Family sledding

Hello!
On January 2 and with sleds and dog in tow we headed west to K-Country, otherwise known as Kananaskis or, so as not to offend, Can-a-donkey-smooch. (Sound out the K word again & you'll figure it out.) There's a toboganning hill along the highway that we visit many times each winter and this year we shared it with guests from about 30 other vehicles. I've never seen so many other people there but it's a wide enough hill for all of us. Those more daring stuck to their end while we were in an area a little more tame. This was proven a few times as sledders on the other end would speed down the hill (as did we), and onto or across the highway (as we most certainly did not). The base at the bottom of our runs was built up quite a bit as you can see in the video of Emily on the blue sled... course she went right up and over it...

Here's a video of Katie going down the hill. It seemed a little tough to make it on the crazy carpet for a whole run but she had fun. The snow was excellent and I look forward to our family (Roxy included) doing it again.

Happy New Year!

On New Year's Day Katie and I, since we were the only ones up (at 10am!) grabbed our sleds and headed for the hill about 2 blocks from here. The weather was just right but the hill was a tad bit bumpy... alright... cavernous!

I didn't have to bring Kaitlyn's snow racer up the hill even once - the girls have hit the age where they do it themselves and there's no complaining.

Who's that guy?

Our school has been blessed by having a couple contemporary Christian recording artists lead our junior high chapel time and twice now, during the Canadian Christian Music Awards weekend, we've had Jon Buller in the house! Okay, not our house; it's just an expression - he put on a worship service for our grade 6-9 kids.

Now for the introductions - Jon Buller lives in Salmon Arm but is a worship leader at Vernon Alliance Church. That's the church I used to attend and every summer when we're back in the Okanagan we worship at VAC. Jonny B is the brunette above.

I won tickets to the Canadian Christian Music Awards show so we got to see Jon B and many other Canadian artists but the one that would soon turn out to be another one of our favorites would be Greg Szebel (above - blonde). Check him out on youtube doing 'Causin' A Commotion'.

Oh, the reason that Emily is in surgical scrubs is because her youth group had just been bowling in costumes...

Baptism

This Fall the girls decided that they were ready to show the world (or at least those present in church that night,) that they wanted to follow Jesus' example by being baptized.

They were given really cool tshirts to wear over their bathing suits and shorts - neat keepsake!

My cousin's son, Pastor Grant Weber, performed the baptism. His parents and grandparents became believers after watching my family go through the deaths of my mom and dad. Knowing that they became Christians as a result of something so sad - well it's true that God works all things for the good of those who love Him. God has a purpose for all things and while having my parents die when I was only 9 was crappy, to see Grants family walking with the Lord and now for Grant to have baptized my girls; well... that's awesome!

When the girls each entered that water with Grant he asked for our family and friends to stand in support. There were at least 50 people who stood including Lynda, Karen, Anna, Julia, Jeff, Lindsay, Cadence, Shepherd, Joshua, Great Grandma & Grandpa Rempel, Nana, Poppa, some of the girls friends and their families and several of their teachers.