Better Days

Our house has been hit with a whirl wind of emotions over the past few days. There have been things to mourn and yet lots to celebrate.

I must admit, with the passing of my Grandpa, sadness has not been an emotion that has consumed me. My grandpa and I were not close - in fact, he was not close to any of his children or grandchildren. There are times when I feel almost at a loss as to what I perhaps should be feeling. Sometimes I feel bad for feeling as sad as I probably should, but it's hard when there is very little connection with the person. I do grieve for my dad though. This is effecting him the most as it was his dad. My dad, along with his brothers are in a state of figuring out how to grieve for a father that has wanted very little to do with his family and that has to hurt. I can't imagine what that must feel like. I have mentioned in previous posts that there is a lot of healing that needs to happen in this family of mine. I'm trusting that God will somehow use this to bring family together rather then drive them apart. Thank you for all of the prayers that have been sent up on behalf of my family. I appreciate it immensely.

So, in dealing with the death of my Grandpa, we have also had milestones to celebrate in this house. Courtney (Derek's girlfriend) graduated from high school on Thursday as well. It was neat to be able attend the ceremony and support her as she begins this new chapter in her life.

This coming week is also my grad ceremony. We are having a big get together here at the house on Thursday following the actual ceremony with friends and family so I am looking forward to that. Dominika, my mom and I are going to be busy in the kitchen over the next few days preparing some pretty delightful food. It seems crazy to think that this is it. I am no longer bound to being in school. I am now embarking on a new and exciting journey - I guess I can be called a career woman now - haha.

This past week I have enjoyed the break off from school. My week has been great, but busy. I have had numerous opportunities to hang out with my dear friends, who, over the past 2 years have seen not as much of me due to the copious amounts of studying I did. I believe I have made up for lost time this week. Some of this week's highlights include:

Tuesday - spending the afternoon with Sabrina and Gavin enjoying beautiful weather, conversation and slurpees.

Wednesday - my grad dinner and hanging out with my wonderful classmates

Thursday - Hanging out with some very lovely ladies: Jen, Kristy, Sabrina and Aimee (Kristen - we missed you). It turned out that Aimee also had holidays this week, so the 5 of us got together for an afternoon get together. Jen served us with awesome food that may make an appearance at next week's grad celebration and we had a couple hours to enjoy each other's company and conversation, not to mention some wonderful cuddles too! I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends. I think sometimes we take for granted the joy and delight that good quality girlfriends bring to our lives.

Friday - Hung out with Kristy and Norah. I got to give Norah a bath which was pretty exciting for me. I got lots of smiles out of her and enjoyed being a little more interactive with her. She is going to be a ton of fun in the months and years to come. Norah, some aunties are going to have lots and lots of fun with you.

Today - I spent almost the entire day in my pajamas - until 4:30pm. I watched movies on TV and put together a puzzle that Kristy had borrowed me. I put the entire thing together in only 1 day. I was pretty impressed with myself. The only reason I changed and got ready was to go to church. We are starting the book of Revelations at church and that makes me excited. It is such an intriguing book of the bible and I'm excited to learn more about it and get into more depth with it.

So all in all it's been a fantastic week and I am anticipating another good week to come. This next week I begin looking after my friend Heidi's 2 girls for the summer. I think the 3 of us are going to have a lot of fun!

In Memory

Early this morning my Grandpa finally passed away. He has been struggling for the past 2 months, proving the doctors wrong everytime they said he was going. In the last 2 days he took an exceptional turn for the worse and this morning his battle finally ended.
There is a lot that is going on with the family right now. I am praying that siblings will stick by each other and put their differences aside for the next few days. I am praying that Hate for each other will not consume the hearts of family. It's a sad situation, but glad that Grandpa is no longer in pain and that things may finally be dealt with after years of being withheld.
The funeral will be on Monday or Wednesday of next week, so in the meantime there is a lot of garbage that needs to be sorted through. So if you think of me and my family, please pray for peace and grace to be evident amongst the family members.

A Night to Celebrate

Last night, my 17 classmates and myself celebrated our accomplishments and graduation by enjoying an amazing meal together at Oui Bistro. If anyone is looking for a quaint, delicious dinner to enjoy, this is the place to go. It was slightly strange to see everyone dressed up. The norm is for us to see each other with our hair pulled back, minimal make up on and in lululemon.

Jenn, Adam, Crystal and myself ~ We have called ourselves from the beginning the "Dream Team" - it somehow got us through the first year of anatomy and physiology. (ignore my closed eyes)

The guys in our class.

My lovely Annick and I

These were 2 of things I had for dinner - there was a set menu and under each course, there were 2-3 different things we could order. For my appetizer I had a very good salad followed by Gnocchi for my main course and some fancy dessert, which I cannot begin to attempt to pronounce or spell, but essentially it was 4 cream puffs filled with vanilla bean ice cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce. It was delightful. It was fun to try different foods, which I don't often get the opportunity to do. Between about five of us, we took bites of each other's food so that we could taste everything. Some other dishes that people had were Pate, salmon, and a chocolate mousse triffle thing (I didn't taste that as it was WAY too much chocolate for me - others said it was very good though).

The King's Head

Following dinner, we went around the corner to the King's Head Pub for drinks. Most people had a few too many drinks, so conversations were entertaining to say the least.

It was a great evening spent together with some great people that I have gotten to know extremely well over the past 2 years.

A Weekend to Celebrate

The time has come...I am officially done school!!!!

On Thursday at exactly 5:27pm I left school with tears of joy in my eyes as I walked out of my last exam. I was anxious to go and celebrate, so I picked up Kristen and Aimee and the 3 of us enjoyed some deliciousness at Baked Expectations for supper.

After a great time with these lovely ladies, I picked up Cole and him and I headed out to the cabin for the weekend. It was such a freeing thing to be able to go to the cabin guilt free and with no homework in my bag. Friday morning I dived into my first novel of the summer, "Love the One You're With" by Emily Griffen and I anticipate many more enjoyed novels to come. I love being able to sit down and enjoy a good book when I don't have other textbook reading to do.

My weekend was not only spent reading and sleeping, but it was spent entertaining Cole and spending some good quality time with him. I have missed that kid!

However, I did get some moments of reading in. I'm so lucky that Cole is capable of entertaining himself and content to sit and read a book too.

One of the jobs on our "to do" list for the weekend was to help my dad cut down a very large tree on the yard. It was unfortunately dying, so rather than running the risk of it falling on top of the cabin one day, we chose to take it down. It was a sentimental moment as limbs of the tree fell to the ground, as this was our climbing tree as kids. We spent hours up there on its branches summer after summer.

Cole was a great help in the whole process. He eagerly volunteered to help drive the quad as we loaded branches and took them away.

The highlight of the day for Cole was when my dad took him up in the bucket truck for a ride. He was sooooo excited, he could hardly stand it!

Now that Cole can ride a two-wheeler with no hesitation, we spent a lot of the weekend biking around. On more than one occasion our bike trips landed us up at the corner store for a popcycle, ice-cream or chocolate bar. We decided that what goes on at the lake, stays at the lake.

SWIMMING

The lake is finally starting to look like it should in the summer months - much warmer. However, Cole was the only one who braved its cold waters this weekend. I am hoping that in the next few weeks we can take the jet ski out and fully enjoy the goodness of the water, but right now it is just a tad too chilly for me!

Father's Day Celebrations

Father's day unfortunately did not give my dad the credit he deserved. I spent a majority of the day at Starbucks studying with Annick for my exams later on this week. However, we were able to spend some time together as a family at my Grandma's house for supper. To honor the dads in our lives she cooked up a ton of Vareneke and Schmonfat (sorry I have no clue how to spell that but I think you know what I am trying to say). It was DELICIOUS. Amber - I thought of you as I endulged in some Mennonite goodness. We'll definitely have to hit up the cafe one of these days. Overall not much was said during dinner as we were all chowing down but I think the dads felt pretty special as this is not a common occurance in our family. We maybe get homemade vereneke twice a year, so when it comes, you must enjoy it.

After supper, we felt the urge to get out the bochi ball set to perhaps work off some of the excess food we may have eaten during supper. Dominika and I reunited our "winning" team from last year (it consisted of her and I) and took on the other 3 teams. I always knew I came from a fairly competitive family, but yesterday the competitive nature was at record high. We all wanted to win and we wanted to win bad. So much for mennonite pacifism :)

These are our "game faces" - they need a little work.

You know when the sticks come out to measure, things are getting serious.

Dom and I finally scoring a point!

Unfortunately in the end Dominika and I did not come out on top, but our team had far more laughing going on then any of the other teams, so we thought we made up for our loss in points with enthusiasm. Dom, next game we will take control and show those boys who's boss!

Despite the lack of time I actually spent with my dad yesterday, I hope he knows that I value him everyday and don't need one special day a year to let him know how much he means to me. I think I have mentioned before that over the past year I have enjoyed forming a friendship with both of my parents in ways that I thought would never happen. It's been neat to have more open conversations with each of them. I have come to appreciate more and more their uniqueness and who God has made them to be.

So, Dad, I love you very much and I appreciate all the little and big things that you do to take care of me and show me that you love me. Happy Father's Day!

Kingdom Kids Graduation

At our church I teach the 5 year old POD (Sunday school class). The kids that I teach are so wonderful - I have taught them now for 2 years and this may have been my last year with them (I'm still waiting to hear what class I am going to be teaching next year).

Anyway, this past Saturday at church we had our 5 year old graduation as now they are promoted to the older POD classes and not in the young group anymore. I can't believe how fast they have grown. It seems like just yesterday when I thought Cole was too big to go into this young group of kids and now he graduated. It's crazy how fast the time seems to fly.

My class singing the rest of the kids a song

I was so proud of Cole. He rarely does the actions when in front of a group, but on Saturday he broke through and he not only did the actions but also sang. Horray for Cole!

The picture on the right is Cole's "I am so proud and excited that I can hardly contain myself" look. He's so cute.

The Graduates

Blowing out the candles on their cupcakes