Dear Family & Friends

Happy New Year!!!!! Wow, it is so hard to believe this is the last year of 2008. Time certainly goes by quickly and days turn into seasons it leaves us wondering, where did the time go? This past year has been a challenging one for my family and I. We certainly had our ups and downs and made many mistakes but thank God for his mercy and forgiveness. He is so wonderful to pick us up when we are down and bring us back to a road of peace and happiness in Him. He is a loving God and I am so happy to know him in such a deep and intimate way.

As I look over the past year, I realize I am BLESSED. Truly Blessed. God had brought so much joy into my life. I am excited about what the new year holds for my family and I. We have made a lot of changes in the past few weeks and have seen some tremendous results. We have grown closer and are now making God the center of our home on a daily basis. I am so thankful that I have a loving, caring, forgiving Husband and such wonderful children. They are so precious to me and with each passing moment I grow to love them more and more. I still try to find those teachable moments with them and take the time to spend individual time with them as well.

I have to say. I am so glad 2008 is almost over with!!! It was a rough year and I don't care to go back there! I am choosing to leave it in the past where it belongs and start fresh and new. I am determined to learn from my mistakes and not repeat them. We all make mistakes, we all fall and do things we shouldn't do. The important thing is to go to God for direction and purpose. He will guide you every step of the way if you'll let him. This past year made me take a good hard look at myself and the end result was ...I didn't like what I saw. I didn't like who I had become during the year of 2008 and I was not happy because somewhere along the way I had taken my eyes of God and put them on things that I thought were important. My relationship with God suffered because of it. My faith in God was shaken and everyone in my family were innocent bystanders of the windfall in the choices I made. For that I am so sorry. Thank God, he saw fit to rescue me just in time and set me back on the straight and narrow :)

To my family and friends, I am sorry if I hurt you this past year in any way. If my actions or words caused you hurt or anger, I am truly sorry. My prayer for 2009 is that I take captive every thought and allow my words to heal rather than hurt. To bless rather than curse and to love rather than judge. I pray that you all have peace, love, joy and happiness in the new year and that God blesses you beyond measure. We are keeping you all daily in our thoughts and prayers.

We are out with the old and in with the new!!!!!!! YIPEEEEEEEEEE

Christmas Drama's

Our 3 oldest Children have been involved in Drama Club at the Church and on Dec 14th had the opportunity to present a drama written and directed by one of my Best Friends Amanda Moss. She also did the painting of Mary and Joseph in the following Photo. This was the display at the back of the church for the drama entitled "Jesus, Lord at Thy Birth" It was very well written and the children all did a fantastic job on their parts. The angel visits Mary...Angel played by our Pastors son and Mary by our daughter, Rachael.The angel visits the Shepard's... Reuben, our son is the Shepard in the blue.Hannah our Daughter was an angel...she is on the end with her arms raised.
Back Row Angels: Hannah our daughter, our Pastors son, and our cousin's son.

Front Row: Amanda's brother, and our Daughter Rachael.
We are very proud of our children for participating in this Drama. Remember, Jesus is the reason for the Season!

Sunday School Concert 2008


Alex was Joseph he is in the manger beside the girl in blue and Emily is the first angel on the left. They were so cute doing their part with their class :)

Hannah doing her part in the Concert
Rachael with her sign on the Sweetness of Christmas.
Reuben with his class...He absolutely refused to wear a suit to the concert LOL Said it wouldn't be cool *sigh* (I wanted him to dress right up)
It is such a busy time of year with Concerts, drama's and banquets. We did manage to get away to see the Drama my parents were involved in at their church. They did a fantastic job and we had the opportunity to see friends and family we hadn't seen in a long time.

What a BLIZZARD

♫ Oh the weather outside is frightful......but this fire is so delightful.......♫

The Christmas Holidays started out with a good ole Canadian Blizzard! According to news reports this will be the first time since the 70's that there will be a white Christmas from one end of Canada to the other!! We got hit hard...lots of ice, snow and wind. Here are a few pictures of the Blizzard of 08!

This was the beginning of the blizzard around 7 pm!

By midnight...it looked like this!
The next morning, we found out that a lot of people had no power for over 11 hours and we had no phone service. Hubby's work was cancelled and this was around 8am when he tried to snow blow the driveway a bit. You can just barely see the snow blower in this pic.

Here he was trying to dig out our van in case he got called to work. It was a complete white out for a while. The wind was howling and snow mixed with ice pelted down on him as he tried to clean the yard some. I am blessed that I have a Hubby that will take care of things like this for us. It was so cold!

Hubby came to the door looking like Jack Frost...or the abominable Snowman LOL. Hard to believe he and his 3 brothers drove to Quebec later that day to pick up their other brother from the airport to bring him home to NB in time for Christmas! Thank God that they made it safely home and had no mishaps along the way. My other brother in law (my sister's hubby...was stranded in Toronto for 2 days trying to get a flight home for Christmas!)

You know it's a bad storm when your glasses are stuck to your face with ice!!

Ice built up on Hubby's glasses after we had taken some off!

We are so thankful and fortunate that we all survived this blizzard and that God's protection was upon our loved ones as they travelled the highways in this storm. Thank you to everyone who kept Hubby and his brother's in their prayers as they travelled home. They were a pretty tired bunch when we picked them up in Freddy LOL