Pretty Pictures (for lack of a better title)

Notice the rainbow in the bottom left corner above. Below is a close-up of the rainbow.

The picture below is one I took at camp in July.

And this is something that hangs on my bulletin board. A friend wrote it out for me.

Justine

A Post with Pictures :)

Today, after many days of clouds and rain, we had a few hours of sunshine. This evening all of us kids took advantage of the sunshine to play outside.

Outside our dining room window is a robin's nest in a tree. The robins have four babies. We joke that while we are watching them have their breakfast, they are watching us eat ours.

In a large puddle in the field next to our house live a pair of ducks. The ducks come nearly every year, but usually the puddle dries up pretty quickly. This year we have had so much rain, the ducks are still here. I do not know if they are raising a family though.

Nadia loves the swing. She begs, "Go too higher!" We always ask her, "Is it too high?" because we aren't sure if she will be afraid. Now she thinks "too high" is fun.

Meg taught Nadia to answer the question, "What country do we live in?" Nadia says "Me live Candada!"

Some more things Nadia says are:

When she has new clothes, "Want show my papa!"

Nearly every morning when we are doing schoolwork, "Want to colour." Then, when she has coloured a picture and folded/scrunched it up, "Here Dee-Dee (Justine), this yours." And when I have looked at it and given it back, she refolds it and says, "Here Meghan" or "Here Awsee (Allison)" or "Eah".

Sunday morning she heard Thomas crying upstairs and she cried, "T-Tom!" and ran all the way upstairs to the boys room. She loves her brothers.

The other day when Thomas got hurt, he exclaimed, "Ow! My skeleton!"

Justine

It's been a very long time...

...hasn't it?

Instead of the usual March weather of grey skies and brown fields, we received a beautiful layer of snow the other night. On top of that, the snow was glazed with ice from freezing rain. Today dawned bright and clear, the sunshine reflected off the ice and snow, and it was altogether a cheerful and breath-takingly pretty day.

In this picture, I tried to focus on the coil of vine. However, the sun was glinting off the camera screen, so I didn't see the result until I put the pictures on the computer. It did focus on something, just not what I wanted it to. And the background looks how I wanted it to. :)

I was bouncing these two little men on a fallen log (and having lots of fun) when they told me I looked like a Daddy long-legs. I just laughed, so they kept calling me that and laughing. :)

Happy Friday!

Justine

Snow!

We have about a foot and a half of snow! Lots of fun for romping in. Yesterday we were running and jumping in the snow, but whenever we fell down we had to get up right away so Casper wouldn't lick our faces. He liked to run through the snow, too, and would come up with his face covered.

Today I started work at a nearby chicken barn. I gathered 21 900 eggs, though not singlehandedly since I was training. Actually I only stack flats, load carts, check for cracks, and supervise. The rest is done by machines and conveyor belts. I will be working every Thursday morning. Allison will work Wednesday mornings, and several other people do the other days. I enjoy the work, since it is on a farm. The only thing I don't like is that Leah has to take over the care of our chickens, to reduce the risk of potential spread of disease.

Justine

Thanksgiving Weekend Hike

For Thanksgiving weekend, we went to visit some friends for a few days. On the way up, we stopped at Eugenia Falls and at Metcalfe Rock.

Eugenia Falls is not very wide, but it is tall. From what I could see, it looked like a small stream flowing gently through the woods. Suddenly the ground falls away to a valley between two cliffs and the water goes crashing to the bottom.

On this picture, the falls is to the right. The valley turns and seems to join another valley running perpendicular to the first.

This is a closeup of the far hill in the previous picture. Wouldn't that meadow at the top be a delightful place to build a house?

Here is Metcalfe Rock. Walking up to it through the forest, one wonders how such a big chunk of rock ever managed to be plunked down there. It looks like it must be solid right through for quite a distance, but in reality there is a crevice running parellel to the face of the rock only a few metres in.

We walked around the face of the rock and climbed down into the crevice. There were many small crevices running into the rock. Some were actual tunnels. We climbed from one part of this really big crevice to another, and then found a tunnel that led to a small hole in the wall of the first crevice. It was fun, but somewhat difficult, to climb through a low tunnel guided only by the light of a flashlight.

Emily sitting on a ledge near the end of a crevice.

Looking back into the crevice we had just come out of. The air down there was cool and damp, and it felt good to be out in the warm, fresh forest air. When the breeze came from the right direction it blew cool air up in our faces. The wind was really neat in the crevices, because sometimes it would come from the warm forest above and other times it would blow up from the cool, damp crevices.

The whole place was beautiful and awe inspiring. We thought about how God is our rock and salvation. The rocks are so solid, it makes us think about how God is forever and unchanging.

(All pictures taken by Allison. Used with permission.)

Justine

Signs of Fall

Here are some pictures I took this morning. There is still a lot of green, but the trees are definitely starting to turn colour.

This last picture I took a while ago. The bright green of the trees and the blue of the sky with a bit of puffy white clouds are my favourite colours.

Justine