Pictures from August and September

 Joelle Loves holding Mckaleigh every chance she gets

 

 Mckaleigh at 1 month

 

 Liam and Sonja

 

 Joelle on her first day of pre-school. Liam wanted to go to school too.

 

 Joelle was sooo excited about school!

 

 Two visitors we had outside our house this summer

 

 Mckaleigh's crazy hair!!

 

 Joelle got her hair cut from our good friend Natalie, Joelle is so proud of her new girl hair cut. Any time someone would say they liked her hair cut she would say "it's a girl hair cut"

 Joelle and Natalie.

 

 Joelle picked her outfit. Very proud of herself, cowboy boots, tights, pink shorts, a long sleeve shirt with pink on it and her pink hoodie. Such Style! 

 

 Liam and Troy hiking around by the lake

 

 Joelle and Mckaleigh trying out the winter toques since we have had snow twice already

 

 Liam likes playing with Mckaleigh's toys

 

 Loving the Bumbo

 

 Joelle and Troy chillin' at the movies

 

 Troy and Liam munching on popcorn before the movie Planes started

 

This is what it looks like out here right now, snow on the mountains and the leaves are still turning color. It is really beautiful right now to drive to and from Rocky and through the mountains father west of us. I am not going to lie it is cold out here and have began to dig out all our winter gear and buy boots for the kids in anticipation of the snows arrival and stay for the next 6 months.  Feeling blessed to be living in the mountains and getting to see the beauty that God created out here.

Tough Goodbyes

Working at camp saying good bye to someone at the end of the summer is inevitable. I didn’t really think about it much when we started in January that we would have to say good bye to some of our staff yearly. In the span of a month we said good bye to Cor who was here for over 2 years and looked after the maintenance before Troy worked here, Troy spent a whole day with Cor fixing the water pump in the bottom of the well.  Patricia the young lady I had the privilege to be a mentor to this year.  David was Troy’s assistant this summer and Liam’s maintenance hero.  Johannes was one of Joelle’s and Liam’s best buds to hang out and play with. Janik was one of the first people we met here; when we moved in he spent a few days getting the water pipes unfrozen so Troy could just move in. Claudius was my German little brother; he reminded me a lot of my brother and became a part of our family while he was here. We miss them all, I think the hardest part of saying good bye to this bunch Joelle and Liam still look for them sometimes. It is hard to explain how far away Germany is even when you show them on a map of the world they still think they are coming back to camp. I am sad to say good bye and we  miss them all but I am excited for what God has for each of them in the next chapter of their lives. We fell really blessed to have gotten to know each of them.

Joelle loved hanging out with Cor and borrowing his hat

 

Patricia was such a sweet heart and the kids all loved her and miss her. When the lunch bell rings Joelle still says "Hurry mom Patricia says come, come kids lunch!"

 

David became fast friends with Liam after letting him hold a hammer...best buds since

 

Johannes was one of the kids favorite buds to play with in the dinning hall...they still look for him some days

 

 

Janik was full of great ideas and will make a great leader one day

 

Claudius was my German little brother, had a lot of good talks over coffee and BBQ chicken dinners!

 

WE MISS YOU ALL!

Thank you all for blessing us as we moved to Frontier Lodge, you helped carry boxes, dressers, thawed pipes over Christmas so we could have water again and Troy wouldn't have to do that the first day living here. You took cardboard from our deck as I unpacked. You cooked amazing food for us, you all loved our kids and made them feel at home here. Thank you so much! I miss you all and pray that the next chapters in your lives are filled with fun, adventure, challenges that grow you closer to God. Blessings my friends.

 

 

 

 

 

SOLD!!

How great is our God! We moved out to Frontier Lodge feeling called by God to this ministry with a few things to deal with in Lacombe. Our house was the biggest thing, moving in the winter was not the ideal time to sell so we thought we would rent out the house hoping that would work well. Although we managed to find renters it seemed to cause more stress and frustration. We were driving out to Lacombe more often than we would like to deal with our renters. When they told us they wanted to move out we decided that we are not the land lord type and would just rather sell. When we listed our house we were told that houses were sitting on the market on average just over 100 days. Faced with our house sitting empty that long was not ideal but we were trusting God that he had brought us this far and is more than faithful and things would work out. After being on the market for 38 days we got a conditional offer we accepted. Last night we were told that the conditions had been lifted and we are looking at signing papers at the lawyers this next week! God is so amazing! Thank you for everyone praying for our house. It is kind of cool to think that whoever this guy is that bought out house has no idea how many people have been praying for him to find our house and for everything on his part to go through and how much he is blessing us by buying our house.  God is beyond faithful and his timing is perfect.

House Update

After our house in Lacombe being on the selling market for 38 days we got an offer. Right now the offer is conditional on the buyers financing and the house inspection. Please pray that the buyers financing is approved and the house inspection goes well. The buyer has until September 4th for the conditions to be removed, and if they are removed the buyer will own our house on September 16th. We are looking forward to closing this chapter in our lives and excited for the new chapter God has for us here at Frontier Lodge as a family.

Fat Tire

The beginning of this month our camp held our annual Fat Tire Festival, a big mountain biking competition over the long weekend. Events include cross country races, downhill slolom, trials, jumps and a lake jump. Some of these events I had no idea what they were before the weekend like trials, it is an event with lots of small rails to ride your bike on and platforms to jump to. It was really fun to watch every age group go on it; the youngest ones to try were 3 years old! Next year if Liam wants to he can go in some of the events just for fun and the experience. The event I enjoyed watching the most was the bike jumping and the lake jump they had at the end of the weekend with a BB-Q. The lake jump is something that doesn’t require a lot of skill, you just need to put on a PFD and ride down the hill to the jump on the end of the dock and try not to hit the bike when you hit the water. We had some people who had never done it before enter in just for fun, it was fun to watch and the kids enjoyed it to.

 

Bike Jumping

 

Trials

 

 

Lake Jump

 

 

 

Mckaleigh Grace

We welcomed our sweet baby girl Mckaleigh Grace into the world on July 24th. She was "due" to arrive August 8th but she seemed to have other plans. I was glad she decided to be born on a different day than Liam's birthday, which is July 26th. She was born in the Rocky Mountain Hospital which was a huge answer to prayer! My doctor was a little worried that we would not make it to the hospital in time since our son Liam's labour was only 2 hours total and we are living 1 hour from the hospital she was worried we would have her along the way to the hospital. We made it with 1 hour to spare before she was born. She was born at 4:46 am, weighing in at 7lbs 15oz and was 48cm long. Joelle and Liam are in love with her, well Joelle is over the moon in love being a big sister wanting to hold her all the time and Liam loves all the things that come with a new baby...like her car seat that has buttons, the swing, play mat , and so on. She is just over a week old now and is doing great. We are so blessed to be living in such a caring community of people. Every day we have people dropping by to see if we need help with anything which is unexpected but such a blessing to us.

Here are some pictures of our beautiful Mckaleigh

 

Just brand new getting weighed

Newborn "smiles"

 

Love baby feet!

Sleeping beauty

A good look at all her hair

 

Joelle and Liam meeting Mckaleigh for the first time and are so in love with her

Chillin' at home

 

 





House for Sale

Sorry it has been so long since my last post, we had no internet for 3 weeks which made it impossible to post anything. Now that we have the wonderful world of internet back to connect us to the rest of the world I can catch you up on what is going on with us.

Moving out to Frontier Lodge was the beginning of a big change in our lives, new home, new job, and a new camp to learn. We are loving every moment of it and Joelle and Liam have settled right into life as camp kids, welcoming everyone who comes to “visit” us. We are now closing the door on our Life in Lacombe for good. Moving out here in the middle of the winter didn’t seem like the best time of the year to be selling our house so we rented it out hoping that we would get long term renters that were awesome. Sadly it was not the case and the renters moved out this last week which was ok with us because it ended up being more of a stressful experience than anything. Our house is now listed and on the market for a new homeowner to fall in love with. It is a little sad to think of shutting the door for good on that part of our life, but I know that this new chapter is going to be even better than our last one. A prayer request we have is that our house sells quickly as it is financially stressing to have it sit empty and have to pay for all the bills that go with the house. Right now a house for sale in Lacombe can sit on the market for an average of 102 days before it sells. We are trusting God to help us sell the house before our finances are stressed out. If you know of anyone who is looking for a nice affordable home get them to check it out. http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=13438718&PidKey=1632692784