Weekend Update

So our Thanksgiving went well. We 18 people here and WAY too much food. It was nice to meet the wives of Matt's fellow co-workers. I was unable to get some photos. We had 2 sick kids and it was kind of crazy. But I plan to get some pictures soon.

Like I said yesterday was a great day of just eating and fellowshipping. After everyone left Matt, Starbuck and I took a walk around the neighborhood. The sky was so beautiful with all the stars. Plus it was nice to burn off some of those calories we ate.

Today we went and checked out a church. We were a little disappointed so we will continue to shop around. There are a couple more churches on our list so we will see. God has got just the right one for us.

After church we went up to a town called Southampton. There is a big indoor flee market type place. It has a lot of great furniture and lots of odds and ends. It was neat. You have to pick through the junk to find the good finds. After, we stopped at Tim Horton's. It is a great little "fast food" place. They have donuts, coffee, soups and sandwiches. We got donuts of course!

Well, you will never know what it is doing here now. SNOWING!! Yep, we are in for another 5- 10 inches tonight. WOW and the snow was almost gone from the last snowfall.

It's game night and everyone is waiting on me. We are going to play a round of Apples to Apples. Take care!

Adventures in Babysitting

Last night Kaitlyn had her first babysitting experience. Matt and I went out to dinner with Kris, Zach, Brooke and Jim to a great Italian restaurant in town. Kaitlyn and Grace watched Connor and Aidan at Brooke and Jim's house, which was just minutes away. Kaitlyn helped them finish their dinner, popped microwave popcorn and watched a movie then put the boys to bed. She did SO awesome. We are very proud of her. There is a babysitting course in the spring that we will sign her up for but I think having this experience with kids she knows and families she is comfortable with is great. She has added to her list for Christmas a book on babysitting but I have to say she had some great ideas of things to do with the kids and really took on the role of young adult last night.

Matt and I are up early this morning getting the turkey ready for the oven. We are also doing a roast in the crock pot. It should be a fun day having everyone over. I plan to get some pictures of the families we came with so everyone can put a face to the names you will be hearing.

That's is for now. More to come later.....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

This is a belated Happy Thanksgiving. For some reason Blogger had a problem and I wasn't able to post any blogs since Monday. So I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and you didn't eat too much. Wish we could have been with you but know we thought about you all day.

Things have been going well for all of us here. The girls are busy in school and Matt has been extremely busy at work. I have been busy at home getting things ready for our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. We will be having 22 people over for dinner. It should be a great time of fellowship and celebrating.

As some of you know we have been watching Starbuck because of his seizures he has been having since last summer. After doing all the tests they could not figure out what was causing them. They had only been coming about every 6 weeks and not very severe. It was not causing any changes in him and we decided not to medicate him because of the liver damage that can happen with the meds. Well, I had to take him to the vet on Wednesday to get him started on medication. He had one big one and 2 small ones since we got here. So we pray that the mediation works and that it doesn't mess up his liver.

Today I am taking Brooke down to a town called Goderich to the Wal Mart. It is about 30 minutes south of us and so since I have been there I thought it would be great for me to go along and show her where it is.

Last night Matt and I went to a pub called the Hogs Breath for a party for work. I got meet a bunch of people Matt works with. It was lots of fun. There are a lot of people here from the UK. One guy is from Scotland not far from where Matt used to live. It was neat to sit and talk to them. Kincardine is a lot like the small villages in the UK from what they said.

Tonight Kaitlyn has her first babysitting job. Zack, Kris, Brooke, Jim, Matt and I are all going into town to dinner while Kaitlyn and Grace tag team watching Connor and Aidan. She is very excited and a little nervous. We will only be a 3 minute drive from her. But we think she is ready for this and plus the boys are so easy going. In the spring the local community center has a babysitting class that she will take so that she can the Berkman's and Dumham's on call babysitter.

Well, have a great day! Those of you who took part of black Friday hope you found some great deal!!!! Take care and Love you all!!

The Weekend

On Saturday about 3:00 the Berkman's and the Dunham's arrived. Matt, I and the girls went into town early to remove snow from their driveways. With a weeks worth of snow we knew we had out work cut out for us. Thank goodness the Berkman's driveway had been cleared my their home owners and so we only had the Dunham's to do. We helped Brooke and Jim off load their uhaul trailer then went over to the Dunham's for dinner. Matt made a big pot of chili for everyone.

Sunday Matt and Jim had to go into Toronto to get Jim's truck from the airport and then go to Ikea to get furniture for Brooke and Jim. The girls and I went over to Brooke's and helped to get things unpacked. Connor and the girls spent the whole time playing out in the snow. They were busy little beavers making snow caves and meeting the neighborhood kids.

It is wonderful to have them here now.

Walk to the beach

Our walk to the beach was fun. The snow is pretty deep down at the lake and we all had a blast. It is very beautiful there. Matt got some great pictures of the beach. Starbuck loves it when you throw snow up into the air and he tries to catch it.

We got a call a little bit ago. Both the Berkman's and the Dunham's have made it through immigration and customs and are on their way. We are off to go help them off load and get settled.

A foot of snow!

So we woke up this morning to a foot of new snow on the ground for a total of 2 feet!!

Matt spent an hour and a half blowing the driveway, making paths in the backyard for Starbuck to have an area to run, a path to the bird feeders and clearing off the top of the trailer.

I went out to clear the snow off the bird feeders and the birds had dug a "snow cave" in the ground and were sleeping in them. It was so cool. They are happy birds now that they can get to the bird seed again.

Here are some better pictures of Matt snow blowing. You can really see how deep the snow is. The one on the left is the driveway and the one on the right is our backyard.



We are getting ready to take a walk down to the lake. I will post some of those pictures later.



The Berkman's and the Dunham's are on their way to the boarder right now. We are praying things go quickly and smoothly for them. We will keep you posted!

Snow fun...

So I finally got myself out of bed to take a picture of Matt snow blowing. It's not a great one but you can make it out a bit. Looks like we will using it quite a bit this weekend. They are calling for up to 30 cm more. For those of you, including me, that need the conversion that is about 12 inches. WOW

The other picture is of Starbuck playing frisbee. The snow is so deep he has to jump to get through it. It goes up to his belly. He doesn't mind it though. He loves being out in the snow.

Lake Huron

Starbuck and I took a walk this afternoon and decided to take some pictures of the lake. The sun came out and it was so beautiful. Just like a picture book. Enjoy the pictures. The one that shows the whole horseshoe bay area looks towards Kincardine. It is beyond the point. The other one the shows the river flowing into the lake and the point looks toward Bruce Power. Bruce is right around that corner. You can see the smoke pipes over the trees. Enjoy!

Snow and More Snow!

Well, here we are on day 6 of our snow. We now have a total of 10 inches here. It didn't snow yesterday all day then when Matt got home it started really coming down. The flakes were beautiful, they looked like crystals. When Matt got up this morning he had to use the snow plow again. He says he's not crazy about it but I think deep down he really has fun with it. So he plowed the driveway and then came in to shower and get ready for work and when he left there was another 2 inches on the ground. Amazing thing was it had stopped snowing when he went out to plow. So after I got the girls on the bus I shoveled the driveway since it has stopped snowing. It is nice right now the clouded are breaking up and I can see blue sky. I took some pictures of the girls playing in the snow on Tuesday so that is what you see. Then the others are of today. The one of the street is standing outside our house looking down towards the entrance of our road. Isn't it beautiful. I plan to walk Starbuck on the beach today and take some pictures of that. It's pretty cool with the snow on the beach. The Berkman's and the Dunham's will be here on Saturday. The guys have had wonderful weather to drive in. But once they hit Canada they get into the winter wonderland. It will be great to have them here. The girls are doing well. We have started planning Kaitlyn's 12th birthday party. It looks like we are going to do a slumber party with a few friends from school on Dec 5. She is excited about her birthday. Can't believe 12 years has gone by already. Before we know it she will be getting her driver permit! Well, Starbuck and I have a few chores to do and then we need to go mail some things. Then we will take our walk and show you the beach. Later! :)

Just found out!

I just learned if you click on the photo you can see a larger version of it. FYI!

Day 2 of the snow :)

Well we had another night of snow and woke up to about 5 inches on the ground. Matt had been so excited to use the snow blower but when he came in he said the newness and fun of it is gone. Man after only one use. He's got many more to go. But he said he was thankful he had it or he would have been out there for hours shoveling. It is so beautiful to look out and see such fresh snow. I walked the girls down to the bus this morning. It was a cold walk 27 degrees! Right now at 9:30am it is only 29 degrees!! But there is some blue sky out there and some sun poking through. I am still trying to get those videos of the house downloaded. I am having trouble and have asked someone I know who has a blog for some pointers so we will see what come of it. Last night when the girls and I were making dinner Starbuck starting barking at the back sliding glass window. Grace ran to look to see what he was barking at and there were 2 bunnies eating the bird seed that fell on the ground. It was so cool! Not much else new today. Just waiting for the cable guy to show up to hook up our TV.

Look what we woke up to!

So here is our first snow! It snowed about 3 inches last night and has been snowing off and on all day. It is suppose to snow off and on until Thursday. The roads are clear and I am able to drive around no problem. The snow plow woke me up this morning. I had to take the 45 minute drive into Goderich this morning to get snowpants for Kaitlyn and myself. I didn't realize I hadn't gotten any for us. Starbuck has been having fun playing in the snow and Matt has a couple bird feeders out in the yard. I have been enjoying watching the little birds come and eat. Jim, Connor and Zach are on the road driving this way. Please pray for their safety. We are concerned about what we went through and pray that they don't run into the same thing.

We made it to Canada

WOW what an adventrure! We drove 3815 miles to get here but we made it with little trouble. We did get caught in a snow storm in South Dakota but we made it through it. We have spent a few days getting settled into our new house and figuring out some new routines. The girls have gone to school for 2 days and seem to really like thier teachers and fellow students. Everyone we have encountered here has been very nice. I am working on beign able to attach a video of our house so you all can see where we live now. I think it is a bit long right now so I will have to do some playing with it but here is a picture of the house. Matt did a great job picking out this house and it is one that will fit us wonderfully. We plan on doing weekly if not daily updates on things going on with us around here so you all can keep in touch so check back often. We miss everyone and hope one day, when we thaw out, you will come to visit us!