A Warm February

Wooden Puzzle (top left)

Snowboarder on chair lift (rail not down)

Worsley chair lift (third right)

Hope turns 63 (4th right)

Delimber in the bush (bottom left)

It sure has not seemed like February in Northern Alberta! It has stayed pretty consistently at -5C to 0C. As I was watching the Olympics (I am hooked on Curling) last night after the college/singles had left (oh, by the way sorry to all our Canadian friends about beating your boys in hockey) and noticed that it is supposed to be above freezing for the rest of this week!! Just can't imagine that. There were 17 of us last night as we kicked off a new session of Sunday night Bible study. We are using the H2O material which we think is excellent. We even had a young man from BRAZIL who is up here working at the Worsley Ski Hill. (Ray and I took a trip to the ski hill about a week ago and were very impressed with the wonderful provisions for the skiers in the small town of Worsley - see picturesand check out your maps about the location and size of this town.) I cannot fathom how you go from an island off the coast of southern Brazil to living/working in Worsley, Alberta, Canada. It is just too much to comprehend. Check it out on your atlas! We had two new guys that attend GPRC that had visited church yesterday and we quickly invited them to our study time. Dale and Jayden are great additions.

We had a very good worship time yesterday even with the worship leader (Zenon) having a lot of congestion with a bad cold. We had almost 130 folks with us as Ray preached his third sermon in the Malachi series which was out of the 3rd chapter and was on stewardship of our life. We had an annual meeting after worship time to keep in alignment with our constitution and by-laws.

We kicked off the two ladies Bible studies this week with Mona leading the Tuesday night group (Me, Myself & Lies by Jennifer Rothschild) and me leading the Wednesday daytime group (Pursuing More of Jesus by Anne Graham Lotz). The men are a little over half way through their "Fathered By God" series. They have had up to 22 men in their Wednesday night study.

Ray had an opportunity to ride to "the bush" with Lawrence Smithson on Wednesday during the day to see what all goes on in the local logging industry. I will attach a picture that he took on his trip.

We made two trips to Grande Prairie last week to be with folks who were having surgery and tomorrow we will again head south to be with another one. They have done away with clergy parking and it is quite the HIKE to visit someone who is having surgery. Not too bad when it is warmer weather.

This next Sunday we will leave for Cochrane and a 3 day "Coaching Clinic". Since Ray is attending they asked me to come along and participate as well. It is a very Biblical concept and I am enjoying reading the book.

Guess what I did? Cindy said she would teach us to make a rag quilt...so I signed up. She said, "Do you have a sewing machine"? I said "NO". She said, "Do you know how to sew"? I said, "NO". She was just looking at me and said, "Why did you sign up for this class"? I told her it did not say anything about sewing - just if you wanted to learn to make a rag quilt. I bought all my materials and was ready to learn. Cindy was a trooper. She rounded up a sewing machine for me and we spent one evening cutting out all the squares. Then on Friday from 11:00am to around 8:00pm I sewed the pieces together that I had cut out. (one of the ladies commented on the fact that it did not make much sense to cut them and then put them back together). Now I am in the process of cutting again to make the fringe on the back of the quilt. I will try to send you a picture. They say you better not wash and dry it in your machine because of all the flannel strings that will clog your washing machine. So I still have more work to do before it is a finished product!

Matt & Heather sent us a wooden jigsaw puzzle and it was quite the little challenge to fit all the theme related pieces into the Mississippi plantation home. The hanging moss and the beautiful home sitting by the river was a remembrance of places we have seen in our time in the south.
Thank you for the winter diversion.

During this month I celebrated my 63rd birthday! I just cannot imagine being 63 - but guess what - that does not change the fact. Several of the ladies at church had a surprise TEA party which was quite nice and of course there was a lot of good food. Thank you Hester for hosting and thanks to Shelley for the beautiful birthday cake which she made just for me.

The Super Bowl seems like a lifetime ago but maybe that is because it was not my favorite outcome. I know my sister-in-law, Joni, was very excited to see HER Saints standing victorious.

We have been working to secure airline tickets and lodging for a vacation/holiday in June to Pensacola Beach. Toes in the sand and surf....it will be great.

Our greatest excitement at the present time is that Luke, our grandson who just turned 12, will be flying up to be with us over his spring break. We will drive to Calgary again on the 11th of March to pick him up. We have so many plan for him to experience the snow/cold experience. We will let you know how it all goes.