Of conferences and concerts

This man was an incredible tap dancer, and it was along with a spoken drama- just amazing.

One of my favourite songs from the conference!

The tap dancing again

My friend Melissa:) It was awesome to see her

Amy and Carmen, all the way from the Canadian prairies! We lunched together the one day after Carmen and I randomly ran into each other. So refreshing to see these girls! I went to school with both of them at different times

Rascal Flatts in the flesh! What a concert. And right in my city!

love these gals!

You can dress us up but you can't take us out, haha!

Old Mills and Siblings

On our way home for Christmas Eve, Jon and I stopped at this old mill to take photos, both of us captured by the charm of this place, dead silent on Christmas. These are from our explorations. (While we were taking photos, Liz thought it would be funny to drive off with the van, using the spare keys.)

Brace yourselves for a slew of family photos now... :)

Naomi and I

Liz, looking sallow- just kidding, that's a tan

Success! A good picture of Samuel

Ruth and her lovely scarf

Silly Tim

Mathieu

Dad

Yes, it's true- Hershey has a car seat

Maman et moi

Benjerman

More to come...

"Forget regret, or life is yours to miss...no day but today"

In case you can't tell, I'm currently enamoured of (of? with?) Rent, and I don't know how I've missed watching it before now. Of course, I'm sure the Broadway production would be simply amazing, but I really like the movie- the cast, the music, ahhh! Brilliant.

As you can see, I'm back in the blogosphere! I've been putting off posting because, once again, I keep forgetting to upload photos and like to have them on my posts. However, that will come later.

Well, there's lots to catch up on- if there's no day but today then I have nothing to write about, because most of it is in the past:) Christmas involved a short visit home, a lot of travelling, and an incredible conference. Good times with friends old and new. A furry addition to the family. A connection with a family friend from before I was born. Meeting a new friend who's from nearby, that I wouldn't have met otherwise. Yup, exciting and packed with non-stop activity.

I got to visit with my two cousins who are my age, and that was so great, since I haven't seen one in two years and the other, since the summer. I've always thought of them as way cooler than me; it's funny the ideas that stick with you from childhood even though no one plants the ideas in your head. They're awesome guys and it was great to see them and catch up.

There has been so much running through my mind since the conference; it gave me lots to think about and process. I think I would summarize it as challenging, intense, touching, and shaking-up. I learned a lot, and caught up with my good friend before her trip, and had to process some unpleasant realities about myself that I would rather have skipped. All in all, there is a lot I still have to think about, which is why I'm being so vague (and irritating even myself as I write, if that's any comfort) :) Mainly, I was hoping to come away with a bit more direction in terms of what to do with my life, or where I might find a place to use my gifts (those elusive entities), or maybe even stumble upon some great revelation. As it turned out, none of these came true in the ways I had anticipated, but I learned so much in other ways and I know these will continue to shape my life and decisions.

Right after the conference- I'll elucidate on that when I get the photos up - we had a breakfast meeting with the life group leaders at church. It was a pretty tough meeting and we all discussed the challenges and hardships that we'll be facing in the next few weeks as a community.

What else...Liz's boyfriend came to visit this past weekend, so I got to meet him. She sure knows how to pick 'em. (By that I mean, he seems like a really together guy.) :) Hopefully I'll get a chance to hang out with them more, since he's now an important part of her life.

I'm contemplating a trip out west and even fleshing out some potential dates/places. I really hope it can work.

More soon! ...

These are from Christmas Eve- the family get-together

Father and son (couldn't resist snapping one of the lederhosen from my cousin's trip to Germany!)

Grandfather and granddaughter

The two Barbs

The mutual phone fascination of the cousins

Fröliche Weihnachten!

It's about time I posted, and I won't be able to for several days now.

These past few weeks have been flying by, as they do every December! I am so looking forward to spending some time with my family- two of my little brothers are coming to pick us up for Christmas, which is so great, then the four of us will drive back together.

I'm home two days, then heading to Urbana- I'm so excited/overwhelmed/jittery. I hope to meet up with a good friend - you know who you are :) - and meet some new ones. The bus I'm taking to get there is through another church, and I don't think I know any of those people, so I will get a chance to know them through travelling and through being in the same lodgings.

Certainly I'll have lots to say afterward, but for now, it's a flurry of activity, and trying to focus on the reason for this holiday, amidst the insanity surrounding this time of year. I love love love the German traditions and songs and food and everything that we've built into tradition in our family, and I look forward to partaking in it:)

Tschüss, talk to you in the New Year! Blessings on you this Christmas, and may His peace fill your hearts and homes.

All I can say today

"Toi, Seigneur, mon secours, mon bouclier
Tu es ma gloire et tu relève ma tête."

(JEM 2 #0505 )

A jaunt about downtown

Last weekend, a wonderful friend who was also one of my housemates in first year landed in Toronto, making her big (Ontario) city debut in this our Ontario capital. It was truly delightful to spend time with her, and although a good chunk of our weekend was spent at a conference, we hung out all day Sunday and had a grand time.

Included in our ventures to downtown Toronto - I tell you, the transit system was pretty muddling- were scaling the CN Tower (by means of the elevator, that is), photos in front of the Hockey Hall of Fame, and a visit to the illustrious Royal Ontario Museum to check out the Dead Sea Scrolls special exhibit.

Sharlene and I in the skypod (or one of the levels, anyway)

It's been nearly 4 years since we saw each other, I think, and it was great to reconnect and catch up on all things Albertan/ western. Love ya, Shar!

One day this week I had to check on something outside in the driveway so ran outside quickly only to be struck by this incredible view.

Unfortunately, I couldn't capture it with my cameral lens so you can't get the full view, but this rainbow stretched clean across the sky in a perfect arc. I was awestruck. For a while I just stood there, gazing into the sky while rain spattered into my nose and eyes.

What a poignant reminder of God's faithfulness in the midst of the hard times and the torrents that threaten to sweep us away some days.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what my blog is trying to say. I have been challenged, in reading other blogs, to find a theme or goal with these ramblings. As of yet, I have not found one, but it's in process.

So I've been thinking quite a bit about what I have been saying all this time. The trouble is, it's the things I'm not saying that keep poking to the surface. Things like how I miss my friends out west from school so much and wish I had made more of an effort to stay a part of their lives, and to keep them in my life. How some days, regret threatens to swallow up whatever else I think I'm accomplishing. How I fear throwing myself really some creative venture because what if there is nothing there, my mind is empty and my hands won't follow through. Oh, and let's not forget that I feel like I have been slogging through and waiting for my life to start when really there's a life to be lived and somewhat it seems like I'm missing the point most of the time.

Life. Isn't that something everyone struggles with, or maybe some of us- that we miss out on our own life in waiting for the pieces to fall into place. We turn into spectators of the unrolling of our own story, without even knowing how it happened.

Sure, by all appearances, I keep myself busy enough, involved with this or that, many good pursuits, some of which will help me answer some of the questions I ask myself about the major decisions. But some days, it all feels like a bit of a joke that I'm not getting.

I'm not totally certain why I have this compulsion to share this with the few readers I've told about this blog. I know I've said that before. Is it the idea or hope that what I have to say matters? Some insatiable need for self-disclosure? That someone does read what I write, so that if I get published one day in some capacity, I'll have that validation? I suppose that is one of those ongoing questions that is more for my own contemplation than for your reading pleasure, but there- I've gone and blurred the lines again.

So thank you for bearing with me as I wrest something out of these questions.