I AM CANADIAN!

Today I became a Canadian citizen! I've lived in Canada longer than I lived in the U.S. so I figured it was about time. Andy & I attended the citizenship ceremony at Canada Place in Edmonton. There were 71 of us becoming new citizens. Three of us were Caucasian. It was kind of cool! I sat next to a young woman who was Columbian by birth, but raised in Lebanon and had Lebanese citizenship, and was now getting her Canadian citizenship after 4 years in Canada. And she's married to a Venzuelan with Canadian/Venzuelan citizenship. My story was decidedly boring compared to most people's!

I was able to take my Bible with me to swear my oath on, so that was special. We repeated the oath after the judge, first in French, then English!I received my very own signed copy of Pierre Trudeau's greatest work, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in both official languages. I also got a little maple leaf pin and a flag. Woo hoo!

Here's me in the atrium of Canada Place after the ceremony. We sang "O Canada". Andy said it was the first time he ever got emotional singing the national anthem!

It was such a great experience, and I'm proud to say I'm Canadian, although for those who are wondering, I am still proudly an American citizen also.

My "baby girl" is 15!!!

Janelle Marie Small turned 15 today!

We celebrated with dinner at Milestones.

We gave her an Ipod Nano.

We also gave her a new shirt, which she wore to school but not to the restaurant. Her daddy gave her two dozen roses, and she got $$ from her grandma, and text messages from her cousin Ryan and the Langs (and her mommy!), a phone call from her Auntie Colleen & Grandma, and talked to her best friend Sarah. Janelle said it was a happy birthday.

I apologize for the poor quality photos; I had to use my cell phone camera because I forgot the digital one at home. So....I've included my favourite photo of her, even though it's a year old. She hasn't changed that much!

Happy Birthday, Nellie!

Awesome Weekend!

Welcome to our new look! I was just bored with the old.

This past weekend was a holiday weekend here in Canada. The kids had no school Friday or Monday. Janelle flew to Abbotsford Friday to spend the weekend with her best friend, Sarah Olsen. They went to History Maker in Chilliwack together with the youth group from APA. She had more fun than she could put into words! She flew home Monday night. BIG thank you to Daryl & Nina Olsen for picking her up and dropping her off at the airport, feeding her, and taking care of her.

While Janelle was away, Andy, Calvin & I drove to Kamloops/Salmon Arm. Our good friends the Langs were in Kamloops visiting their good friends the Denbrabers, who are also our friends. Got that? We dropped off Calvin in the Loops Friday night so he could stay up all night playing video games with Gabe & Mark. It was wonderful beyond words to see Len & Leanne & Dan & Jenn, and to get a sleepy hug from "mine Emma"! Andy & I continued on to Salmon Arm that night.

Saturday morning we slept in, then enjoyed brunch with the Greeks and Janus & Judy, other friends of ours from Abbotsford who are in the process of moving to Salmon Arm. In the afternoon Andy & I drove back to the Loops to spend the rest of the day & evening with the Langs & 'Brabers. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera in Salmon Arm, so I have NO PICTURES of our time in Kamloops, or of the very special people there! I spent the afternoon playing with my Emma, which filled up the empty space inside of me for a little while (hopefully until July when I see her again!). After giving her a bath and settling the kids in with pizza, the adults went for dinner at Chapters restaurant. No, not the bookstore. It's a great restaurant with an awesome view. Back at the Denbrabers, we picked up Calvin, said some teary good-byes, and headed back to Salmon Arm. It's hard to put into words how much that visit did for me. It's good to be with friends that love us!

I DO have photos of Sunday! The Greeks, including their boarder, Greg, and Shawn's sister and her son, and us were able to go out on the lake on a "party barge". We brought the party with us -- Shawn went shopping for food -- all junk food, with the exception of lunch meat & cheese. Yea, Shawn! It was the most fun, relaxing day I've had in a long time! I got a little sunburned, but that was okay. We cut the motor and drifted in silence for a while, then later beached the boat at a provincial park for lunch and a bathroom break. The boys all took turns piloting the boat, which meant a lot of circles and figure eights and other bumpiness.

We got back about 2:30 p.m., too late to catch the matinee of Shrek the Third. But no worries! We know the manager of the theatre! He gave us a private screening, complete with complimentary popcorn and pop. Thanks, Shawn! We topped off this absolutely perfect day with a great dinner at Pillars Bistro, the restaurant at the hotel where Joanne works.

We headed out early Monday morning to get back in time to pick up Janelle at the airport. It was one of the best weekends I've had in a long time!

Another Son

Last night -- no, wait, this morning at 2:00 -- Calvin & I picked up Brendan Greek at the airport. His plane was supposed to come in from Toronto at 11:00 last night, but was repeatedly delayed and finally touched down at 1:53 a.m. Calvin happily missed school so he could sleep in, then hang out with Brendan all day.

Brendan and his brother James are like other sons to us. Our families have been close friends since they were little boys, and they've spent countless hours with us. Both of them (Brendan a little more) have lived with us for short periods of time, especially during the summers a few years ago. Brendan is now 22 and just finished his third tour as a lighting tech with Seeds dinner theatre, travelling throughout the U.S. and Canada raising money for missions. He's home for the summer and still deciding what to do with his future (click on the "Brendan" link in my list of fellow bloggers). He's here with us for a couple of days, then we're all travelling to his parents home in Salmon Arm on Friday. We're coming back Monday, and we're trying to convince Brendan to come back with us and live here for a while!

As you can see in the photo above, the boys have been enjoying one of their favourite things to do together! Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, Calvin couldn't find the WD40 to make the fire really interesting!

Mother's Day

This post will definitely be more interesting to Andy's extended family, but the rest of you can read along if you like!

Most of Andy's siblings, including us, went in together on presents for Andy's Mom for Mother's Day and her birthday, which is today. We had the privilege of delivering the presents since we now live about an hour and half from his parents and his brother Lorne (he's in the background of the photos). Because we had our own family plans on Mother's Day, we went for a visit on Saturday.
Here's Mom with her Larry King Live DVD, which I designated as her Mother's Day present.
We all bought her the two newest Gaither DVDs for her birthday gift.
I bought little candles in the shape of letters to spell "MOM". I was going to buy cupcakes, but I forgot. When we got there, Dad brought out a pack of cupcakes he's just picked up at the store, complete with a little "Happy Mother's Day" plastic decoration, so it worked out very well!

And this goofiness......I took another photo of Dad and he wasn't smiling very well, so Mom told him to "show his teeth". I assumed she meant to smile more, but no, she meant this -- stick out your dentures! Very funny!

My own Mother's Day on Sunday was very relaxing and great too. My family gave me a lovely gold cross necklace before church. Church was really nice -- several mom's gave testimonies, and it was nice to get to know a few more people that way. Each week we feel more like part of the church. After church we went to our favourite brunch buffet at the Nisku Inn. At home I read and took a nap while my family did yard work. Then Andy & I drove into Leduc so I could get a latte and buy stuff at Canadian Tire. We ordered pizza in the evening while I watched the 3 hour finale of Survivor. A great day!

Da Sistahs Wonderful, Wild, Wacky Weekend!

"Da Sistahs" are Barb & Melody (Mel), Andy's sisters, Melody (Dee), wife of Andy's brother Chris, Joanne Greek (adopted into our family -- we've decided Andy & Shawn are brothers), and me. Sisters-in-law and best friends! Below is Dee reading her new Bible, a gift to each of us from Barb.

Our weekend away started with a lovely room at the Podollan Inn

where Joanne works at the front desk. We had "special privileges" because of her, including plush white robes for each of us. Jo also decorated the room with candies, chocolate on each pillow, wine and roses. Oo la la! Thanks, Jo! Friday evening we went to a FREE showing of "Lucky You" at Shawn's theatre, complete with free popcorn & pop! Thanks, Shawn!

Barb bought us all matching Bibles and also a great book, "Pathway to Purpose". We received the books about 6 weeks ago so we could read them, then spend time on the weekend discussing what we'd read. Mel, Dee & I sat out on our lovely poolside patio and had a neat time sharing what God is teaching us through the book.

Saturday we spent SHOPPING! Who knew how much shopping you can find in a little town like Salmon Arm?Of course, we had to stop for lattes! In the picture above, that's Jo to my left, then Mel, Barb, & Dee.

Below, Jo puts the finishing touches on her "facial". Barb sells Mary Kay cosmetics, so she brought along a ton of stuff and we all did make-overs. Just like high school sleepovers... Thanks, Barb!

And then there was dinner! Unfortunately, Joanne couldn't get time off work while we were there, because she'd just booked off time for her trip to Niagara Falls the week before, so she had to work 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. each day. Saturday night the rest of us went for dinner at the Greek restaurant where James (Jo's son) works as dishwasher. When we got back to the hotel we hit the hot tub, then went down to the lobby to play a much-too-rousing game of Bible Blurt (I totally rocked everyone!!). We would've been kicked out of the lobby if anyone except Jo had been on duty! Instead, she started throwing little candies at us, which started an all-out candy war. If our children ever behaved that way in a hotel, we would've spanked 'em all soundly and sent 'em to bed!

Andy & Calvin went to Salmon Arm too. They spent the weekend hanging out with Shawn & James and watching free movies at Shawn's theatre. Sunday morning the guys joined us for brunch buffet at the restaurant at the hotel. That was followed by a walk on the pier (and more lattes -- iced this time because it was hot and sunny!) Here's one last picture of Da Sistahs before our sad hugs good-bye. Until next year, Sistahs!

What I did today

I got a sunburn too.

I'll post soon about my fabulous weekend with "Da Sistahs"!

TIMBERRRRR!!

Ahhh, it finally feels like home here: it's raining!!

But before it started raining, Lumberjack Andy went to work on our front yard. Yesterday he and Calvin chopped down two smaller trees. Today he took down two trees about 20 feet high. He hooked up a chain between the tree and his cube van. After he made the initial cuts in the tree (with his new chainsaw), I pulled the van forward until the tree fell down. Fun! Our yard looks much bigger now and we have lots of firewood for our backyard fire pit and wood burning fireplace. I'm looking forward to planting flowers and shrubs in the next few weeks.

OK, do any of you other bloggers have problems moving your photos around on your blog? I was going to put another photo on here, but I can't place it where I want it. I keep trying and trying to move it once it's posted, but it will not move. BTW, I hate the way the photos always paste at the top of the blog instead of where I leave my cursor. Any suggestions?

Tomorrow we're off to Salmon Arm for a ladies' retreat with "Da Sistahs". That would be my sisters-in-laws (Andy's 2 sisters & his brother's wife) from the coast and Joanne Greek, our "adopted" sister who lives in Salmon Arm. These are some of my closest friends, prayer pals, mentors, etc. We've planned our own little retreat at the hotel that Jo works at in Salmon Arm, complete with gifts and devotional times, as well as hot tubbing, shopping, and free movies at the theatre that Shawn Greek manages! Andy & Calvin are going along to hang out with the male Greeks. We planned this before I moved, and I can hardly wait! Check back next week for the blog about it!