Fresh

After chatting with a good friend this afternoon I am persuaded to try and get back in to my blogging. I guess as a form of journal for myself and for others.
Hmm, where to start...

We went to the zoo on Tuesday with Beth & Grace;Nate & Grace watching the goslings.

Good buddies.

The sign says it all

I'm watching you.

Today was a fun day. Nate & I went to have a play date with friends, so we hung out at their house for a bit, had some lunch then went to the spray park.And of course his hat and shorts were SOAKING WET.

Take note of the heart on the pocket of Nate's shorts... or the shorts that he borrowed from Liliana;-)

I have to say that my friends little girl, Liliana, and Nate are cut from the same cloth. They are extremely alike, Jen, her mum, totally agrees with me. So we commiserate and laugh together about our crazy, intelligent, busy, adorable, drive-us-insane, children.

As I've said many times before, I love the summer. It always improves my state of mind, all that wonderful vitamin D, not being cooped up inside all day, and the fact that I don't need a million layers just to step outside my front door makes me an extremely happier person. Images like this;

and this;
and this;

make me smile.

Long time no see

Well, life is definately different now. Our little boy keeps us busy, my time seems to fly by, I can't believe he will be 4 months old soon.

Quick catch up of recent events:
We just got back from England. We were there 2 weeks, which was way too short as we didn't quite manage to fit seeing everyone that we had hoped too.

BUT, we had fish & chips with Tim & Debs, dinner/lunch/day out at the National Railway Museum with Dad & Liz, went to Castle Howard with Mum & Sue, went to oxford to visit the Toppings and the Smalls, had lots of family time when Bob, Marie-Ann and Ben were home (it was short but oh so sweet!), I had a fun night with Cags and Han, we went to the Embassy bowling night, Hannah and I went out for drinks. We also did the usual; wander down to Yarm, walk to Tesco, nip to the Pav for a swift half, go to All Saints for church, quiet drink in the Pot & Glass... all the good stuff that feels normal.

It felt good to be home. And it was nice to see friends who, even though we have long periods of time apart, are still so much a part of who I am. I love the friendships where time doesn't matter, it feels comfortable and normal whenever you see them, even if it's been years or monthes. Elizabeth, Hannah, Debs and Caroline - time doesn't matter with our friendships... THANK YOU!

Here are some pics, enjoy;

Howells/Jennings/Unger family

Nathanael with 3 of his biggest fans

At Castle Howard

Changing Nate in Tim & Debs car boot;-)

More Nathanael

Nathanael with Joy

He actually let me take a good picture of him with his eyes open.

One of the hottest looks ever, the man with his baby. Man, I love my husband!

Nathanael Gideon

This was when he was just 3 or 4 hrs old.

We have a son!

Just for anyone who hasn't heard yet, we have a little boy now. He was born last Saturday (30th June) at 4.05pm, 7lbs 14oz, 21 inches, and we called him Nathanael Gideon.

I'll try really hard to put some more stuff on here really soon....

FYI

It smells like summer today... just so you know.

Who would have thought

Friday night was a fun night, Joy came over and we watched Deja Vu, it's a good movie, and it was good to find a movie that we all liked.

While we were at the video rental place I also grabbed One Night With The King, it caught my eye as it is based on the story of Esther from the Old Testament. Now I love this story, it goes to show how God can move in miraculous ways, so I was excited to see how well the film portrayed the story. It was an OK movie, they took a couple of liberties to create some drama and also to make it easier to understand for people in our culture that don't know anything about the Persian culture. Anyways, it's not awesome, but it is a good movie to watch.

However, beyond the story itself, I was also drawn to it as on the blurb on the back it said that Luke Goss starred in it. Now for the canadians, I don't know if that name will mean anything or not, I'm not sure if Bros ever made it here, L has no clue who they are but that means NOTHING!

So I sat down to watch the film with L on Saturday night, and lo and behold, yep, it really was Mr 'When, will I, will I be faaamouuuss... I can't answer, I can't answer that'. Interesting choice for Esther's love interest... And I found it highly amusing that he still liked to walk around baring his chest. I almost expected Matt to appear somewhere baring his chest too;-)

Todd & Tanya's wedding

Todd & Tanya MacKay, isn't Tanya's dress stunning???

Me & Tanya

Me & my Boy

Me & the Boy again

Week 25

Lindsay took this picture last week, I feel huge! Now I can not only feel baby moving, but but watch it too, it's a bizarre experiance watching your belly move around;-)

Off sick

I've been off on sick leave since the beginning of March. I haven't really wanted to talk about it that much thus far. But I know that slowly people have been finding out and not really known whats going on so have been concerned about the baby. The baby is fine, and seems to be most awake as Mum is trying to get to sleep. Baby finally said hi to Dad the other day. He's only felt the baby move twice, and he says that it's still faint, but I'm pretty glad that now we can share this together.

The Dr has put me on sick leave due to depression/stress. I've felt bad talking about this as I don't want people to think that I'm not excited about the baby or I don't love my job, or the people I work with, because I am excited about the baby, I do love my job and the staff. I don't quite understand whats going on myself, which is a scarey thing for me to acknowledge. I'm not sleeping great, I seem super sensitive about everything, I am REALLY forgetful, and I cry a lot. At one point I just seemed to cry non-stop, which is when the Dr decided I needed a break.

And I'm sorry to my friends if I've seemed weirder than normal, but to be brutally honest I have been feeling very insecure and overwhelmed around most of you right now. Not that I want you to back off or anything, in some ways I need you closer to me, I'm just not very good in groups.

I also wanted to say 'I love you' to Allison & Joy. Thank you for being so supportive, I am so grateful that you're my family.

Down by the river

So I took this picture a couple of weeks ago, when it was warm enough to go out for a walk. As you can see, it's still winter here, but it is starting to thaw.

Daniel & Steven

YFC update

I have to admit to being lazy, I've just copied and pasted the prayer e-mail my boss sends out to our prayer list to update you all on what's going on;

Greetings, and welcome to the YFC Praise and Prayer report! It has been quite a week here for us!

Thank you for your prayer for our YFC banquet last Monday. God answered our prayers in wonderful ways - we had our largest crowd yet, 426 people (that is more than the 50 tables x 8 people we were hoping for). Interestingly, we had raised from corporate sponsors that exact amount to purchase the ticket price of the meal! We had many comments from people that the program was perhaps the best yet, and the offering given that night was the biggest yet. All in all we are very thankful!!

Now our full attention turns to our California Tour which leaves in a month. We have 149 youth signed up and have room for 11 more. We are trying to confirm with our last few volunteer staff needed for the trip. Please pray for James and the team as they prepare.

Please pray for Chris, one of our admin staff, who is on medical leave right now for a few months. Pray that she will regain her health and also for us that we can find the help needed to fill her role.

Please pray for the youth that went on the Project Serve trips. It can be difficult for them as they come back into Canada from such a moving experience. Some of them made very important life decisions, so pray that God will continue to work in their hearts and that they would be effective ministers here.

Thanks so much for your prayers on our behalf, Gil Klassen, For the SYFC team

Sleepless nights... is my body preparing early or what???

I have never really been bothered by heartburn before, but that's all changed, Rolaids are a close friend. Heartburn likes to keep me company between 11pm and midnight, isn't that nice of it. And I'm not really doing good on the sleep right now either, sods law right?

Baby seems quite happy though, I can feel it more now. I love that feeling!

YFC Banquet

URGENT! The annual Saskatoon Youth For Christ Banquet is next Monday 5th March. If any of you reading this are in the area, PLEASE consider coming to this event. We really could do with as many people coming out as possible. If you are interested then please contact me at the YFC office or leave me a comment and I'll get back to you.

New due date

So, the baby is now due on the 14th July. My mum is gonna have to do some fast talking to see if she can change her flights, cos if I'm over due she'll barely see the baby.

Oh well.

Here's our baby

So, just in case it's not obvious, cos sometimes it's not, the baby is facing down, and you can see it's spine, and it has it's legs bent under it, and the slight shadow between the knee and the chin is it's hand. It was moving around A LOT during the whole ultrasound.

I love my baby!

Not my favourite way to spend the evening

The long running saga of my sinus'.

What can I say?

You've heard me moan about this enough already.

But this time, I'm pregnant, so no sinus medicine.

And before I go crawling to the Dr for antibiotics, I am trying out a whole load of things that my Dr recommended should this issue arise... like the sinus rinse.

Sounds simple enough hey? And it is, it's just GROSS! I basically squirt a lot of water up one nostril and it comes either out of the other nostril or my mouth. I am glad to say, but also grossed out to say, that it does bring with it a lot of the nasty stuff from up there, but I'm glad that L didn't watch me as I was doing this. And this is something I can do daily to improve my situation... yay???

It does help, I have to admit that, but when my gag reflex is still sensitive it's something I have to tread carefully with.

I smell like chlorine again

Aquacise was really good last night, I got a good workout, and it's really fun. I usually know 4 or 5 other ladies, and I have to admit that we chat a lot... before, during and after. But that's all part of it. And our instructer really is good, and FUNNY! One MAJOR bonus is that I get to hang out with Allison more, and she's one of my favourite people, I love her, I love that we're cousins.

This morning felt SO cold, it's -22, which isn't too bad, but it just FELT bad today. I wonder how much baby feels this stuff?

And Tanya brightened my day already with an e-mail, I get to see her tomorrow, she's another of my favourite people;-)

Read this

OK people, Allison has posted the funniest story on her blog. Just click on Allison L in my Links on the right hand side. She posted it yesterday. It's very funny!