Dan and Dan cleaning fish

Dan cleans the fish and does a demonstration on how its done. (Don't worry dad, I taught him everything he knows!)

Dan tries his hand at cleaning a fish.

He seems to enjoy it...

...perhaps a little too much!

Fareedah's First Fish Cleaning Experience

I love Fareedah's face as she cleans her fish. She doesn't seem impressed by it all. Who can blame her though? She went from not wanting to hurt the fish in the early afternoon to gutting it later that same day.

Chopping off its head was not her favorite task.

Her finished fish, gutted and ready for the BBQ!

I just love how sad Fareedah is and how Dan is laughing in the background. One of my favorite shots!

Nothing brings a caregroup closer.....

...than murder! Good old fashioned murdering Mennonites we are! So much for peaceful living! Okay, reality check. We killed four unsuspecting rainbow trout from Silverbrook U-Catch. Boy, were they tasty!
Apparently Dan and Amy, our lovely American friends thought they would fish from the fishing tree. They didn't catch many fish. Just a few splinters and branches. We had to inform them that fishing involves water!

Fareedah and Amy get up close and personal with a fish. Fareedah took quite a liking to the fish that she kissed him hoping that he would turn into a prince. All she got was fishy smelling lips.

Here is our care group after a fun day of fishing. We caught four fish and enjoyed them for dinner later that evening.

Fareedah's First Fishing Trip

This past Saturday, our care group went to Silverbrook U-Catch for a fishing trip. It was our friend, Fareedah's first time fishing. She is visiting from Jordan for a year, and will return back to her home in July. As a sort of goodbye to her, we took her fishing.

Fareedah baits her hook for the first time.
"That's for the fish to eat!" Fareedah holds up her fish, still attached to her line.

Fareedah's first fish!

Fareedah says: "Don't hurt the fish! I hope he will be okay." Amanda says: "Uhhh. Actually we are going to kill it." Amy says: "And eat it for dinner."

What is eating my plants?

Some sort of bug is chewing away my garden. I have NO idea what it is, or how to get rid of it. But all I know is that I am losing my crop to this bug. One day I have 3 plants, the next I only have 2. This bug works fast. Its eating my zucchini, peas, spinach, beans, lettuce, radishes and lettuce faster than I can keep up. Before long I'll be left with only tomatoes, onions and some pepper plants that haven't already died due to the bad weather. Its been a hard year on these poor plants. If only I knew a safe way to kill the bugs....

Finding The New Normal

This is a new coin phrase that our family has adopted in the last two weeks. You see, my Grandma J had a bit of a health scare and was hospitalized for 3 days. The doctors have (finally) realized that she is sicker than they thought and that she needs more care. But with her sickness comes the joy of finding the new normal. Let me give you a bit of a visualization on this on. For instance, she used to be able to get up out of bed and start her day. Now, her new normal is sitting up slowly for a few minutes, then standing for a few moments before she can begin her day (this is done so she doesn't pass out.) Another example: she used to take her walker to the trunk of the car and walk carefully to the front seat and sit. Now, her new normal is taking her walker to the front seat and sitting down while someone else puts her walker in the trunk. Her new normal is about finding adjustments that she has to make in her life and realizing that these adjustments may not be temporary. They are permanent until the next adjustment needs to be made.
Personally, I have been finding myself realizing that I have a new normal. Being pregnant has not been comfortable or pleasurable. My new normal is sitting up slowly from bed, taking a few breaths, equalizing my blood pressure and then standing up so that I don't pass out. My new normal involves a lot of running to the bathroom to puke and feeling nauseous all day. It also involves taking a lot of anti-nausea drugs to try keep the vomit at bay. My new normal involves a list of top 5 worst things to puke (for those who are wondering: bananas, apple sauce, hot dogs, cheerios and jalapenos top the list). My new normal also includes a lot of naps, exhaustion and early bedtimes. It involves swollen feet and hands, visiting the little girl's room frequently and having my pants fit one day and not the next. And I'm sure as the weeks turn to months, there will be somethings that return to "normal" and other things that become a new normal.

Bake-a-thon

Thursday night, Matt and Rachel came over for dinner, a midwife appointment and what is becoming a regular event; our bake-a-thon. We begin the evening with dinner and conversation, always a pleasant start. Once our bellies are full, we start baking...and baking...and baking. We each chose a recipe and start making it with ingredients contributed by both parties. Eventually, we are just waiting for things to go in and out of the oven and toaster oven. (it sure gets a good workout!) Then, we start our midwife appointment. Yesterday we heard the baby's heartbeat going strong at 170 beats per minute!

Our last bake-a-thon, lasting from dinner to clean-up was 4.5 hours. In that time, we made 25 multigrain bagels. They taste sooo delicious straight out of the oven!

We also made a couple dozen peanut butter cookies,

a batch of peanut butter granola, and some peanut butter balls (do you sense a theme here?). We also made some strawberry white chocolate scones which Matt describes as "EPIC!" We are not quite sure exactly where this comes from, but we take it to mean that he likes them quite a bit. Perhaps the old adage is true, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Rach....you can keep him forever if you just keep baking!

Life with Divorced Parents

Today, we celebrated the baptism of my brother Jon. It was lovely to hear him share about what God has done in his life over the last few years and to be able to see him commit his life and his family to Christ.

The not so nice part of the day is dealing with family when your parents are divorced. Both my mother and father were invited to the event. But this tends to make things a bit awkward at times. They are able to be civil with one another, but neither really desires to make conversation with the other. This leads the children to do the inevitable conversational bounce between. Since my brother was busy with his baptism, this meant that the responsibility was left up to me and Dan. I feel as though we did a good job, bouncing between the parents. It was a little easier since my brother wife's family was also there. They have a good relationship with my mother since we see them for birthdays every couple of months. This took some of the responsibility off of me and Dan and put it onto them. But it was still interesting to bounce between parents, trying to keep my father company since he didn't know any one (and we're still trying to repair a very damaged relationship) and keep my mother from feeling like we were abandoning her for my father (since she still has emotional issues to deal with). Yep, its just one big confusing mess. But the hardest part of the day was when my father was asking us what we were planning on doing after Church. We knew we were invited to my brother's house for lunch, but my father wasn't. (It just gets really awkward when both parents are in one place). We sort of avoided the question, by saying that we were at my mother's discretion. (yah for no car!) But it still posed more than one awkward dance away from the truth. But I guess that's what its like when you have divorced parents. Its awkward at times, not necessarily uncomfortable, but just awkward. We love my parents, but its definitely easier to love them when they are not in the same place at the same time. And perhaps it will get easier the more times it happens. (I think this may be the third or fourth time they've had to be in the same place at the same time since their divorce almost 7 years ago). But this is just one example of living with divorced parents and the troubles it brings.

Tea Tasting

Abbotsford held a wonderful event this weekend at the Reach Gallery. They had a tea tasting held with teas from around the world. Dan and I spent about an hour wandering around watching tea ceremonies from England and Japan and tasting teas from Iran, China and India. The Japanese tea ceremony lasted 45 minutes, so we didn't watch the whole thing. In fact, we lasted less than 2 minutes. It consisted of a whole lot of bowing and meditation. The highlight for us was being able to taste the teas. China had a Jasmine tea, which turned my stomach, although Dan liked it. Iran had a black tea, which tasted similar to a Red Rose type tea. But they did have a crystal of sugar with a string of saffron (the best in the world they boasted) that you could drop in your tea. It made the tea quite nice, until the crystal started to dissolve. Then the tea got sweeter and sweeter until it was almost unbearable. But by far the best tea was the chai tea from India. It was just the right flavour and blend of spices, which they mixed right in front of us. Plus, they also had a sample of their gourmet food. I can't remember the name, but its basically potato, onion and spinach deep fryed. Deliciouso!

Revelation of the Morning

I (Dan) had a revelation this morning, and without going into the story of how it came about here it is: There is no such thing as a dumb question. There are however dumb people who ask questions.