New Job, Games with Peanuts and More

Finally, I am able to type in English. I was just typing in Hindi and was thinking of leaving it that way, but I figured that not many of you would be able to read it, so it took me a few minutes, but I finally figured out how to get rid of the Hindi and get back to English, or at least my version of English.
To my friend Paul in Ontario, "you heeb", that is much hindi that you will get out of me! Don't you hate inside jokes if you are not part of them?!?
A lot has gone on since I last really wrote - but enough of that for the moment. First I need to correct an assumption that Adam has made. I am not predicting the Senators for the Cup and probably never will. I am just picking the gut-less wonders over Pittsburgh. Why Ottawa did not trade for Gary Roberts is beyond me. I think if they had Roberts on their team, they would have won the Cup this year - but hey, I am not a GM, so I will stop talking about this.
First the exciting news. Colleen has been offered and accepted the position of Office Manager at Gull Lake Baptist Camp, which is about a 15 minute drive from Lacombe. We are very excited about this opportunity for her. It fits the values of our family so beautifully - to expand the Kingdom of God and help children and youth at the same time. This position was open a year ago and Colleen thought of applying, but we had to wait to see how things turned out at the Church. Gull Lake has a cool website and they are in the midst of expanding their facilities to year round camping and becoming a discipleship centre for the Baptist Union. The camp has an exciting future.
I am very happy for Colleen and very proud of her at the same time. This will be a great fit for her and it will challenge her, but at the end of the day to be in ministry together is so very exciting for me. She has done exceedingly well at AFSC, but this opportunity is more her. Way to go Colleen, your boys are very, very proud of you. Her new boss Jeff is a great guy too, which will make the work more enjoyable for Colleen too.
It is hard to transition to the next part of the blog, but here it goes. We have three blue jays in our back yard most mornings. Andrew and I have been putting peanuts out for them and then as a family we have been watching what they do with the peanuts. They are so funny. I have been doing some raking and the other day I had been raking underneath our big pine tree and had raked up some needles and grass into a small pile. The one blue jay decided to bury a couple of peanuts in the pile for future use. It is so funny, thinking that the peanuts could remain hidden, but the blue jays must obviously think so. I was also raking some leaves that our one tree had decided to hang onto till January and then decided to drop them and found a few more peanuts. In the next couple of days, I hope to add a few pictures that we have taken - for us as a family, it is good stuff.
My mom came for a visit in late March and we had a lot of fun with her and the one day we were able to go hiking in the mountains which was really nice. It was a sunny day and the type of day that you have to wear layers and make sure that you are not getting too hot or too cold. We went hiking at Crescent Falls which is about a 100 minute drive from Lacombe, about 10 minutes west of Nordegg. Mom bought the boys kites for Christmas and we have had them out a couple of times. Flying kites is fun and a good way to spend quality time with the boys and with the park right across the street from us, it sure makes it convenient.
Cameron is doing well and enjoying school, his paper route and church. Though he is in Grade 5, it is great to see him maturing and being able to have adult like conversations on a regular basis. He is becoming very good at saving his paper route money and it will not be much longer before he has over a $1000 in his bank account. He is in level 5 swimming right now too. They keep changing things around. He had passed level 5 in Moose Jaw, but I guess they have revised the program again. Looks like he will pass on hopefully move right into level 6.
Andrew is enjoying school and life too. He is about to enter level 2 in swimming and is looking forward to baseball starting up in a few weeks. We have also been looking at new bikes for him. They are not cheap that is for sure, but if we get him the right one, hopefully he can use it for four or five years. We are going to have to have a garage sale this spring to get rid of some stuff and get some money for it! :)
Colleen and I are off to Banff and Canmore at the end of the month for four days by ourselves. That will be great. We are both looking forward to getting away and it will be a nice break just before Colleen begins her new job.
As for me, life is busy but good. The Church is doing really well. We had 263 on Sunday and it now looks like we have passed the 250 mark. We are ordering at least 100 more chairs, looking at adding four more CE rooms and trying to make sure that we continue to meet budget. God is good and so far, everything is going great. We have received enough money for 49 chairs so far and hopefully in the next five to six weeks, we will get enough money for the 125-140 chairs that I think that we really need.
I think that is it for now. The last few weeks in my prayer time and time in the Bible, God keeps giving me the word "sacrifice". Not sure what that means yet, but thought that I would share that with you and see if God uses that word in your life in the next few weeks. I hope to be back soon to share more fascinating facts with you and let you know how those blue jays are doing!