The Harapnuik’s flew to Ottawa today to see our nation’s capital, take some tours and learn some history of Canada. We crossed the Ottawa River into Quebec, so we were in three provinces today. The leaves are all the colors we could ask for and because this is my favorite season, it’s an extra special trip for me.
Dwayne will be at a conference for most of time time we are here, but we hope to get a tour of the parliment tour together and maybe the tour Canadian Mint as well.
Hi ya’ll,
I’m mentioning this book, 31 Days to Clean, by Sarah Mae, so I can get a free download. I will write more when I find out more about it! With my chapped hands…
‘Tis the season in Abilene for specially mixed cocktails to start and end your day. Do you need something to ease your head, calm your nerves, clear the webs away? We’ve got something for you as close as the nearest drug store.
For, you see, it’s allergy season and many people who have never had a reaction in their whole life, fall victim to the cedar, juniper, budding of all types of trees and flowers. The whole area can be covered in pollen from one plant or another and some has fallen upon Dwayne.
I went to talk with a pharmacist about what to ease the symptoms, and she gave me a “behind the counter” remedy and said I could combine it with_____ and then with ______ or ______. And he’d have to take it for the next 2 or 3 …… months.
“MONTHS!!!??”, I said, “Not weeks?”.
“Months”, said she.
So we are falling to the Abilene Allergies and the needed Cocktails to function.
…on the way home from youth group.
When I was taking Caleb to church on Wednesday night, in the ditch along the road there were a couple of cars parked next to a ball diamond (the ditches are wide). When I came back to pick him up, there were 1/2 dozen more in the ditch and the diamond was filling up. I told Caleb I wanted to take a picture cause I thought it was kinda neat, but I had to stop right across the road from them to do it safely. So I stopped, held up my iphone and was about to try to take a picture when I noticed that they noticed that I had stopped. A couple of adults started waving their arms around. I’m thinking, “Hm, are they upset that I am taking a picture?”. Turns out, they were waving for us to come and join the game.
Pick up baseball in Abilene. A different kind of drive-by 
Love it.
Ha! Today I made a call to volunteer helping with some homeschooling testing and the lady I spoke with asked if I had any experience. When I told her I had supervised some testing in Canada, that started the spiral of:
“Where in Canada? “I’m Canadian, born in Mexico, but U.S. citizen”.
She mentioned that her parents were Mennonite. I guessed Manitoba and I was right.
Her maiden name was Friezen and I mentioned my mom was Mennonite.
“Do you speak German”
“No, but our mom used to sing us Silent Night in German at Christmas.”
“Aw, we haven’t taught our children German and my husband and I feel guilty”
“Do you cook any Mennonite food”
“No, it’s not too healthy, ya know”.
“But what about Roll Kuchen and Watermelon?”
“Yes, we love those, but we cook them outside cause it gets a little smokey”.
“The next time I make some, we’ll have to have you over”.
So, from down the street to across the world, this lovely chain of some-sort-of family continues its linking.
PS. They didn’t need any more help with testing, so I will wait till next year
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted
We are fine and have had a very busy spring with company and Dwayne traveling and trying to make some decisions on fixing up the place even more. The finishing touches always seem to take the longest with the lease amount of impact, but they have to be done. Unfortunately, we usually fall into something more interesting and the weekend/evenings get away from us and they end up undone. Now the outdoor work is starting up, so it gives us something else to concentrate on.
It’s been hot, warm, coolish and hot again, so it must be spring! The mesquite trees have leafed out and I heard a gardener say that the old ones know when to leaf out, but you can’t trust the new ones to know when spring is here. The old ones have been wrong only twice in the last 100 years, so we trust them, but they look like their making the
move to leaf, so I guess the gardens can go in. Most people like to do this mid March, but have been waiting.
Our lawn has had one cut and major de-dandilioning.The pesticides they use down here knock us back a bit. Pretty much need as haz-mat suit to use them, but they do the trick. Not having been here last spring I was surprised to see how ours was the only yard with the lovely yellow blooms. I discovered that we should spread pre-emergant weed
controller on in the fall and spring, not just the spring, so we missed out on that this year. Anyway, the place is starting to green up and we only need to do a couple more treatments on something called “nut grass” to clean up the majority of the ugly’s. Funny thing is, even if it looks nice, I doubt I’d want to walk on it without shoes, since fire ants, stickers and bugs are all around.
Having April here for a week, then Caroline and Tom and family for overnight with Kara along as well, and just saying goodbye to Preston has giving us a great spring connecting with family. April, my first roomie and neighbor, Caroline and Kara, our adopted “daughter/younger sis” and Preston, our brother (older for Levi and Caleb, younger for Dwayne and me), has been a real blessing. It makes it busy in a fabulous way! Now mom and dad are coming for Easter and then we need to start planning our travels for the summer.
The boys are doing well. The tramp bike is a new challenge. They decided not to take up hockey this spring, because it just gets so hot, and wind surfing is on the horizon (almost went last week, but the wind died too soon), so that should keep them busy. They look forward to as much time as we can spare to hit the mountains again this summer and if it works out we’ll be back at Winter Park, CO for our vacation with Dwayne.
The second weekend of April, both Dwayne and I are attending a Digital Workshop Weekend that ACU has planned. No kids allowed, and the spouses are invited to just hang out and learn about photography, videoing and producing. It’s in a small town called Gruen, TX , north east of San Antonio. The boys will be staying with friends and I’ll be bringing a book! Since we only have one camera, I’ll get to just hang out! Wahoo!
Well, the rain has come and it’s making everyone happy. It’s been a dry year even with the snow we had, and everyone is a bit concerned. It’d be nice to have a few days of this, but it looks like 30C is just around the corner. The spring flowers are just starting and as much as I never really cared about such things before, to see the abundance of
blooms and colors that just decided to grow wherever keeps me in awe. I can’t wait for mom and dad to see them.
I just found out the history of the exclamation point! How cool! Exclamation points came from “io”, the Latin word for “joy”. This word was often shown as a capital “I” set over a lower case “o”. I think that’s just neat!
One cousin commented on how we used to go to Saskatoon for birthdays and parties, now it’s for funerals. Another one of our dear uncles has been released from the pain of cancer into the joy of heaven. What happy relief for him; what mixture of relief for him and grief of family. God’s peace to all the Regehrs, Epps, family, friends and fellow workers.
The last two days, with only 3 1/2 inches of snow, Abilene is pretty much at a standstill. We went from 24C on Monday, to rain, thunder, lightening and hail in the evening to snow at 4 am. It’s a record snow fall for Feb. 1st and all schools were closed. ACU and universities as well. You gotta understand these roads and the ice and sleet and no snow tires, sand, salt or clearing of any road ways. I got stuck backing out of the garage because of a drift and Dwayne got out to the road in the van, turned around and came back. Same with today. Other than running out of milk, we are fine. I’ll deal with coffee and cream tomorrow instead of a latte.
Other than that, it’s business as usual. I almost finished painting the master bathroom before running out of paint and not able to get more, I will finish up the trim. The boys are still doing their full school schedule along with trips outside to re-live their childhood (Levi’s got some kinda fort going one) and Dwayne is as constant at his computer as a normal day. No day off for any of us, but no place to go and that’s always a nice thing. Church, dentist, small group all of it off the books. It doesn’t look like it will get any better (above freezing) before Saturday, so we may need to run down to the 7-11 a few blocks away to pick up the top dollar milk. The weekend looks like a warm 18C. Just thinking that Monday I was fixin’ to spread pre-immeragent weed killer. Ah, life in Texas.
I spoke with Kara in Dallas this morning and she’s off work as well. They didn’t get much snow but the rain and sleet has made it miserable. With rolling, organized power outages, it’s a much better situation than Senegal We haven’t lost power, though some in Abilene have been on the list. With more people at home running the heat, it’s a precaution.
Here’s to spring weather approaching (though not fast enough).
Here it is: our guest list for the next 5 months!! Excited to show some new people our life here in Abilene.
January 24-26 my brother, Harvey, and a full time worker from Egypt, Nathan. Short stay but we’ll take what we can get. And a party.
February 19-24: April, my childhood buddy and first roommate out of my family home. Maybe a trip to San Antonio, just the girls.
March 14-20? Preston’s return trip…he’s not sick of the southwest yet and we are oh, so happy about that! Tramps up for hand hockey, cornmeal a plenty and cave discovery near Waco? Spring break in Abilene.
April before the 14th (dad’s 80th): mom and dad’s return trip (praying it works out) to see the blue bonnets and wild flowers.
May a too short weekend: Laura, my sis (really praying this works out) who has been to Texas, but not this far out of the metro-plex, where the pace is slower, friendlier and the a/c isn’t turned so low.
June-Aug: No one, but that’s cause ya’ll are smart. Trust me, you don’t want to be coming this way during these months.
So happy to have the north willing to make a trip to the south!
