We are enjoying some sunny warm autumn days this week, perfect weather for a picnic in Gatineau Park. My parents are visiting from Australia so we enjoyed an afternoon in the park snapping photos and enjoying each other’s company. While eating our lunch we were treated to an impromptu concert at an adjacent picnic table. First the musician played a couple of pieces on the erhu then packed it away and pulled out a trombone!
Yesterday Andrew and I went skiing not far from home. Andrew is keen to ski; I am willing to ski but find the whole stopping or turning thing a little tricky. It was beautiful in amongst the trees after two big snow storms. I wanted photos but the temperature was minus 10 °C so my fingers complained every time I pulled them out of my mitts.
An enlightening and challenging post from my brother’s blog.
We’ve all heard of Movember. During the month of November moustaches sprout on men’s faces everywhere. The aim of this campaign is to raise funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and male mental health. The mo has played an important role in lifting the lid on some huge issues that have been kept private for too long.
I wasn’t aware until very recently that November is also Lung Cancer Awareness Month. It comes hot on the heels of the global pink month, promoting awareness of breast cancer. Whereas pink ribbons are ubiquitous, I’ve never noticed the pearl or white ribbons for lung cancer. Nor did I realise that there are purple, blue, jade, periwinkle, orange, violet, gold, green, and a whole bunch of other coloured ribbons promoting awareness of many different cancers. Without taking away from the importance of increasing awareness for all cancers, there are some…
View original post 814 more words
Andrew and I went for a walk on Thanksgiving Monday and enjoyed the sunny weather and the impressive colours. Apparently they are vivid this year because we had a hot, dry summer.
Unlike many of our Canadian friends we chose to have roast beef for our Thanksgiving Dinner. We do have turkey now and again but we like to mix things up a little. Andrew cooked the roast beef in the Webber and it was delicious. I made pumpkin pie for dessert and we also had cream puffs B11 had made. I think I have said before how happy I am embrace Thanksgiving as a holiday to celebrate. (Australia doesn’t have a Thanksgiving holiday)
I have much to be thankful for and I like to remind myself of that often but a day devoted to being thankful is a worthwhile reminder. I am thankful to my gracious heavenly father for the many blessings in my life. I just look around me and see all his provision and know that he will always provide for my needs. I was particularly thankful to read some very encouraging news from my brother who was diagnosed with lung cancer ten months ago. At his most recent check up his oncologist used the term chronic illness instead of terminal illness to describe David’s situation. He writes about his journey with cancer as well as a range of Christian living topics on his blog Macarisms.
Our family spent a week at a lakeside cottage in late July. We enjoyed the relaxed pace, the distance from our work, the opportunity to swim everyday, sleep in and spend uninterrupted time together.
You can see more of our summer photos here
We are half way through July now and have been enjoying some hot sunny summer weather. We have had very little rain and a level two drought has been declared for the Ottawa area. This is particularly odd as most of our Canadian summers have been punctuated by thunder storms; when we played softball the storms invariably came during Thursday night games, once A16 started track they seemed to appear at the weekly Twilight meets. Not so this year the grasslands around us remind me of Australian summers.
After my attempt to take and post a photo a day in March where I managed 24 out of 31 days and again in June where I only managed 11out of 30, I decided to change my approach. Over the summer I am trying to take photos every day and then pick one each day to post. They are all on my Pinterest board Photo of the Day. Some days photo opportunities and kodak moments present themselves. Other days I have to search for or create them myself.
My Dad asked about my last header image of the large canoe. I took that very close to home back in May. I was up very early to deliver A15 to a bus heading to Washington so I thought I might take some early morning pictures. On the way to the bus at 5:30am there were some great opportunities but we were rushing to make that bus. On the way home an hour later the sun was well and truly up so I had missed the best shots. I did stop at the park and take a few of early morning dragon boat training and liked the reflections of everyone’s coloured sweaters in the water as they paddled. The new header photo was taken on an evening walk home from the same park.
Here are a few pics of our summer so far. I will continue to update the photo of the day collection here.
B11 and I went to see Trip Lee in concert a couple of days ago. He was the guest of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church in Ottawa. Trip Lee is a Christian rapper and hip hop artist from Dallas, one of several Christian rappers that B11 likes to listen to. After he got Trip Lee’s latest album, The Good Life, he was surprised to find me listening to it and even more surprised to hear how much I liked it. That is how we came to be attending his concert here in town. The venue was not huge and we were in a raised section so we had no problem seeing the stage and artists well; I managed to get some photos and a bit of video too.
Trip Lee began rapping at age 12, became a Christian at 14 and released his first album as he graduated from high school. His lyrics are gospel based and God glorifying.
Below are a couple of videos with Trip Lee featured on the Desiring God blog recently.
Trip Lee talking about how hip hop is valuable in the fight against sin.
The gospel in two minutes
Last week our seventeen year old daughter graduated from high school. We attended her graduation with pride and delight as her final year of high school, the only one she has spent at school, has been a wonderful one for her. After homeschooling all her life she attended our local high school for grade 12. She has thoroughly enjoyed learning in a classroom setting, has worked very hard and has achieved excellent results.
She also made wonderful friends who made school all the more enjoyable.
I started this blog six years ago primarily so that my extended family on the other side of the world could read about what we were doing. It has become a scrapbook of our lives chronicling events, some significant, others trivial. I have written mostly about my family here in Canada, and only occasionally about my family in Australia. My older brother David has recently started a blog, Macarisms; you can read the first post to find out about the name. His motivation for beginning the blog has come out of his current battle with lung cancer and is best expressed in his words:
“My desire for this blog is that people will be blessed as they read and think about life. My hope is to help people to reflect on the good life, to stop and consider what’s really worth having.”
If you know David you might already be reading his blog, if not please check it out. If you don’t know David, I would love to introduce you.
Sentient 