Goings On Around Here

At first glance, you may think we had our baby already and here it is! But, no, this is Ian with his new little neice, Kate Maria Wildeboer, daughter of his brother Peter and wife Nicole. Ian had the privilege of baptizing her a few weeks ago, hence this photo of the two of them.


Here's Peter, Nicole, Mom and Dad Wildeboer, and big brother, Liam. Oh, and baby Kate too of course!

We travelled up to Ottawa the other weekend. For those of you who don't know, Ottawa is Canada's capital city and about a 5 hour drive from Hamilton. Ian's oldest brother Malcolm and his family live there. So our big reason for going there was to visit them and their 5 lovely daughters! But Ian was also asked to speak at a men's retreat for their church that weekend, which he thoroughly enjoyed doing.


While the men were "retreating", Cindy and I and the kids went to "Sally's pond", this wonderful idyllic getaway close to their home and enjoyed the sun and water. This is Karlyn with her "twin cousin", Olivia. Determined to catch minnows, with nets that looked more like basketball meshes!!

And Jonathan with a few of his cousins, all of whom made sure he was having great fun all weekend!




And here's our soccer star. Every Tuesday night, we now join the ranks of soccer parents and cheer our somewhat timid of a soccer player on! He's loving it, though!

The Move

Getting ready for the Big Move...collecting boxes at the grocery store



Some dear friends lent us their truck, and even came back from their weekend camping excursion to help us move! Jonathan was somewhat enthralled with the truck!

Would you trust these two to move your stuff?!


The Moving Crew...thanks again, everyone! The huge truck wasn't nearly full...we don't own much, which seems to suit our somewhat nomadic lifestyle. And thankfully our family and friends don't mind lending us the things we need:)

The Place We Called Home

Not that I want to get too emotional about this, but we did really grow to love our quiet little spot in Dundas. But as of yesterday, it's no longer 'ours', and will soon be the home of Ian's sister, Lydia and her future husband, Adam. We are very happy for them as they get ready to begin their life together.

As for us, we've moved up, as they say, to the Hamilton mountain and are house-sitting for some good ol' Aussies who have gone to spend the next 3.5 months back home. Change never comes easily, and so it's a bit of an adjustment being in yet another new, and temporary, place. But I've been reminding myself of all the blessings of this place and the fact that this world is not our home, anyway!

Jonathan showed his anxiety about the move by having a bit of a hard time when we dropped him off at school the last couple weeks again. Once he's there, he loves it still though. He's also very excited about the fact that we have "pets" here--two fluttery finches. (Although we weren't told their names or where to find their food! Don't worry, we'll figure that out...) Karlyn was up in the night last night (our first night here) feeling "scared" and is having a hard time falling asleep now. All part of the transition. She told me today that she wanted to be back at our old house and that Aunt Lydia and Uncle Adam could move in here instead!

I think our most favourite part about the place in Dundas was the beautiful walking trail right beside our house. We walked it almost everyday and inevitably ended up at the park.

Blowing Dandelions

"I'm gonna miss this guy!"

Racing around and handing out tickets in the police car

Jonathan learned to fly down the trail on his bike with no training wheels

The backyard gate leading to the Plaza. Pretty convenient, especially for those 7am runs to the store when we ran out of milk!

We've discovered already that there are, of course, several parks here in our new neighbourhood and we just have to figure out which one is the closest. And the No Frills really isn't that far away, not to mention that we're now a 5 minute drive from Jonathan's school instead of 25. So we will be ok here...it'll just take a bit for it to feel like home.

Jonathan's 5!!

Why is it that time really does fly by? I guess life is full and busy and often one week flows into the next before you realize it! And so it really shouldn't surprise me that our firstborn's 5th birthday has come and gone! But the memories linger...and here are a few photos.


With friend Ryan VanDuyn


Shouldn't every 5 year old have their own digital?? (even if mom and dad end up deleting at least 90% of the photos:)) And you can even play games on it between photo shoots.


THE cake. For those of you who may be wondering, it's a race track, not a number 8. He turned 5, remember?! But even he was calling it his "#8 cake". I guess we can use this idea again in 3 years time!


With a few of his friends--Nathaniel Schulenberg, cousin Noah, and Allie Buist.



We certainly praise God for our 'little man', who is growing up so fast. Just in the past few months, he must've grown 4 or 5 inches taller. To be sure, most of his pants look like 'floods', but thankfully, fashion doesn't matter too much to this 5 year old!

It has been cool to witness him growing up in other ways too--he now enjoys going to school, is learning to ride his bike without training wheels, is looking forward to being on a soccer team this summer, and continues to love learning about God and the Bible. I think that attentiveness during Bible story time is what makes us the most proud of him! We pray that his hunger and thirst for God will continue to grow.

Beauty, Bugs and the Baby

BEAUTY
Did you know that Papua New Guinea has over 3,000 known species of orchids? It’s no wonder that Ian’s passion for orchids began there. While living in Lae, almost every week the same young boys would see us in town and show us the newest orchid they had found growing in the wild and had brought to town to sell. I don’t think we ever turned them down and so we started our own small orchid garden. Ian began experimenting with wood chips and charcoal and rocks and different amounts of shade and sun to try to grow these incredible, endurable, but finicky, flowers. (Being a beginner, he had limited success with them—which is one more reason we want to go back. He doesn’t bend to defeat very easily!)

So when we heard about the tropical orchid show at the nearby Royal Botanical Gardens, we had to go! And since the variety in colour and texture and design is near indescribable, here are a few.



It seems every new orchid only serves to outdo the last one in capturing your amazement. The book of creation is far too vast to comprehend; for our Awesome God wrote that book.




BUGS
At the same RBG, they’re having a Bug Show for kids. There are pictures of bugs to colour, stories of bugs to listen to, bugs to learn about and hold, bugs to sing about and even bugs to taste! So being the missionary from the jungle that I am, naturally I grabbed a whole handful…um, well, actually, I decided to pass, using the oldest PNG excuse in the book, “My mama didn’t teach me how to eat those things!” But my friend Alice is braver than I and she savoured one whole chocolate-covered cricket. She said it wasn’t bad, although she was complaining of bug legs stuck between her teeth for the rest of the afternoon.

Speaking of bugs, Jonathan said to me the other day, “Mom, did you know that we have ‘taste bugs’ on our tongues that help us taste our food?!” (He’s been learning about the 5 senses at school and had a whole session on tasting the other week.)

BABY--Halfway there!
Yesterday marked week 20 of my pregnancy! And we also went for an ultrasound this week. And it appeared from it that things with “junior”, who as the sonographer said, was doing ‘rapid-fire’ kicking throughout the 40 minute ordeal, are going well so far, and we’re so thankful for that! It really is such a miracle when all the body parts are there and seemingly working as they should. We praise and thank our Awesome God for this too. It is also incredible to know that He also already has a plan for this child--we do not need to worry about anything. We also did ask the question, is it a boy or girl?! And got a clear answer! So, now we know…anyone out there want to guess?! You’ve got a 50/50 chance!

So here I am at 20 weeks…I feel kind of funny putting a photo of myself on here, but I’m sure there are at least some women out there who are curious about how big I’m getting!