Mission call . . .

"The" letter came yesterday. . . We had a "few" friends come by for cookies and the letter opening to find out where Adam he will serve his mission.  He is off to Winnipeg Canada mission in July.  He will then spend the next 2 years in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Northern Minnesota and Western Ontario after two weeks training in Provo, Utah!

So a funny thing happened on the way to work the other day. . .

Ron was driving me to work and the dogs came along for the R-I-D-E (we can't say "that" word in our house.) We had just dropped the kids at school and I noticed a really strong cherry scent in the car. When I looked in the back seat, Aurora is chewing on something and trying to hide when she notices me looking at her. . . Apparently she had gotten into the Cherry flavored Halls that Ellie had left in the car. Elizabeth claims she had a sore throat all day, but I guess the dog's throat was just fine!

The swans all seem to have headed back North ofter two beautiful weather days. . .now it appears we are back into the stormy/windy/wet for a bit.

Working on gratitude this week, , ,

We have much to be grateful for this week and I have had to remind myself of this a few times.  As some of you know we had a HUGE wind storm on Monday.  Our yard is littered with tree debris, though no "big" pieces. . .fortunately.  We lost our power just before I left for work at about 8am and it stayed off until I got home at around 6pm.  The schools were closed, the ferries shut down and people pretty well stayed home.  Dax and Elizabeth were away at a leadership training course hosted by St. John Ambulance in the lower mainland.
Shortly after getting home, we were all in the family room downstairs, when Kaili asked- "What's that smell?"  We weren't sure; maybe the furnace firing back up? Something outside?  Shortly thereafter there was a LOUD Pop from upstairs.  It seems that while the power was out, the butane camp stove was put on the range to heat water, the burner under it happened to be on, consequently it exploded sending shrapnel and hot glass around the kitchen.
After the initial shock wore off, I started really bemoaning the loss of our stoves, teakettle and the burn marks in the floor and holes in the cabinets where the shrapnel hit; all the while understanding that it could have been so much WORSE! 
If anyone would have been in the kitchen there would have been life threatening injuries for sure- if one of the pieces of camp stove would have flown a couple of feet to the right we would have had to replace a window too.  Even though we didn't have the 1000 dollars to put things back into functionality, we did have the credit available to do so AND NO ONE WAS HURT!
We now have a new stove in place and I am finally feeling grateful for real instead of faking grateful.