Venezuela!!!

First thing this morning I left with Vern to drop him off at the Toronto airport for his trip down to Venezuela. He will be gone 25 days and will be spending the majority of his time with some of the church leaders and their families. Please pray for him as he travels. Also pray that the time together with the Pume is encouraging and refreshing as they spend a lot of time fellowshipping over the Word and as they "do life" together these weeks.

G - 1

A G-1 here in Ontario is the same thing as a driver's permit. A teen here in Ontario has to be 16 in order to take the test to get a permit. So Friday being the day Ruth turned 16 we went in for Ruth to take the written test. She passed and can now driver a car with an adult driver. Vern took Ruth out yesterday for her first behind the wheel experience here in Durham. I think I want some of our snow to melt before I take her out.

Birthday Scrapbook

I was trying to make Ruth's birthday special. I got an idea to write to all Ruth's family and friends and see if they could send her a birthday note. I asked people to write a birthday greeting, or share some memory of Ruth growing up, or share something they remember about being 16. The response was just awesome. I then went through all of our photo albums trying to find pictures of Ruth with the person who wrote. I know nothing about scrap booking but Sherry a very talented and willing friend offered to help. What a HUGE help she was! I made countless trips to Wal-Mart scanning old photos. This was a fairly BIG project but it was so cool to see it all come together. Ruth didn't know what we were doing so it was a nice surprise to present her with the scrap book on her birthday. Thanks again everyone who took the time to send something in for the book. And thanks again Sherry for being such a big help! It was a success!

Special Delivery

Our daughter Ruth was named after my sister Ruth who is not only my sister but a very dear friend. My sister Ruth has always been a special aunt to our daughter Ruth. Well, on Ruth's birthday we got a phone call from the office saying that there were some flowers that had been delivered for Ruth. It was quite an exciting surprise for Ruth to get some flowers from Aunt Ruth and the rest of the Mirza gang. Thanks so much Mirza's for being so thoughtful and making a special memory for Ruth! The flowers are beautiful! She just loves them!

SURPRISE!

We had a surprise party for Ruth at lunch. It was so hard to try to pull off a surprise party for some one in the same house. The minute she stepped out the door in the morning I went to work decorating and making special salads and home made wraps for lunch. Ruth was totally surprised and it was so much fun.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUTH!

Our baby girl is 16 today! It is hard to believe. She has been sick with a cold but we are planning a fun day together. We hope you have a VERY Happy Birthday Ruth! We love you!

Vern's Birthday Meal

Vern's favorite meal is a Mennonite meal called: Wareneki. It is dough pockets filled with cottage cheese and it is served with a sour cream gravy. It is usually served with what we call "Farmer Sausage". We only had one ring of sausage left from the batch we made at Christmas so we had that along with a ham. I personally don't really care for this meal but almost anyone with a Mennonite heritage just loves this meal. We had Vern's brother Wes and his wife Brenda over along with some friends, Matt and Joan over. Matt is Mennonite and so can appreciate this meal like Vern and Wes. I believe the meal was a success and everyone was very full. And there were a few Warenki left over for Vern and Ruth to enjoy the next day.

Scratch Week Pot Luck

This past Friday was the last day of our scratch week cooking. To celebrate we always end the week off by having a pot luck. As you can see we had LOTS of great food. And if you have a sweet tooth like I do, you would have loved the dessert bar. There were so many yummy pies and squares. Needless to say I think we all left every full. I believe scratch week was a success!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VERN!

Today is my hubby's birthday. In the picture Vern is wearing his birthday gift from Ruth. (Way to be Ruth!) I baked a couple of coffee cakes and brought them down for break this morning. I wanted it to be a surprise but I was a little behind schedule so it didn't really work out to be a surprise, but it was nice anyway. It is a busy day today with a potluck tonight so we are going to have Vern's birthday meal tomorrow.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VERN! I am enjoying doing life together with you! Have a wonderful day and I am hoping to celebrate many more birthdays with you.

Scratch Week Cooking

Last week we had the joy of having our students in our home to teach them a little bit about cooking from scratch. We had a lot of hands on opportunities. And of course after our hard work there was a lot of food to sample. We had so much fun!

Good-bye Mom and Dad thanks for the visit

Thanks so much for your visit Mom and Dad. It was so good to have you here. We miss you!

Ruth's Science Fair Project

Ruth has been working on her science fair project testing out how absorbant the different paper towel brands are. It is quite interesting and we are finding out for ourselves what brand is the "Quicker Picker Upper".

New Years Eve

New Year's Eve has always been party time in our house. We start out the evening by making party hats out of newspaper. That family tradition started years ago our first New Year's Eve in the tribe and the only thing we had to make party hats with was newspaper. We play group games and have pizza and other snacks. At midnight we go outside and bang pots and pans. This year we also had little horns we blew while banging the pots and pans. New Year's Eve always brings back good memories. When I was a kid we went outside and went up and down the street banging a drum and our pots and pans. My dad would always run outside and turn on the car alarm so it would go off at midnight. All our neighbors loved it and many of them would stand on the porch waving to us I think we helped them usher in the New Year.

Tea Time

The Dyck women were able to go out to a tea house during Christmas. We had a special time together and who knows when we will all be together like that again. We were celebrating Mom turning 80 years old. Her birthday was in the July but we were all many miles away from her. I sure hope I am as frisky as she is when I turn 80.

Grandpa and Cuddles

Cuddles enjoyed all the extra people in the house to give her attention. She also enjoyed having a nap with Grandpa.

Hanging with Granpa

Grandpa had some sickness while he was here so he wasn't as frisky as normal but there were many games of crokinole.

Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa

On Christmas Day we got together with Wes & Breand and their family. I think the last time we had a Christmas with their family was in 1986 and we only had two children. Our families have grown a lot since then. This is a picture of 8 out of 12 Dyck grandchildren. It was so special for Grandma and Grandpa to be able to see so many of their grandchildren since they are all spread out all over the country. We thought about the picture too late otherwise we would have like to get the spouses in the picture too.

Christmas Morning

We were all together on Christmas morning. Caleb read us the Christmas story. When we were in Venezuela I worked with the kids throughout December on memorizing Luke 2: 1-20. I think our kids could still quote the Christmas story. The Bible Caleb was using was in a different version so it didn't quite seem the same. After a little devotional we opened gifts and had a big breakfast.