Keeping busy in Thailand

Thailand is such an awesome place!! James and I are having a fabulous time in this extremely hot country. We spent our first week with Darlene at Sammuck Christian Academy...what a cool place. We went bowling with some of the English teachers and as the night came to a close we realized that we really didn't have a way back to the school. So what do you do when you don't have a ride in Thailand? Do you get a cab? Noooooo! You pile nine people on 3 scooters...hehehe....sorry mom, Sharon H. and Darlene but it was so fun. Darlene was wonderful to us...she spoiled us rotten, she is such a great person. Thai markets have also been a favorite with us. Darlene took us to our first one which was handy because she is fluent in Thai, Melody Hopkins took us to the second one...man can that girl barter!! Then today James and I went on our own...let's just say that we have A TON of presents for people back home. The food is great! The people are great! The weather is great! The clothes are great (finally some girly clothes)!

In Thailand

Hey everyone, we made it to Thailand!!! Hurray! After many hours on the plane we made it too very hot Thailand. We were welcomed to our room at Sammuck Christian Academy by a very large cockroach and lizard. :) The school is awesome, Darlene is wonderful and the kids are fantastic. James has already been invited to play soccer by the boys. The butterflies here are the size of birds and James is in bird heaven. I'm not sure about phone access yet but I'll let you all know when we get a new cell number. Love you guys.

Movin' on

Hello all, just a quick update.  I am using the FREE internet in the Austraila airport.  We are on our way to Thailand today but have 8 hours to kill here in Sydney.  It costs $140 each if we leave the airport so we decided to hang here for the day.  There is tons of shopping here which is somewhat depressing since my backpack to already filled to overflowing.  Things are going well, New Zealand was lovely but both of us are excited for Thailand.   Darlene, James' cousin, has arranged a ride from the airport in Thailand to her school where we will hang out for a few days.  It should be lots of fun.  Well I guess that is all for now...I'll try to post some Thailand pictures in a few days but I'm not sure how much access to internet we will have.  Love you guys

Fiji pictures

We are at the university computer lab where Sharon goes to school and they have a wonderfully fast internet connection so I'm adding more pictures. Here are some Fiji ones. The first is Joe...a local who showed us around, then our little beach hut, a typical sun set and then me trying my best to husk a coconut.

Pictures for you all

Hey everyone...here are some New Zealand pictures. The first is the four of us on a boat cruise, then our mug shots from a hostel that used to be a prison, then James was very excited that he got to meet the Simpsons, then another picture from our boat cruise in Milford Sound. Miss you all bunches

Hangin' in the moutains

Hello all. Things are going well in NZ. It's so cold here...like November in Nova Scotia. We have been doing a lot of driving but having a lot fun. There are LOTS of birds here...any birdwatchers dream come true. As for Kerrie and I we enjoy making fun of James and Sharon for how excited they get about the birds. I've taken to calling all birds turkeys. I find it saves time and energy. We have been staying in some neat places...mostly hostels. Most of them are very cozy and quaint. I have had moments when I would like to sleep in a real double bed with James but most places have bunk beds. We are heading to Millford Sound tomorrow there are fiords there...I don't really know what they are but apparently they are pretty. Miss you guys a lot. Love you.

Hello from Kiwi Land

Here are a few pictures. The first is for Sharon H. who wanted to see us with our packs on. The second is a view from our beach front bure. The third is me testing out my face mask before we went snorkelling. We will try to add a few more pictures as we go. We are now in New Zealand...it's VERY cold here. Beautiful here but it's cold since we are in the middle of winter. We are making jade necklaces tomorrow. We love you all...missing you guys.

Finished in Fiji

Hello all...Sorry to have taken so long but the internet and phone service in Fiji is not that reliable. We had a great time in Fiji. We snorkeled 3 times and saw some AMAZING fish. No sharks though...thank goodness. We swan a lot, met lots of British people and have very nice tans. The place we stayed at was called Funky Fish restort. It is on the Malolo Island, it was remote and very peaceful. There was never more than a dozen people there. James went fishing without any success but he had fun. We sat in on a Kava ceremony and just so you know Kava makes your tongue numb and makes you dream weird dreams. James and I played the role of fishermen in the ceremony. We head to New Zealand in the morning where we meet up with Sharon and Kerrie. We should have better internet and phone access there. Miss you all. Loves of love. Logan would LOVE Fiji. Pictures to follow soon.

Almost time

Hello All,

James and I are getting ready to head out on our big journey tomorrow at 1:50pm. Here is a run down of where we will be and when. Fiji from May 31-June 7, then on to New Zealand where we will meet with Sharon and Kerrie from June 7-24. Then it's Thailand until July 24 then finally Africa until October 1. We arrive back in Nova Scotia on October 1 at 9:31pm. Your prayers will be greatly appreciated. We will hopefully be updating our blog fairly regularly and for those of you who haven't joined facebook yet...get on it!! We miss you already.

Blessed are the little children

So I don't have a huge Sunday School class at SBC...in fact it usually consists of two children. Ade, a very smart 9 year old boy, and Caro, an equally smart 10 year old girl. Normally there are two teachers that do the lesson but this past weekend I was on my own with these two geniuses. We don't really follow a curriculum so we can focus on whatever we feel the kids need. I decided to be very original and discuss the Easter story :) I explained to them that I wanted to make sure that really understood why the crucifixion and resurrection are important. Well, let me tell you I was blown away by these kids...we discussed why Jesus had the power to take our sins, we talked about the end times and the creation of the world. We talked about what heaven and hell will be like. These kids had so many questions that we ran out of time...wow...I was exhausted and exhilarated by the end of our time together. I love how children are never afraid to ask questions or say "that does not make sense to me" and then proceed to question something until it does make sense. They tackle the hard stuff...they want to know. Please pray for Ade and Caro they are special children who have amazing potential to serve the Lord.

Birds in the City Assignment #1

Okay so I happen to think my husband is the best at everything...I realize that this is a bias opinion but whatever. A couple of the many things I think he rocks at are photography and writing. I really want him to take tons of pictures while we are travelling and take notes of things we see and write stories of things we experience. In order to give him practice I decided to give him a local photo/writing assignment every week. His first assignment was to take a picture of a bird that was not a chickadee and write a piece, 50-100 words, about the photo. I can't gurantee that I will post all of his work but I was totally in love with the first piece I just had to share it. I hope you all enjoy Assignment #1.

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It’s hard to think we would miss Rock Pigeons if they were gone. Their unremarkable personalities and understated plumage camouflaged in the dusty concrete tones of the city. Walking under the CN overpass on Argyll, carcasses are scattered in all stages of decomposition - externalities of our urban agenda. But looking up, females are warming eggs on cold concrete ledges. Males hover in air currents above. A train passes, dozens take flight and their bodies silhouette against the afternoon sky. As they turn in unison, light catches and highlights their undersides. The pollution fades, the traffic quiets and the colour of the city changes.


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huh

Yes I still blog...I realize that I haven't kept up with the whole "I'm going to post once a week thing"....blah, blah. I am extremely jetlagged at the moment so please forgive my random train of thought. I HATE Air Canada. In the past week we have encountered not 1...not 2 but THREE mechanical failures in an Air Canada plane which resulted in too many to count delays and 2 cancelled flights. We were put in a hotel that was not informed we were coming and wouldn't take our food vouchers. We encountered broken TV sets on the planes...rude flight attendents and 2 very nasty children that were in great need of a spanking (which I was very tempted to do myself). We had a wonderful and hectic time in Nova Scotia but I must say Air Canada certainly put a damper on the beginning and end of it. I intended to write a strongly worded letter to Air Canada and I will be requesting free stuff...and not free air miles because I don't want to ever get on an Air Crappy plane again...I think I want new luggage...I'm going to ask for new luggage. :) Here are a couple of pictures from our wonderful trip.

Newsboys

Wow, who knew that the Newsboys had so much energy. Just before Christmas our friend Kim asked if we would be interested in going to a Newsboys concert with her and her husband Derek. I said sure thinking that it would be cool seeing a band from when I was a teen. I'm thinking that these guys have got to be old by now and that they have mellowed...oh boy was I wrong. While waiting for the doors to open I overheard people talking about how "seeker-friendly" the Newsboys were...and I thought oh great what have I got myself into.

The concert took a bizarre turn at the beginning because the Newboys were delayed in arriving in Edmonton; so they had to add stuff to the concert to allow time for them to get to the auditorium. It opened with some worship lead by Mark Roberts...very talented songwriter then a guy named Bob Lentz spoke...wow...there was nothing seeker friendly or wishy-washy about him. He blasted the audience with the clearest salvation message I've heard in years and challenged those of us who are Christians to get out of comfort zones and share Christ.

The concert then went to Geoff Moore who I think was popular in the 90s as well. He delievered a powerful set of music. He then talked about getting involved with Compassion Canada. He is very invovled with the organization and had been promoting adoptions all weekend (this concert was part of a weekend long conference called Breakforth) and 1000 children in third world countries have been adopted with past weekend. Not only will their physical needs be met now but they will be taught in christian schools and go to evangelical churches. Awesome.

Okay by this point in the evening the Newsboys were almost at the auditorium but would need time to set up so they gave us a 30 minute break. So after 45 minutes the Newsboys took the stage. It was AWESOME. They were loud, they were energetic and they love Jesus. Who knew that a bunch of 40 year olds could make praising God so much fun. The lead singer also talked about giving your life to Christ does not mean being good, it's all about KNOWING God as your Saviour and then getting out in the world and sharing the good news.

I was so impressed with the whole evening. I love how God used the travel delay to allow Bob Lentz to share such an amazing message. I am so glad that I agreed to go to the concert back in December. I love what I thought was going to be a blast from my past was a real challenge from God in my life. I love that 40 year old men who wear make-up made me realize that serving Jesus can be a ton fun when we let it. God is awesome people...go tell someone today.

Viva Las Vegas...in Edmonton

I'm sorry Cheryl that I am a little behind in my weekly posting. It's not because I forgot it's just that my life is really boring right now. I don't have much to post about; so I had to wait until something interesting happened. Tonight we had a poker/games night at our house. We had a bunch of people over and had a poker tournament downstairs(Mafiz cleaned up) and a "Settlers of Katan" game upstairs (Kim is still the Queen). It was great to hang out with a bunch of people (Christy and Miro, Andrea and Riaan, Doug, Mafiz, Kim and Derek, Barb and Dwayne, Tim and Celia)...the house was crowded but it was great. Christy, Dwayne and I even manage to sneak in a game of Dutch Blitz. What a great ending to a hectic and boring week. Thanks everyone for coming and hanging out. Next adventure will be Newsboys concert tomorrow night...

Comings and Going

Well my dreams of blogging a lot at Christmas fell through...oh well. And I come back to find that everyone is either gone (Lynds, Ash, Taye) or moved (Shan and Kim). So now I am updated as to where everyone is or isn't. My goal this year is to blog once a week. I need to get into the habit so that when James and I start travelling I'll keep up with this blog.

James and I spent 3 hours last night discussing our travel plans and this is what we have come up with:
1. we don't want to travel for 8 months.
2. fewer places is better

So with that in mind we had a tentitive plan for travelling. Leave Halifax at the beginning of June...spent a couple of weeks in Hawaii, then fly to New Zealand to spend a couple of weeks with Sharon C. Then fly to Thailand where we would have 6 weeks to investigate South east Asia and then finally fly to Kenya where we will spend 6 weeks in Africa. We will then return home at the end of September. We decided to cut out Central and South America altogether because it adds a lot time and money onto this trip and because it is fairly cheap to get there from Nova Scotia at a later time. So tomorrow we are heading to the travel agent to book our tickets...hurray.

In other news...oh wait...I don't have other news. :) Classes are back in now so I don't have a life anymore. Okay I'll talk to you all next week.

Finally

Well I guess I am back. What a semester...I think by far it was the worst one yet. But thanks to all of your prayers I have, as of 11am today, finished another term. Thank you all for praying for me while I was writing my papers, I seem to have one emotional breakdown per semester and I definitely had on during all those 10 pagers. Lots has happened over that last little while.James finished his masters program, Laura came to visit with Daniel, James had his final surgery and of course we have been getting ready for our first Christmas not with our Nova Scotia families. We are sad but excited just to hang out and relax in the SNOW COVERED city.
The most recent of new is my friend Julie will be leaving Edmonton to pursue her career in Speech Pathology. The other night she had her grad banquet and I was honoured along with our other friend Adele to be invited. We had a GREAT time hanging out, laughing, etc ;) I guess that is all I can think of to say right now. But now that I will have some free time you guys can count of more posts, maybe I'll even get to do some book reviews.

Please

Hello All,
I do realize that I haven't been a good blogger and for the moment I am not really going to give an update. I really am just asking for prayer. I do realize that my life is wonderful and I am truly blessed with many things but that does not change the fact that I have 2 ten page papers due Friday and neither one are done or even started for that matter. I was sick in bed for over a week and I am SO far behind I could just cry. So please if you can spare a moment please pray that God will give me clarity and the ability to ramble about 17th century print culture and the Victorian Class structure. Thank you all. I promise to update a lot over Christmas.

Sorry it's been so long

Hello everyone, I guess it's been awhile since my last entry. As always I have the lame excuse that I've been busy. School and work have once again taken over my days and made time slip by far too quickly. Since my last post Logan has had his seventeenth birthday.

I cannot believe that he is practically an adult...wow...where did the time go. I'm so proud of my surfer dude nephew. Love you Logan. Lisa has also managed to squeeze in another birthday.

Also, as of yesterday James is offical done his Master program. He presented and defended his thesis on October 26. He did a few revisions to fix it up and yesterday he submitted his final copy to the graduate studies offical. The lady at the office congratulated him and told him he was offically done (he even got a fancy pen). Hurray.

Well, I guess that is all that's been going on. We are now looking forward to Laura and Daniel's visit on the 19th. By the way I will try my best to actually post something about 3 John today. Somebody yell at me if I don't. I'm so bad at this. I hope everyone is well.

It's me Mams birthday

On this day not that long ago my sweet grandmother gave birth to my sweet mother. Happy Birthday Mama. Have a great day. I hope you like your present.

Love you
t.

As days go by

I don't even know how it got to be the 17th of October. Life is beyond busy right now and I don't really like it. I apologize to all of you who have emailed and I haven't responded yet. Cheryl, thank you so much for the picture...it made my day. Shannon, I will respond soon...I love the updates...they make me realize that there is more to this life.
Since the purpose of a blog is to vent, journal, criticize, correspond,etc., I am going to let you all know that I am and have been grumpy for days upon end. It all started last Saturday when I was supposed to have a relaxing day off and then spend an evening with a bunch of my girlfriends. I was told last minute that I had to attend a play for one of my classes in the evening which I must write a 3 page report on...There goes my girls night out. Then I got called into work...There goes my day off. No problem...right?! Work was fine I managed to get through it. Then I went to the play.........words cannot describe what I experienced. Stupid and pointless are just not harsh enough. A complete and utter waste of time and let me just tell you, I am pretty artsy so for me to think a play is stupid I'm sure most of you would have walked out after 5 seconds. I had to sit through 90 minutes of a grown man acting like a crow (I'm totally serious). Then came Sunday...oh dear...I don't even want to go there again. Let's just say I'll be contacting Anne to find out what time their morning service is. Then on Monday morning one of my professors tried to convince our class that "common sense" does not really exist...COME ON PEOPLE, WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO. Normally I can just laugh all of this stuff off and chalk it up to "those academics" but I'm coming to the end of my rope with this stuff. I was somewhat encouraged when, on Monday, we discussed the "Crow Play" in class and my teacher apologized for making us go...she didn't realize that it would be so dumb. She also gave us an assignment to make a list of things we are grateful for (this is a drama class)...so I am thankful for my drama teacher. I am grateful that she restored my faith in mankind (just a bit). Well, that is what I have been up to. I just go to school and work (a lot). James' mom and dad were very nice and put some money in our bank account so that we could go out to eat and go to a movie. It was great to get out and have fun. Thanks Lana and John. I think that is my life right now. Also some breaking news...James and I are not coming home for Christmas this year...boohoo. It was just far too expensive so courtesy of Mom and Dad and their air miles we will be home Feb 17 for a week. It will be sad not to be home for Christmas but at least in February we will actually have time to visit with everyone. Okay I'm tired of typing. Anne and Charmin I apologize for any typos but I just don't have it in me to proofread.