjoyed taking it a bit easier.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year - we sure did. I will tell you more about it in the next post...............

Still On Tour

We are still on tour and we are surviving! We are all getting a little weary (to say the least).

The concerts are going well - not without their challenges though.
2 nights ago one of the guys had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance - during the concert he passed out and fell off the back of the risers (the choir stands), it was about a 6 foot drop and he fell straight back. He split the back of his head open - there was blood everywhere! I am sure his angel was working overtime.
The students did so well, the concert didn't even stop, they all carried on, trying to block from the audiance what was going on. It shock them though.

Well I won't write much as time is short. It is Thursday and we won't be home till Monday, so we still have a wee way to go. Alistair is arrivng tomorrow evening, so that will be nice.

Better go board the bus.............. again.....................

California

I must apologise for my lack of updates as of late - life has been a bit hectic (to say the least).

At the moment we are in California on a two week tour with the school. Alistair wasn't able to come unfortunately. We are one week in and have one week to go. It has been very 'full on'. Early mornings, late nights and lots of driving. It has been fun, but very exhausting.

They played at Loma Linda church on sabbath - that was pretty neat (they have a membership of 6000 and they have 18 pastors).
We did a concert in Hollywood yesturday - saw the famous Hollywood sign. It is very warm down here, so warm that some of the kids went swimming in the ocean yesterday - we didn't, we went shopping instead!

Some of the kids are starting to get sick. Loosing their voices, vomiting, headaches etc. We had to take one to hospital today - she has a stomach aulsor and it flared up badly. We are all praying hard that they will recover and no one else gets sick. One of the girls fell over on the rocks at the beach yesturday and hit her head so hard she got knocked out! The joys of it.

I am feeling rather weary, I should be sleeping. We have been billeted out tonight, which is nice, we will get showers (something which have been few and far between). We get a sleep in in the morning, which is great.

I must go and get my beauty sleep.

Let it snow!

Well this week has warmed up from the -17 we had last week - which is nice.

Here is a picture to prove that it really did get down below -10! The bottom left side of it gives the outside temp which is -13 and the top left gives the inside temp.




On Friday we headed to Enderby for a 'mini tour' with the kids. They did a concert in Enderby and got a fantastic turn out. It is a small town, maybe the size of Huntly, and they got approx 650 people come. It has been well advertised.
Friday there was a good dumping of snow about the place, so we had to take it easy driving the 4 hour trip. Alistair did nothing but complain about how dirty the car got! It sure was yukky. Bit hard to wash it too when all the water hoses are frozen! Will have to go find a car wash somewhere - but is there much point as it will just get dirty like that again.
We had to stop a couple of times and clean the lights as we could see NOTHING. It was a wee bit scary. We thought our lights had blown but then realized they may just be dirty - and they were!

Our very dirty car and the snow tires which Alistair is very proud of! We sure where glad we had them on.

Saturday morning the kids did a concert in Kelowna at Rutland church.
Aunty Maureen and Uncle Ralph surprised us and turned up for the concert (they had been staying at Delwyns in Vernon). They bought Robbie with them - Delwyn's son. So that was nice to see them again.
We had lunch at Margie and Larry's place. I knew Margie from many years ago. I use to babysit her 2 children - one of which was at lunch also, Johnathan and his wife Debra. Margie come to NZ for our wedding 20 odd years ago!




Saturday afternoon we headed to Penticton for another concert that the kids were doing. The timing was pretty tight so we weren't able to spent too much time visiting over lunch, which was a shame.

Saturday night we stayed in Kelowna and did a spot of shopping on Sunday. Our mission was to buy warm winter boots for everyone and gloves. I also wanted to get Kyle a nice dress jacket for church and vespers etc, but he wan't having a bar of that! (I'll have to work on him a bit more yet!)




About noon we headed back to the school as we had to be back for 'open house' which was that evening.

It was a stunning trip back going over the Connector Road. It was a lovely sunny day and the snow was covering the trees. Alistair wouldn't stop for me to take photos, so I had to snap these out the window as we zoomed along!







Sunday evening was Open House. This is a very special evening when a lovely meal is prepared for everyone, and then you can go through the students rooms. They decorate them up and make them look (and smell) lovely!
Each staff family were assigned students which became our family for the evening. We ate tea (supper) with them, and then all went together through the dorms.

The girls had spend an incredible amount of time doing up there dorm. They had done each floor as a different part of the Christmas story. So one floor was the stable, complete with hay and animal noises, another was the market place, another Herods palace. It was very well done.
It was a great evening. The student life team put so much work into these evens - it never ceases to amaze me.





This is how the campus (or carrot fields) look with a light dusting of snow.



Friday is an exciting day (2 days away). Cassidy (my neice) is arriving from NZ to stay with us for a few weeks. I hope she is ready for the cold...................

This saturday the kids are doing 3 (and maybe 4) concerts. So another busy weekend. Then on Tuesday the school (and myself) are off to California for a 2 week tour - on which they perform 20 odd concerts. One of these will be at Sacramento Central Church - so keep a watch out on 3ABN - you might catch a glimpes of Kyle and Tamzin.