Just Lovin' June

There was so much goodness in June, besides Daniel and Nicole returning home, Father's Day, Birthdays, and the end of school fun. There's even a spectacular "Bethlehem's Star" repeat happening tonight outside, but of course my little phone camera is incapable of doing it any sort of justice.  So I sat outside in the dark and gazed at something very bright just over the orchard.  Not sure if that was it or not, but I was impressed.  The moon was also exceedingly bright and beautiful in the still warm night sky as I took the puppies out for their bedtime routine.  

Taking pictures and making this journal reminds me on a regular basis how very much good God allows me to partake in.  It also helps me to remember as I look back at how rich and amazing my life really is.  I do have eyes to see!  I AM grateful!  

There's this lovely gal whom I get to share life with.  Here she is in her sweet spot - where the magic happens!  You can see a painting she did of Moose just behind her.  

And she so kindly took over shaving Moose before our record breaking hot June weekend. He was deeply appreciative.

He kept running joyously around the back yard chasing after balls with much ease and abandon following the removal of a great heap of heavy hot hair.  

This view never gets old and now the vineyards are bursting with leaves and life and the promise of fine wine.  

This here is Gellately Nut farm where I took Oma and Tante Hilda and Elsie for a drive.  We parked here to eat our drive-thru treats.  

Mom is doing so much better since her pacemaker installation.  

No More Fainting.

Praise God!

Today I attended the Graduation of the Karis House girls.  Such profound stories of immense overcoming.  They celebrated with dancing and testimonies, and the Trip's band played some great tunes. 

My dear Donara has overcome so much and has been struck down again and again but there she was in the midst of these beautiful women, rejoicing with them and experiencing her own restoration.

Letting go and Moving On was the theme as they are consolidating their many homes into one new building downtown. 

Here is Lisa enjoying the evening sun. She invited Patrice and I to join her down at the beach and they went swimming while I sat and read through an old journal. 

Glad I am not reliving those years!! Much easier to read about them and rejoice that they are over and that God brought me through.

And He will continue to!

It's Cherry Season!

These are some yummy Royal Anne's that I bought today at an orchard on my way home.

YUM!

Birthday Blessings

A blessed event occurred this weekend!  My sweet sister celebrated her birthday and it provided such a lovely opportunity for a party.

On a record breaking hot June day Elsie, Patrice and I sped off to Westbank to immerse ourselves in a cool air-conditioned theatre where we watched Cinderella and munched on a big bag of buttery popcorn. 

Two sisters sitting side by side, as we have done so very often in life, enjoying food and fun together. What blessing. To have this built in partner in my life who always loved me so very well, looked after me with intensity and devotion and was just there to share life with.

Holidays, mealtimes, bedtimes, TV times, driving to church in the back seat, playing with Nippy, celebrating birthdays, flying to other countries, visiting Oma and Tante Hilda on Brentwood Blvd, going camping at Gull Lake, going to a movie in downtown Kelowna so many years ago.

Our beds in one shared room, kneeling down to pray at night,  "Lieber Vater, mach mich from, das ich in dem himel komm..."

We're still trusting Him to do that for us!  

Our lives are intertwined in a wonderful way and we share so much more than just family.  

Our faith is our lifelong journey that will keep us together for eternity.

The Cinderella story is being played out in our lives right now and we are waiting for our Glorious Prince of Peace and for the wedding supper of the Lamb.

But meanwhile, as we wait we have little banquets in apartments around wooden tables with precious family gathered around. 

Watermelon and cherries, chicken and onion rings, potato salad and punch.

And laughter and God. 

And of course Mom's famous Napoleon Torte.

Everyone's favourite!

A phone call with our dear brother provided more opportunity for laughter and delight, as he had to miss out on his cake while Daniel pretended to finish the last of it. 

And Opa with his only grandson, telling a story of how his mother wore cherries on her dress for a decoration when he was a little boy. 

So glad we are still all here to enjoy each other and celebrate Elsie's one wild and precious life. 

My Dear Daddy

I love my Dad.

  Look at him here with his sweet smile, clean shaven face and beautiful eyes.  He always looks well put together and even noble somehow. He often gets eclipsed by my Mom who is the more gregarious, talkative, life loving half of their marriage, but Dad has been a steadfast presence in our home these many years.  As many years as I've been alive.  

I wanted to make his day special so I prepared a BBQ with steak, special baked potatoes and a strawberry mixed salad.  

But sadly, the steak (top sirloin from Australia) tasted really odd.  

And it was so chewy. Embarrassingly so.  

I fed mine to the dogs.  

Only Mom sat determinedly cutting and chewing, declaring that it was good!

She's the only one who ate her steak, with her 88 year old teeth.

She's a trooper.

And since I didn't have my sous chef Patrice working alongside me I ended up overdoing the "scored - baked potatoes" that looked really amazing in the recipe's picture.  

At least Elsie and Patrice liked them, but still.  

Pretty chewy.  

Thankfully the brownies were delicious.  I took them out of the freezer and sprinkled icing sugar on them so they were almost the best looking and tasting part of the entire meal.

Next to the watermelon, that is.  

Look at that WATERMELON Dad is clutching!  This is his ministry to our family gatherings and I just love it.  He said this doozer was the smallest he could find and he didn't even want to hold it for the picture because it was so heavy.  But I just love that he keeps bringing these big melons to our feasts.  

Tradition.  

Anyways, this isn't so much about the meal which was a huge disappointment to me and probably to Dad who rarely gets a good BBQ anymore because they live in a condo. 

This is about my Dad.

He is truly a remarkable man and I'm so proud to call him "Dad". 

As I sat writing his card, I began to thank him for some of the things that came to my mind that He had done for me that made my childhood GREAT.

The trips to Fairmount in the winter where we got to run outside into the wintery snow and lower ourselves into the lovely hot springs.  The camaraderie between lots of long time family friends at those gatherings was fabulous. 

He bought the family cross country skis and on the way home we stopped and all skied together under those tall evergreens in the still winter snow.

What an unusual and amazing thing for us to do together.

I thanked him for the camper he bought for the family. We didn't own it for long and as I recall it was a bit of a pain to drag up into the mountains, but it made an impression on me.  The fun of having a little house sitting on on the driveway for me to have sleepover parties in with my friends was thrilling.

The only camping trip I can ever remember taking it on was to Fairmount Hot Springs in the summer.  We brought our dog Nippy who grew so frantic the one time we left her in there that she ripped the screens out of the windows.

I thanked him for allowing us to  have pets.

He truly started a tradition with little Nippy and to this day dogs continue to play a rather large part in our family life.   Perhaps disproportionately so, but they make us laugh.  A lot.  

So thank you very much, Daddy. 

I thanked him for getting me downhill skis and for giving me the opportunity to learn to ski.  

I remember going to a sports store in Calgary where he let me pick out a beautiful sky blue snow suit and blue skis.  

It all felt so extravagant and amazing.

Being the youngest, I know I got the bells and whistles because there was finally enough money to allow such liberal spending.

And I got ski lessons at Paskapoo.

I thanked Dad for building me barbie doll furniture. Oh those beautiful beds he built for my "old fashioned" barbie stories.  He also built a table and chairs for them.  I went along to one of his jobs - a house that was under construction - and I watched these little masterpieces come together. 

They were sturdy and beautiful.  I left them unpainted because the barbie Clair and her husband  Joshua (a GI-Joe) were pioneers.  They had many many children together so Dad made sure to build me enough little beds.  Then I sewed tiny little quilts on Mom's sewing machine to finish that old fashioned look.  

I said thanks for the incredible trips he took our family on.  Back in the day not everyone was flying around as much as they do now, but Dad made family vacations a priority.  

I am so very grateful for those memories. 

We stayed right on Waikiki Beach in Oahu Hawaii back in 1969 or so. 

There was a big fat Hawaiian lifeguard named Jake that we hung out with around the pool.  There were pineapples and parrots and palm trees.

We went to Disneyland and Mazatlan, Europe and then back to Hawaii when I was 16.  My sister always at my side, looking after me, and beautiful mom and dad. 

Strong and steady and always there. 

Loving each other and loving us. 

They loved each other well and made our home feel safe for me.

Dad sitting in his office at his very neat and tidy desk.

Keeping careful record and making sure there was always enough.

Dad laying on the green striped couch in the family room watching TV or reading the newspaper. Such a familiar peaceful sight.  

I thanked Dad for carrying me to bed at night.  We had this game where I would close my eyes and as he carried me he would take a new route to my room so that I would be surprised when he finally laid me down in my bed.  

Sometimes he would lay down beside me and tell me stories. 

He was an excellent story teller and he told of his adventures in the war as he lay beside me.  How he and his companions managed to escape from prison camp.  He just made it all sound so fantastic that it didn't strike me that it must have been a terrifying, incredibly difficult time in his life.  

He left all of those parts out.

He left out the part that he suffered a very difficult and painful childhood, but still somehow managed to become a loving and caring Father.

He is truly a remarkable man.

He has left us with his memoirs written in a hardcover book.  Events Unforseen. What an incredible gift.  I have recently been re-reading this memoir and I am utterly amazed at how beautifully he wrote using a language he learned in his 20's. I am so grateful to have this written record of his life and some of mom's life.  

I know now where I got this love of "keeping the story" alive.

I've got that part of Dad running through my veins and right into this keyboard.  

His legacy lives on.

I'm so grateful to this man of diligence and hard work.

I'm grateful for his faithfulness to his wife and family.

I'm dumbfounded when I think of how generous and kind he has been to all of us, all of our years. 

He paid for my education and gave me a work ethic that allowed me to do very well in college and to graduate with distinction.

He provided bikes and later cars for us to drive and houses for us kids to live in.

He truly loves his family very well.

I see this is getting a little lengthy and I didn't know I'd wax all eloquent but Dad is worthy of so much more than one blog post here.  

I'm grateful to God for giving me this exceptional, loving, kind, generous, hardworking and faithful Father.  

I need to read this to him because his card didn't quite say what I really meant to say to him. 

This and a whole lot more.

I'm So Very Grateful.

Walking & Rolling

I was part of a fundraiser today for Hands In Service, an incredible organization that provides volunteer services for people who are housebound or disabled.  I know how much help I require now that I'm 28 years into my journey so I so totally support what they do.  People are so blessed when volunteers come into their home to help them with cleaning they've been unable to do or to bring them a meal. 

Such lovely acts of service.

I joined the team of a couple of gals I have wheeled with in previous years as we always have so much fun together.  So I was part of the "Goertzen Girls Team", but little did I know I would be able to get out my own little team of walkers and rollers!  Just look at these cuties!

Pupcake was the mascot and we had a delightful day wheeling and walking along the boardwalk on a beautiful summer's day.  

I was so grateful to dear Elsie for putting her plans on hold to bring mom and Tante Hilda out to this event.  

We were the real deal.  

And later we found a piano just waiting to be played so we had fun making music at the lakeside with the cutest little audience.  

It was so nice to get Mom out to the lake! 

The fundraiser ended with a toilet scrubbing wheelchair race which was amusing to watch.  I can relate on so many levels...

Here's Arianna doing her best to get her team in first place.

So that was fun!  

Why I Love Teaching

This right here, in a nutshell tells the story of why I love teaching.  Who wouldn't want to get a smiling head-heart card like this?  

I just melts me.  

And then, as if the heart - head wasn't enough there are WORDS!!  Written by one of my precious students who has a huge struggle with letters and the sounds they make.  

Even the fact that there is only one word misspelled - in such a typical dyslexic fashion - helper spelled heprl, gives insight as to how these kids hear words and then try to get them onto paper.  

We made big progress together this year.  

She taught me so much about remembering there is a sensitive soul behind that struggle.

And I taught her some tricks to help her read better.

And she even mentioned the jelly beans!!  They are a huge part of my reading program.  

Generally the students are only to get 2 of them after every session but we make a BIG DEAL out of those two beans. 

And the prizes?  

In this case they were absolutely essential.

I almost lost this student at one point and I had to scramble hard and fast to find out what would motivate her.  

Not just the run of the mill average prizes we give out when the student reaches the end of a book, but special prizes that looked like this...

And to top it all off, there was this fabulous piece of artwork that I just love.  Our combined excitement and the fact that she attempted to draw me in the wheelchair.  

And it appears I am exceedingly slender.

What joy!

Sunday Shenanigans

This week I went back to being a Mennonite because it's good to revisit your roots on occasion. 

They were having their service next to the lake and the Vineyard was having it's "off Sunday" so that worked out for me.  

Who wouldn't want to go to church out here? 

Wonderful to worship the One True God, the Creator, out in his beautiful Creation!

So many beautiful people all in one place, from so many seasons of my life.  All together at the same time.  

It was absolutely exhausting and a little bit wonderful. 

Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. 

So Patrice and I recuperated from the many hello's by taking a walk along the lake and onto the boardwalk 

Well, to be truthful, she is the only one who walked. 

The lake was so big and blue and beautiful.  

The sailboats were so white and soothing. 

They look ridiculously little in this picture. 

So here I've zoomed in a little closer.

Much more satisfying. 

And then, believe it or not, we happened upon some Japanese gardens on our way back to the car which were just lovely.

As you can see. 

Once again, soothing, which was the needed ingredient. 

And this little lady (the one above) cracks me up.  She kept me company outside while Lisa was inside making supper.  

Her name is Maja. 

We chatted for awhile, as ladies do.  

And this lady also cracks me up.  She brought some Sangria which fits in with the soothing theme of this post.  

We had a lovely salmon dinner out on Lisa's back patio and enjoyed each other's company immensely .  

Lisa has an incredible gift of hospitality and makes cooking look easy and taste incredible.  

She could have her own TV show. 

This little patio is where I first met Marie when I began attending SWAT. 

And now, even though SWAT meets very rarely, I have a wonderful new friend from that season.

And that's the end of my Sunday Story. 

Pacemakers, Pilgrims & Parkade Prayers

This week my dear little mama got a pacemaker put in.  I was in the hospital at exactly the same time getting some x-rays done to figure out why I choke so much, so while they were threading a wire into her heart, I was gulping down barium in a variety of positions.  I was craning my neck around trying to watch the video screen and I did manage to see the diverticular pouch on my lower esophagus poofing out like a big balloon.  I'll have to wait to see the Dr. to find out the exciting details.

We are making good use of our medical system and I am most grateful to know that Mom's heart won't be left to it's own devices any longer.  That big heart of hers, strong as it is, has started taking intermittent vacations so it's time to get that ticker back in line.  No vacations allowed.

Once again I stopped at the "Perking Lot" for my celebratory raspberry mocha drink on my way out. (seriously, I am out of control with these special drinks!!)  I went to retrieve my car and ended up having the loveliest prayer time out in the parkade with a dear friend.

My little red sanctuary just fills up with angels and the presence of God.  Many petitions are thrown up to heaven, declarations of His powerful Word are proclaimed, faith is stirred up and peace and joy start rolling in like rivers. So glad that we can do this anytime, anywhere.

Church on the go.
Heaven invading earth.
Miracles set in motion.
Calling forth that which is not yet as if it already were.

This week also saw the return of my two dear pilgrims - Daniel and Nicole - who have completed the Camino de Santiago.  Over 800 km trekked in about 5 weeks!!  Their feet took a beating but there was peace and joy on their faces.  Oh, I was so very, very happy to see them coming out of the airport with Patrice and to hear some stories of their pilgrimage.

Plus I finished assessing my last student this week at school. Today I wrote up my final reports and sent them off to the teachers so I AM DONE school for the year!  Yeehaw!!  It's been a wonderful year and good progress was made by these lovely kids.  I need to spend some time this summer reviewing the program and protocol to make sure that I'm still on track with my teaching and keeping things fun and accurate.  I want to teach with excellence and love, but that takes some intentionality on my part and I've kind of slid into "routine" mode.

Anyways, it's been a great week.
Just had our Friday Night dinner
with the Gagenzeits ending with some hilarious games and laughter around the table.  We are all so comfortable with each other.  It's a gift to have such long term friends to do life with.

Joey was the guest of honour tonight.
Back from University in Calgary for a wee little bit.

These kids have been flung far and wide but we relish the visits.
Soon Anna will be home from Australia, having finished her DTS and outreach.
Jesse and Marc have returned from a nine month ministry time in Mexico.
Bethany just graduated with her MSW and we had a fun celebration at Apple Valley where we ate an amazing dinner and played bowling.

Enchanting June

This was one of those days that felt like I was reading about my life in a storybook.
The sweet morning warmth on the back patio, umbrella up, dogs laying on the heated red bricks.
Tending my flowers, admiring their colourful beauty, and telling them how lovely they are.

The lilies have joined the party now and I discovered some amazing little bachelor buttons in my wild garden.  The roses are basking in the sunshine and continue to dominate the stage.

They are truly glorious.
I have so many! Bushes full of them. Pink and red and even a tiny yellow one just opened.

Moving slowly and easily through the cool, quiet house with no agenda, just an enchanting June day at home, in paradise.

The comfort of my sweet Patrice here with me.  Taking her books outside to sit in the shade, making iced coffee and just being.  So gentle, so easy.

She loves and needs her down time.  Especially now that she's working two jobs and volunteering at the thrift store.
And I love the down time with her in this place we call home.
She's still here with me...wonder of wonders.  My heart is glad.
Just here, right now.
I won't worry about next week or next year.

My barista girl made me a mocha latte and I was able to spend an hour or more laying on a padded bench on the patio enjoying it.

Looking up at the blue, blue sky and the oak leaves peeking over the roof at me.  So tall and majestic.
I call him Oakley.

I've been searching for a way to be out there on the patio, in a comfortable position, for literally years now.  And I think I've finally figured it out.
I am able to get on and off of the bench now that I've purchased a thick cushion that puts me at almost the perfect height for this kind of spectacular independence.

I have lain in my bed, looking out at the warm summer days, wishing I could be outside instead of freezing in my air-conditioned bedroom.  So, 28 years into this paralyzed life I seem to have found a solution and it made the day like no other.  A new season has begun.

As I lay on the deck, looking out over the green hills and mountains, surrounded by flowers and vines, I so wished that Mom and Dad and Tante Hilda could spend more time out here enjoying this spectacular beauty and peace.  It seems wrong somehow that we're all separated by so many miles and difficulties, but I put out a call and before I knew it the evening was arranged.

Patrice and I got busy in the kitchen preparing a feast fit for queens and kings.
Salmon and quinoa, roasted carrots and a cauliflower cheese dish I found in the freezer, strawberry feta salad and ciabatta bread.  For dessert Patrice made a plum pastry dish and I made the family favourite; cinnamon squares.

It all came together so easily and the warm evening air was perfect.  Patrice whipped up a delicious watermelon strawberry drink that was summer perfection.

At first when I invited Dad he excused himself saying something about life being so hard, but I encouraged him, telling him that's why we have family - so we can do this thing together and help each other out.  So he came.  And stayed longer than he has in a very long time.

There was such peace and joy around the table as we indulged in all the deliciousness.  Even Esther, John, and Matthew joined us for dessert and for the fellowship following.

There were walks out into the field, jumping on the trampoline, running with all the puppies, and laughter around the table as we enjoyed some fascinating videos Matthew had put together for his school projects.

I'm so glad I've learned to invite Jesus to my evenings and that He shows up in such creative and wonderful ways.

Ahh, the preciousness of family. In all it's diversity and beauty.  We really do need each other.  

Cause we can't do life alone.

Even Dad took a long walk out into the orchard and around the property.

And these two lovelies just enjoy each other immensely.  Kinda like peas and carrots.