A lot has happened since I did the last blog post. A lot of you have received emails from me and so this post will not be all new for you. The week after we got back from Montana, I had a wonderful week. I could do all my schoolwork in a day and then help Mama besides which hadn’t really happened in this school year yet. The next week was (so far) one of the worst school weeks for me. On Monday, our laptop crashed. Well the hard drive got erased after a strong magnet came in contact with the laptop. This was very discouraging as we do Rosetta Stone, Math, and Typing on the laptop besides keeping financial records and storing our music and pictures on it. I had put our music on an external hard drive and (I thought) all our pictures. On Thursday we went for piano lessons and I dropped off the laptop at Future Shop. The technician there said that it would cost $150 plus the price of a hard drive.

It was also our turn to bring snack to youth night so we shopped for that. A big job out of the way! I had a very busy day on Friday: school, watching Horizon work next door, cleaning the house, and preparing snack for 40-60? youth. This was our first ‘normal’ youth night after Christmas so there was a lot of youth. I was worried that I wouldn’t have brought enough snack. While we had devotions, I prayed for the miracle of the five-thousand. Guess what? I brought leftovers home. Now you might think that it was coincidence but I choose to believe that it was the hand of God.

We found out that the laptop is still under warranty but that it could take up to 13 business days for it to be fixed. This was disappointing but what were we to do about it? We did the schoolwork we could and waited. Yesterday we went for piano lessons again and I had a very good lesson. Corrections with Compliments, what a blessing! Mama and the children did shopping while I had my lesson and then afterward we did some more shopping. It was later by the time we got home but a surprise awaited us. Daddy had the laptop! They had been working close to Medicine Hat. Daddy left early and once he got home, they called him and said that the laptop was done. Eric was still at the job so Daddy asked him to pick it up. I started putting our stuff back onto the laptop since it was like a new computer. I found out to my great dismay that not nearly all of our pictures were on our hard drive. Except for a few here and there, I was missing almost 2 years of pictures. The photographer’s greatest horror especially as I had just gotten a new camera. I found a program that can take the deleted pictures off of our memory cards so I hope (after $40-50) that it will do the trick. I had just emptied all of our memory cards because I though they were on our hard drive. If I would have double checked my previous backup onto it, I could have saved a lot of grief but I have decided not to live on regrets. So just a friendly reminder, data is never quite safe even on a computer.

BTW We have worked a lot in our basement the last few weeks. My room is stripped with no wall between it and the bathroom. An en suite? Not quite. Daddy cut a bigger window into my room and now there is a layer of fine dust all over it. We’re hoping to work there more tomorrow. This renovation is a challenge for us as we don’t know if we’re staying in this house or not. If we were to stay, we would go more thorough but what if our house sells and we find an acreage. We’ve been praying for wisdom and God’s leading.

Our bi-annual family-reunion/camping trip didn’t work this summer because we had three babies ‘lined-up’. We decided to do it during the winter this year instead. On Monday, we left Canada and headed for Kalispell. We oldest cousins wanted to go snowboarding but they didn’t want us to do it during the trip so we left one day early. We met at a motel in Kalispell. We got there earlier so the children had a lot of time to swim.

Leandro and Micah both weren’t too fond of the pool so they had fun on the laptop.

On Tuesday, we got ready and left for Whitefish Ski Resort. I was sick on Monday and had almost given up snowboarding but on Tuesday I felt better and decided to go after all. Once we got to the resort we found out that my snow pants weren’t in the trailer so that made my decision for me. I was disappointed but I wasn’t over my cold anyway so I just watched.

The triplets and Samuel took two half-day lessons since they had never snowboarded before.

On the way up the magic carpet.

After snowboarding, we headed to Glacier Bible Camp. Everybody else was there already.

 

The snowboarders had enough for one day.

Two tired buddies.

Playing Farming Game

Playing with their new lip balm.

Danielle

Natalia

Three happy amigos

Abigail

Daddy helping prepare breakfast.

 

If you don’t recognize this girl, check her adorable bib.

These boys were not impressed with their job of drying the dishes.

My job was to load the dishwasher. (BTW Operating a commercial dishwasher is lots of fun)

Playing with perlerbeads

The dishes were very hot.

 

There was a nice sledding hill which gave the children and their parents a lot to do.

Jaden

Elfrieda and Evan

Danielle again

Mama and Leandro

Waiting in line at the top of the hill.

Uncle Rudolf trying the snow scooter.

Tante Annie and her little boy, Joash.

Leandro

Tante Joelyn and Sheryl

Sisters.

Duplos

Busy cousins getting the decorations ready for supper.

Cody and Leandro

Little cousins in matching outfits. Damian and Joash

Grandpa

Elfrieda and Evan again.

Three happy cousins.

 

The ‘oldest’ cousins. (These are some of my closest friends.)

This puzzle was so addicting that it was done in one day. (1000 pieces)

Playdough

I was photographer for this family.

Supper on its way.

Arm wrestles.

Elfrieda, Mckenzie, Janaya, and Danielle.

Chubby Bunny (It’s actually a bit of a gross game if you ask me.)

Riverbank provided fun for all ages. We played quite a few interesting games including “Do you know how to play rabbit?”, “Camel”, “Candy shop”, “Physiology”, and a game that consisted of two rows of men touching fingers with a broomstick laid across the fingers. This broomstick had to be let down to the floor while all fingers were touching the stick: almost an impossibility.

We had a lot of fun together as a family.

We left the camp yesterday but had a hard time getting home. A few couples had to stay in Kalispell for the night, Frank and Elaine had alternator trouble, and the rest of us had lots of snow coming through the mountains and the rest of the roads were not fit for speed limit driving. But we made it home safely and we are very thankful. We came home to a lot of snow and cold weather.