Dinosaurs and Screaming....

Talk about an ear piercing scream.

Parked at Kure's house and Elowyn came in to the trailer screaming, and covering her knee. She wouldn't let us see it, but said "a bee stinged meeeee" She fell asleep shortly thereafter, and an inspection of her right knee revealed a large swollen bite, and two other bites that were not as swollen.

She was playing out at the front of the house, and when we checked it out we found a steady stream of bald faced hornets going in and out of a crack in the steps down to the basement.

Ah we manage to find excitement at the Kure's even when they are not there.

Over the course of the past week Caleb and I made the trip back to Edson for his last driving lesson (he passed the practical portion of his lessons - YAY!) and we have visited the Big Valley Creation Museum - a must see for everyone. Very educational. We also performed the annual Team Drumheller Tyrell visit. (check out the photos) Because of everyones busy schedule, it was Cameron and Taigen who drove the convoy down to Drum.

Grammie packed us some buns, and chicken, and veggies, so we stopped at WalMart in Drumheller, and bought some cups, ice and juice to drink, and had a little picnic in the parking lot. Then off to the Museum, where we find out that it's only from September to June that homeschool kids get in for free. We then decided we were a family, with 15 kids, and managed to get a 30 dollar deal for all of us to get in.

The kids all had a blast, running around, and checking things out. Everyone had a buddy or 2, and we still stopped about 4 times for a headcount. Afterwards it was off to get some gas for the Sienna, since Taigen was running low, and then back to WalMart for some ice cream sandwiches, etc, and then back to Kure's house (Where the Trailer was parked)

We visited with the Branson's and helped a bit with furniture moving as they prepare to get back into their home.

The only family we haven't seen much of is the Kreil's, so we'll have to make a trip over to visit with them a bit more soon. We did see Katelyn yesterday, as we headed out for home. We stopped for some Ice cream (methinks she gave me the deal of the century) and a little visit with KK before we began the trek home with the trailer. After stopping in Rocky for fuel, dumping the tanks, and picking up sandwich stuff, we headed north.

I thought it would be fun to stop and have a little picnic at the Pembina Provincial park by Evansburg. BAD IDEA. It seems that Saturday is a bit crazy there, and by the time we wound our truck and trailer through all the people and cars, and busses, and trucks and trailers in the parking lot, we were glad to be out of there. We headed into Evansburg and stopped at the abandoned and closed for the season visitor information centre.

Once everyone had their sandwich, I thought I'd go for a bit of a walkabout the place while I ate mine. As I was headed back to the trailer, I looked up and saw Abram grinning at me through the screen door. As he grinned, he pushed the door and it opened, and he tumbled headfirst down the steps to the parking lot. I dropped my sandwich. A few seconds later I had covered the remaining ground to the trailer and scooped him up. No major harm done, just a little shaking up, bumps, and a bruise on the forehead. He was even smiling again after about 5 minutes.

Today we are at the Edson House, doing laundry, cleaning the trailer, and preparing to get out of here again, so that we don't totally trash the house we're trying to sell... still no forward progress on that front.

Well, we know that God is Semper Fidelis!

You can take the critter out of the tree...

You can take the critter out of the tree, But you can't take the tree
out of the tree critter's needs.....

Yep, it's a squirrely bunch. This past week we left the big critters (Caleb and Ethan) at home, and went off to Didsbury for a week of VBS with the smaller critters. (Palmer on down).

We had a great visit with Kevin and Michelle, and the kids had tons of fun at Zion Evangelical ... We stayed in our trailer in Best's driveway, and on Friday morning, about 3 am, Tanya heard the patter of little feet. I heard the trailer door close. Elowyn awoke, and made a bee line for the Bests front porch, and then began to Scream. If that doesn't get the old adrenaline flowing.... I threw on my pants from the night before, and ran out the door barefoot through the wet dewy grass to their porch, where she stood screaming in terror, in the dark. I spoke comforting words to her (with my heart pounding) and carried her back to the trailer, and put her into our bed, ignoring the wet grass stuck to my feet as I climbed in to snuggle her.

In about 10 seconds, she was asleep, leaving her mother and I laying wide awake, listening to the Train pass our trailer (seemingly only inches away) Horn blaring, cars screeching.... It took me a long time to settle down (at least 5 minutes, an eternity for me) before I could get back to sleep. The queen bed felt quite full of people, but at least there weren't any more escapees for the rest of the evening.

Tonight the trailer is at Whitesides house, along with Palmer, Liam, Kennedy and Dagmar. We are in Edson, with Caleb, Ethan, Elowyn, & abram, Taigen and Jayden. We arrived at about 11, and have done some cleaning, and now it's 12:48 and time for a shower and off to bed. We're up early tomorrow, to finish the cleanup, see some Edson Folk, and be on the road back to Big Valley by around 10 ish.

The house is being shown tomorrow at about 10:15am, and then again later in the weekend, we just haven't heard when yet. We did take a few more pictures in Didsbury and points south, and we'll post them when I have a chance. Probably from Big Valley.

In His grip,

Cameron, and the Rubicon crew.

Swimming with a Frost Warning

Jasper National Park. The kids were getting a little stir crazy, and wanted to get out of here, after sitting around doing nothing for several days. Since we have a park pass, Jasper's pretty cheap (except for gas) so off we went. Caleb and Ethan preferred to stay home and clean house and play a few hours of video games, so we took Palmer and down along with us.

We dawdled along through the park, and were amazed at the wildlife. Well, more amazed at the tourists... standing not 3 feet away from a huge Wapiti with a rack about 6 feet across. Just out there with their cameras without a thought to the fact that if they moved wrong, they'd be just a decoration hanging from that rack. Reminds me of the japanese tourist I saw a couple years ago taking pictures standing between a Grizzly mom and her cubs.

We stopped for some Ice cream (well for the 6 kids we had along) and walked around a bit in the Jasper Townsite. It was nice and warm, about 19, and felt good to be out there in the Sun. Then we drove out to Pyramid Lake.

I don't recall ever going to the day use area where the beach is before. It was pretty nice, and since it was a cool day, with a pretty good chance of showers, we were really the only people there. Those of you who know us will know that we do not plan ahead very well, so we had no jackets or changes of clothes along with us. It didn't clue in with me that the beach was not a good place to go without swimsuits, or towels, or changes of clothes. I seem to worry a lot less about those things these days, and since we weren't originally planning on the beach, well there we were. You can tell from the pictures that the water was too enticing.

Kennedy was quite thrilled "Dad! It's warmer than Cold Lake" So we had some wet kids for the trip back home. Abram was in there with his shoes, and socks, and having a great time. Until he and Liam sort of trotted into the water, and the drag slowed his feet down, and he went face first into the water. I snapped a picture just prior to the big splash that you can see here. He was pretty unhappy till we got his clothes off, and snuggled for a minute, then he was fine.

We drove around to the other side of the lake to walk over the bridge to the island, and after we got out and were walking down to the bridge I looked at Dagmar. She was hugging herself, and shivering and goosebumpy. It had dropped to 12 degrees, and the kids were all wet, and all the tourists around us were wearing long pants and jackets, and looking at our wet ragamuffin family in shorts and sun dresses and t-shirts. I decided not to get the girls a case of hypothermia, and took them back to the truck, while the warm blooded hearty Harrison boys made the trek across to take photos.

It was neat to walk over the bridge. It's been a couple decades since I was there, so it was vaguely familiar and the boys had a blast running around and watching squirrels and posing for the camera.

It was pretty fun, and just a taste of what we will be doing very soon, when the house is sold.... Soon and very soon..... Tanya is just ranting at the moment that Edson has a frost warning. Not Inuvik, not Ft. McPherson, not Red Deer, not Jasper, but Edson... I want out! ;-)

The Art of Surrendering

Surrender.

I truly believe that God just wants us to surrender this whole thing to Him. All this waiting, and stressing, and wondering what's going on, and when the house will sell, and.....

He has been working in our hearts for the past couple of years to prepare us for this journey, and showing us the path he wants us to take. I, naturally have my own schedule, and agenda that I think this should all follow. I think I should be in charge of painting this picture, and that the canvas is mine to do with as I will. I think that I am the artist of my life, and I am in control of it all.

He naturally has a plan that is way better than mine.

So it seems that we need to surrender this whole thing to Him, and let him run the show. That is the work that I will be attending myself to over the next... however long it takes. It's a difficult thing to do, and will take some concerted effort, but Surrender is the name of the game now.

I may be the Captain of the Rubicon, but the Admiral tells us when to set sail. We will remain in Harbour and continue to prepare for our voyage.

And while waiting in Harbour, maybe I should drink more ;-)

RESET

Our hard drive on our iMac failed. Along with that, all access to our .mac website, and the ability to change anything.

In our absence, Scientology moved in to the google ads, so our webpage became a walking ad for scientology.

Sheesh.

So, now as I wait to get the other mac fixed, I have reset our webpage so that we can have some control over what is on the website while we get the iMac fixed up. The ongoing blogging will happen here for the time being, until we are up and running with the full tech that we are used to having.

Love is all around...

It's Scheduled! Another Showing! August 5th, at 2pm.

Woot woot! This is the one.

"I feel in in my fingers, I feel it in my toes. Home sales are all around me, so the feeling grows.

It's written in the wind,

It's everywhere I go!

So if you really love us, pray for the house to gooooooooooooo....."

(sung, - rather tongue in cheek - to the the tune of Love is all around - or christmas is all around if you've seen the movie Love actually...