but EASTER is here!

I don't have much time tonight because I've wasted enough, managed to not clean the bathroom yet again, and it's getting toward the later hours of the evening and I must hit the sac. BUT EASTER IS HERE! Well it certainly is for us Smythe Street Cathedral people. Easter is certainly a highlighted time, to say the least, as SSC. We're in full swing toward our first production tomorrow night at 7pm. If you haven't planed to come as of yet, COME!

Tickets are cheapo and productions are Sunday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7pm, with an extra matinee Friday at 2pm. Come see Jesus again for the first time! and I'll be sure to update with pictures etc, as time allows!

check us out on You Tube!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84RuYer-zWo

Watoto Ugandan Children's Choir

Sharon, Autumn, Savanna and I went to the Watoto Ugandan Children's Choir tonight at Brunswick Street Baptist Church. These children have all been orphaned by AIDS and then adopted into the Watoto village in Uganda. 8 children are given to a family with a house mom and dad and they are taught school, sent to collage, there is a nurse and doctor for each community, and of course they learn about the hope found in Jesus. They are beautiful children full of life and joy despite the hurt and trouble they have survived even though they are so young, it was hard not to be moved by their stories and shinning faces.

For Sharon and Autumn of course, the evening brought back many memories of their time in Uganda several years ago. It is obvious they both left much of their hearts with the Uganda people's. I hear that even the locals believed Autumn was Uganadan when they would hear her come chattering down the street with the other children. I can only imagine all of the stories and moments they have cherished in their hearts.

What beautiful voices they have! and man can they move!

It was interesting watching them with Savanna after the concert. Autumn and Sharon went up to say hello, one little girls Grandmother was from their village or something, and she immediately took Savanna in her arms and then passed her down the line of children to oogle over. Sharon tells me that in Uganda children love children and are expected to be a part of taking care of them. Autumn said that when they were there, although she was only 6 the children would ask why Sharon and Gary didn't have another baby for Autumn to take care of. Interesting isn't it.

How I wish I/we could do more, epecially concerning this AIDS epidemic. What Watoto is doing is really wonderful. Check out more here : http://watoto.com/

Bam fumes!

So yesturday, prior to hearing about Mom being in the hospital, I decided that tuesday should be "clean the house day", I don't usually work on Tuesdays. So I ran through vacuming and cleaning the bathroom with this bam stuff that burns in your nostrils for hours later. After mopping the floor it was quite wet and I had a friend coming over for a visit so I decided to open up the door and let the nice warm air help dry the floor quicker. Then I hopped in the shower to get cleaned up after my cleaning extraveganza. Crawling out of the shower I realize the floor feel cold, and low and behold I check the kitchen and I'd left the door open. Absent minded or what? As Dad said when I told him the story. Even a robber knows better than to walk in on a cleanly scrubbed floor! I blame in on the Bam fumes!

Mom

Well Mom gave us all a scare, including herself I'd bet, yesturday. I recieved an email from my sister April yesterday around noon saying Mom had gone into the hospital with severe chest pain first thing that morning. talk about scary. There is a huge amount of heart history in Mom's family and even though she is just 47, heart disease seems no respector of age when it comes to her family. Needless to say we were all very concerned. Chad & I borrowed a car and headed to Moncton in the mid afternoon. They had the pain under control by the time we got there and she was more tired than anything but they kept her overnight and gave her a stress test this morning. She passed and they sent her home with more tests booked for next week and instructions to rest at home until Monday. It is so scary, makes your life stop up short and quickly reevaluate what really matters. Thanks for all your prayers, please continue, it's hard to get much rest with a baby in the house.

International Dinner strikes again!

Last night we got together for our Internation Dinner again, it was a little sooner than usual with Easter quickly approaching on all of our day timers. It was Jamaican night and I must say I think Chad's Jamaican Jerk Pizza was a huge success! although a touch to spicy for some :) a couple of the men started hacking and turning beat red! but the rest really loved it. We had quite a spread: cocunut curry chicken, some sort of Jamaican root pancakes, a fish dish, Jamaican salad Chad's pizza and an amazing sugary cake--sugar high! The food was really great.

The guys eventually worked their way downstairs to the hockey game where Chad informed me they discussed deep issues, and us girls sat around a Cranium game, laughed and shared stories. It was a great night! We didn't draw for where we're going next time... I wonder. None of us realized last night until we got together that it was St. Patricks Day and we should have been going to Ireland! LOL! Oh well. Jamaica was great!

Unfortuantly I spent the rest of the night in bed feeling very sick and unable to sleep, so this morning I'm home resting up for tonight's services (we've been going going going ever since our Holiday in Bangor and even Chad is really really tired, which is saying something!) Another week is on hand and I haven't had enough time to prepare for it at all. Faster and Faster she goes!

Well I best clean up the kitchen, it looks like the kitchen ferries that help Chad make such wonderful food didn't clean up the tornado that has struck in there!

tired eyes

so we're still looking for a car, but thankful for good friends and family who are helping us get around town to work and things. Hopefully tax returns will be able to be processed soon! Photo's of my ever so cool music classroom are soon coming this way, I just have to take a pic of those piano keyboard curtains before I stun you all with my amazing decorating abilities. Easter's on the rush, just a couple of weeks to go! and more exciting adventures to come. This is a short post but I am sleepy--night.

Always an Adventure

well it seems that no matter how hard Chad & I might try, adventure awaits our every turn. as much as we longed for a quiet, uneventful 3 days away, it wasn't in the cards I guess. It started off all on the wrong foot.

Sunday morning Chad woke up late and running. usually he gets up around 6:30 to be at church for aproximatly 7:30-8:00. he work up at 7:29am--yikes. So he was running around frantically and got me out of bed to drive him into work. Stuffing his cherrios down his throat we took off for church. the lights were all red so I took the side streets to get there. I wasn't going quickly at all, but rounded a sharp corner and hit some black ice and slid us way up into a snowbank. Not the prettiest start to the morning. Chad did manage to push us out quickly and get to church.

Then Sunday afternoon as Chad put the finishing touches on his night sermon, I frantically tried to get our house in order, washing laundry and dishes, straightening up my curtain projects, making the bed, packing for myself and Chad, who because he got up late hadn't had time to pack for himself, buying the head light bulb for the car that needed to be switched, we thought, actually it was a messed up wire, loading the car at 5pm I was running late for my 4:30 practice for worship for the night service, and a touch flustered, and actually not feeling well.

We did get through service without any casualties and we were both excited to get on the road and out of town for a relaxing vacation. from then on in things were great until we got to our destination, Bangor, at 11pm Canadian time. Then, almost as soon as we got to the hotel (a step up from the hostel last summer) I got sick, and remained sick, running to the bathroom every few minutes all night and into the late afternoon Monday. Ah well. From then on in we watched lots of t.v. and slept, we even skipped out on breakfast (which is saying something with Chad along) just to lay around.

Monday afternoon (as I ran to the bathroom) we went downtown for some yummy padht tai for a late lunch and then wandered around a bit in the freezing cold. Bed, Bath & Beyond was next on the list of places to see and Chad found a really cool knife block for our wedding set that doesn't have slots but little rubber things-pretty cool, he was very excited. Then to Burlington Coat Factory where Chad had to pull me away from all the cutsie childrens clothing for our neices, we did come home with one little outfit for each of them. a little more wandering at Borders bookstore where we both found books we wanted and talked ourselves out of and left on the shelves and we found ourselves at Chili's for supper--oh yum! I love Chili's and we had the most amazing chocolate lava cake for dessert! Then back to the bookstore to buy our books and back to the hotel to read and watch House and I fell asleep pronto- Holiday is so exhausting! :) A perfect day (minus the running to the bathroom!)

Tuesday we were up a bit earlier and got some continental breakfast in and then watched some more cheesy Hallmark channel before we headed out the door. yes, we had to go back and look at Chad's knife block at Bed, Bath & Beyond and Linin's and Things to see if they had it, then to the Olive Garden for a yummy lupper. We did then go wander around the mall where we found the Yankee Candle Shop and I COULD have spent tons of money, if we'd had some, instead I got 2 votives, one smells like icing! That was it of interest at the mall, so we went to Starbucks for a Chai and Carmel Machiatoo and then to the Movies, where they have this amazing tuesday deal, a ticket for $5.25! We decided to go see Wild Hogs and I couldn't recommend it enough! LOL! I laughed so hard I thought I might pee myself and I will definilty have to see it again! Go See it!
We went back to our hotel/hostel and lit my icing candle and ate some ringolos and watched some t.v. before we called it quits for the night.

Wednesday came nice and pleasant with no signs of trouble (foreshadowing) and we pulled out after our contenential breakfast to hit the road early for home. We left bangor around 10am and made plans to be home around 1pm. We decided to stop off in Houlton after a pleasant drive to gas up with cheap US prices. Stopping at a red light I put the car in first gear, well I tried, and it wouldn't go, so I rolled into the Irving. There we messed with the car but to no avail. Chad found a little shop around back the Irving so he pushed it back there where we found out that the clutch had gone and they weren't able to fix it until thursday, and it would likely cost us $300-$500-- yikes. Money we didn't have. The guy was great and showed us how to drive without a clutch, our goal was to just get the car home and we'd make a decision about what to do with it once we got it on our own turf.

We FILLED THE CAR WITH GAS, yes FILLED IT, to the top, right to the brim, and got in to pull away and bam, the clutch blew all the way and the transmission may have gone as well. Things were not looking good. Long story short after a run in the cold to walmart for a calling card, a rediculous amount of phonecalls to find my dad at work for his opinion, we realized we just weren't going to be able to afford to fix the car and as a '92 it didn't really have much of a leg to stand on anyway. So in the freezing cold we cleaned out our car and said our farwells (Chad a little distraught it hadn't rolled over to 300,000k --it would have had we made it home) and got ahold of Good ol' Shelley who was on March break and agreed to come to Houlton to get us.

Waiting in the Irving with all of our belongings as they towed away our car for the crusher, face pressed up against the window, I will admit I had a moment of extremly overwhelming financial worry. Wow, we hadn't planned on paying for a car with our income tax return, we have weeks to wait for it to return...what do we do until then? yikes. happy holiday. Hard not to wish we hadn't run away to Bangor to hide out in a hotel for 2 days, hard not to wish a lot of things, but glad of a lot of things too, it didn't go on the highway when we were miles from anything, it hadn't gone in Bangor, farther from home....

So it was after 6pm when Shelley picked us up at the Irving. We pulled into a Tims for coffee (and maybe we'd roll up the rim and win a car?!) this side of the border only to have a transport haulling crushed vehicles come in behind us-- ironic? I think.... like rain on your wedding day, and a free ride when you've already paid.....

So that's our holiday adventure. I blogged I wouldn't have anything to blog about when we got back, I was so wrong. Adventure follows us.

A Mini honeymoon Retreat

I'm excited! Chad & I are escaping the snowy business of Freddyville tomorrow night after services for a few days of absolute NOTHING! literally that is our plan. People say to me, what's in Bangor??! NOTHING! yeah! We are going to go and sleep sleep sleep, eat at a couple of our favorite Bangor restaurants, and sleep sleep sleep, maybe do a bit of reading if we get enough sleep in to allow us to keep our eyes open long enough! maybe a swim at the pool, and of course a mini hunt for some adorable clothes at the Burlington Coat Factory for our adorable neices! That's it! yeah!

It works out really well for us that Chad is able, or is making himself able, to take a couple of days off while I have march break and before things get really really crazy with Easter practices etc.(they've already begun to be quite busy). I can't even begin to express to you just how much I am loving the thought of getting away to somewhere we can't possibly do ANYTHING!

I'd tell you I'd blog all about it but I'm sure there won't be ANYTHING to write about! YEAH!!!!

PS: all the painting of my classroom is DONE, COMPLETO! so I've got one last piano keyboard curtain to finish and the classroom will be fini! On to bigger and better things! I'll be sure to take pictures (I'm just way way too proud!) and post them!