Kelowna 2016

At the end of July we spent a week in Kelowna. We had an amazing time visiting with Grandpa Clark, Grandma Jo-Ann, Uncle Matt, Auntie Jaynie, and Lydia. 

Highlights of our trip were: reading 1 Peter together, spending time with our sweet niece / cousin, introducing Silas to the Smith family, seeing Grandpa Clark and Grandma Jo-Ann spend time with all their grandkids in the same place, spending time lots of time in the pool, and eating lots of ice cream :)

Matt and Jaynie took so many amazing pictures. We had a hard time choosing which ones to put on the blog, so here are a lot of pictures...

A Visit from the Smith Family

A few weeks ago Matt, Jaynie and Lydia came and stayed at our house for a couple of nights before going up to Kelowna. Time spent with them is always a treat. It was so great to spend time with them and show them our new home. We also went for a walk by the creek in our new neighbourhood and visited Crescent Beach.

Happy Day - Ella's Baptism

So thankful for this moment yesterday. Ella has been asking to be baptized for over a year now and today was the day. Her faith has become more and more evident to Spencer and I and we no longer felt that she was too young to take this step. Also, so powerful to see her Dadda as one of the men who baptized her. Spencer has done an amazing job of discipling his little girl. This moment was a gift. God is good.

 We were also thankful to celebrate Ella's baptism over dinner with some dear friends.

Solid Food

Last week Silas started eating solid foods. And he has a mighty big appetite! He started on rice cereal and has now tried several mashed fruit and veggies. He likes his food :)

Other happenings...

A few weeks ago we had the Surrey Fire Department come and do a safety inspection of our home. It is an amazing free service that the city provides. Captain Nancy and Constable Dwayne sat our kids down and went over all of the fire safety rules that we should have in our house. She also showed them the best evacuation plan for different scenarios. They also walked through our house to make sure everything was safe and they installed new smoke detectors. 

The kids were very excited when Nancy and Dwayne got called to a real fire while they were in the middle of our inspection. They put their fire gear on and rushed out with the sirens on. They returned a few hours later with good news that the fire got put out and nobody got hurt. 

This visit was very impactful to our kids and it helped them feel better about fire safety (especially Juliette, who is sometimes nervous about fires).

During the visit, Peter pulled out his fire truck and was also wearing his fire truck jammies :)

Ella is a bookworm and LOVES the Mandie book series. She brings them with her most places we go and spends hours of her day reading these books.

On a rainy day we made some play dough in our learning room. 

And on a sunny day we had a lemonade stand.

And Peter loves the water table that was given to him by our dear friend Hudson.

8

On July 26th Spencer and I celebrated our 8th anniversary. Since Silas is still so little, we didn't go out on our typical evening date. Instead we celebrated with the kiddos and are going to do a real date later this month.

I am so blessed to have Spencer as my husband. He loves Jesus, he loves me, and he loves our kids. He also loves pretty much everybody else he meets :) 

He leads us well and has a servant heart. God uses him in incredible ways and Spencer pushes me out of my comfort zone on a regular basis. I am so incredibly thankful that God blessed me with this amazing man.

We went to the Stanley Park pool and then had dinner at the Teahouse. Thanks to my dad's gift certificates, we have become regulars at the Teahouse.