Powerful song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4xsWldmqAo&eurl=http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/?p=5613

Your prayers needed

This weekend has turned out to be an unexpectedly emotional couple of days. You know when everywhere you turn you seem to be hearing bad news, and then...you get even worse news. Well we recieved word yesterday that a good friend of ours has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, very uexpectedly, and this being our seccond friend in under two years to have this diagnosis, has us realing. Even as I write this I feel speachless because I can barely think about it. I can only pray and beg for God's hand to be in this and I ask for any of you who read this to please join me. This friend is a beautiful person and has a young family who also needs our support and prayers as they begin this very long and painful road.

You know, i'm sure we are all thankful everyday for health and blessings we have in our lives but you know, really, it can be any day when that changes. Why do we forget that so easily in the heat of the moment, or in between tradgedies? What does being thankful in life on an everyday basis look like? We can say that we are, but does my/your life really relflect that? Is it enough to just say that you are thankful everyday? And then for what? What does that change? And if you don't know God, then who are you being thankful to?

This guy is passionate about Christ and God's amazing grace, and what he has done in his life. And already he is finding joy in the opportunitues he is having to share his faith with staff and anyone else who will listen. His passion and focus is an amazing testimony to me and anyone who calls them self a christian.
The one thing that I am thankful for in all the sadness surrounding this news is that at least he knows God personally and intimately and with that brings hope.

Our latest find in this family- friendly city!

Its fun being the "New kid on the block or in the city" in so many ways. You have an excuse to be directionally challenged, you discover all the things the city has to offer that other's have taken for granted and every experience is kinda new!!

This morning we discoverd a place called "child Reach". Its partially run through the Ontario Early years center but its a center where you can drop-in for FREE all day, any day. This is amazing. Usually, most places, there are certain days of the week they will have drop-in's with specific hours.
There are lots of workers and volunters there to help the kids so the mommies can have coffee and chit chat and they have a great set-up with painting, water play, toy houses, kitchens, small baby area.... IT'S AWESOME! We went there today with my new friend that I met here last week while dropping Ella off at mini-camp. I don't have time to waste for meeting friends since i'm only here 6 months, I have to be forward :) And its worked out so well. They are really great.
We are heading, with a group of friends, to another great place for kids tomorrow called Story Book Gardens. Absolutely fantastic place for the kids and its right in the city. London also has amazing splash parks. Big ones, all over the city. Between all this and the beach, summer is really great in London!! They are definitely a very family-friendly city!
Other things I love about London so far that I didn't have the pleasure of in Ottawa:
Pizza slices
drive-thru dairy queen
drive-thru starbucks
cheap classes and lessons for the kids
great library programs and hours
BEACHES, great beaches that you can actually swim in (I have to say this one again)

As you can read, it doesn't take much to please me :)

Book club

YEAH!
Last night I was able to go out to a book club and meet a few girls. I didn't read the book, which apparently is not a prerequisite for this book club. I hope to read the next one though. It seems to mostly be an excuse for the girls to plan a night out to munch, chat and drink wine. Most had some connection to the medical profession and a few of our husbands workd together so it was nice to get to know a couple of the wives of ortho.

Anyone read a great novel lately they want to reccomend??

Today is one of our few dreary day's where I think we will be staying in all day. Hopefully I won't be writing tomorrow about my sanity again :)

London England...WHAT??

I thought I had Ella signed up for a VBS (Vacation Bible School) this week and as it turns out it was for London England and not London Ontario. STUPID. Don't ask.
Anyway, now I am left to scramble and make it up to her because she has been so excited about going and I didn't realize this until after she had gone to bed. I guess I will be planning a few playdates, trips to story book gardens and library story times this week. I am missing my social nework in Ottawa.
Otherwise we had another nice weekend at the beach and with great friends.
Hope you all had a great weekend. Please keep in touch!!!

Are you love?

I'm reading a book right now called "crazy Love" and in it the author, Fancais Chan, get's you to do a neat exersize that I think really makes you look at yourself truthfully regarding your character. If the greatest thing is to love, how well do you do this?

Francais asks you to read this:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong doings, but rejoices with truth. Love bears all things. Love never ends...faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
-1 corinthians 13:4-8, 13

Everyone knows these verses. But take a another look. Now substitute the word "love" with your own name.

Are you love? Do you love people well?

Feeling normal

So yesterday and today have been the most normal for me yet. Mostly b/c I have been able to get to the gym and then have a playdate after. We had a picnic in the park yesterday after Ella finished at her mini-camp. We met up with two frineds that we know here who are origionally from NL. The kids were excited to play in the splash park etc. I LOVE these splash parks, they are the only way to survive the heat here so that you don't end up spending your whole summer in closed houses with air conditioning. And then today, after I dropped Ella off, I met them again at a library program for Zaiah's age group and then for coffee. It was so nice to get out and see and experience more of London and have adult conversation. Zaiah loved the class because as a result of being a seccond child she hasn't experienced the same library classes etc. as Ella, lol ;) She is really growing up so fast now. She is starting to put words together and even mini sentences. And for those of you wondering, her hair is getting slightly longer. She's got a great fuzz/afro going :) She still has a passion for fashion and her latest kick is Ella's rubber boots and clips for her hair a.k.a fuzz.
I'm off to see if I can play ultimate frisbe this evening and we are hopefully going camping this weekend. Gotta love summer!!!

Adventures with the Youngs

Okay, after a few emails about the difficulty of commenting on my page I have corrected the setting! Please leave me your comments!

I didn't blog yesterday b/c, well we were having such a great family day! We ventured out to another new church yesterday morning (after poor D was up on-call until 3:30am) but this one started at 11:30am so he was able to sleep in :) It was really good. We enjoyed it, the kids enjoyed it so hopefully we've found a home church for the time we are here. Later we discoverd a great splash park downtown and just hung out all evening outside. So nice. Yesterday, I also got to go for a run, have a nap and have pizza for dinner(mmmm) and end with watching a little planet Earth with D. That is my idea of a perfect sunday. I am a true believer that along with church sundays should be spent with the ones you love just chill'in. Or enjoying nature, Soaking up the beauty of this world and the things you value in life.

Today has already proven to be an adventureous day for me. I managed to crawl out of bed before 7am yup, I said 7. I'd like to take all the credit for taking that inititive but D is so loud in the mornings, or the layout of this house is so bad, that I might as well get up by the time he leaves for work anyway CAUSE I'M AWAKE ANYWAY ;) So it was all good b/c Ella was starting a mini-camp today at 9am. We've been so excited about this b/c she is totally needing more stimulation and a few friends these days. It was great and she loved it. My adventure began after I dropped her off. With my handy GPS and new found confidence in a strange city, I decided that I would just head to the nearest Goodlife fitness. I punch it in and it takes me a few monutes down the road to the one that is downtown and in a shopping mall where you have to park in a garage. Now Darryl has been going to this one so he has briefed me on where to park, how to get your ticket paid for in Goodlife etc. But for those of you who have small kids you know that anything new is a huge under taking and takes quite a bit more figuring out, reading signs, asking for help, organizing etc. I am not the most adventureous person when it comes to certain things that may lead me to get lost but for whatever reason (I blame the false confidence the GPS gives me)I decided to tackle this gym this morning, with Zaiah. Let's just say that by the time I got out of the garage, through the shopping center, crossed the street to the other shopping centre, found the gym asked for help to get down the esculator to the gym (b/c the escalatior was broken, I had a stroller and there was no elevator in sight) and was able to finally get her settled in the child minding I was POOPED! In the end, I made it out and back to pick up Ella without getting lost, had a great workout but am pretty much finished for the rest of today :) In the end, i'm pretty proud of myself, lol.

Hope your weekend went well and have a happy monday!

This weeks link

http://www.lifechurch.tv/message-archive/one-prayer/3
If you liked the other one, check this one out too!

I am slowly going crazy 123456 SWITCH

I don't know the rest of this song but its the only thing running through my head right now. Its been a long week with the girls and mostly spent on my own. D has been on-call since thursday and is still untill monday. Its been okay, he had to go in all last night though, and it makes for a long day and after a week I need a SWITCH. I need a break so I can be a good mommy :) Ella has been especially challenging this week. I know she's still trying to adjust and she's also 4! Thank God I found a program to put her in starting monday and a VBS for the next week. This should help us both.
Being married to a resident has definitely given me a greater apprecitation for single parents. I can't write much b/c I begged Darryl to take them out to the park to give me an hour to myself to try and get some stuff done without someone comming behind me needing something or messing it up as I go. Hopefully he doesn't get called in in the next hour.
I love being at home with my girls, that's for sure. But it doesn't mean I don't go a little stir crazy once in awhile.
Defintiely missing my support in Ottawa :)

One Prayer

I just finished watching something that is being shown in thousands of churches around the world. Really great. Check it out if you haven't seen it yet. The skit is especaiily funny :) Here's the link from my church in Ottawa that has it on-line. Totally worth wathcing whether you care about the church or not.
You can also check out www.oneprayer.com

http://www.lifecentre.org/index.cfm?i=1467&mid=1000&id=80705

Thursday

Not a whole lot to say today. Finally got my but back to the gym yesterday and went again today. That felt good. I need that routine in the morning to get me started. I'm loving that this gym near my house is in a Loblaws and I can get any grocery's I need after. Yesterday D had the day off and we went downtown to some of the little shops and just walking around. I really am liking this city. Maybe the winter here is another story, but I won't be here anyway :) I can't believe how many Tim's there are here though. I thought Ottawa was bad but here they are kitty corner to each other everywhere and then the gas station in the parking lot of the Tim's will have a little Tim's in it. And then a block away you will have your starbucks drive-thru's. Its really funny. Maybe its geared around the students here??? Darryl's working all weekend so i'm hoping that is'n too busy and i'm left to fend for myself all weekend too. Makes for a long week. I will definitely be missing my friends in Ottawa this weekend. MUAH!

Isn't it interesting...

Numerically, my life seems to have become kind of interesting. A comment my mom left on my blog from yesterday, reminded me of something that recently occured to me. Whether there really is something significant about it or not, I don't know. But...maybe.

For those of you close to me, you know that this year has been pretty difficult but also sigificant and exciting. I've been saying for the last couple of months that my life in the last year has seemed a little like a movie in that everything was comming to an end on so many different levels. I had it all: the drama, the emotional highs and lows, the words of new things to come, the climax of everything and then it could close with our amazing going away/birthday:) party and the exciting new adventures we about to embark on. Not just because we were leaving Ottawa and Darryl was finishing his residency but many other area's that were specific to me. One day a few weeks back, as I was reflecting on my life in the last 6-12 months, and after yet another significant moment where I felt that my life was not only taking on change georaphically but personally, I realized that as hard as this year was with Darryl finishing his 5th year of residency I would still consider it one of my favorite years. Now before this, my favorite year was grade 9 (age 14/15) You know how growing up you have a favorite year where everything seemed to change for the better or you just had that really great summer, christmas or whatever?? Well for me this was when I was 14. Without boring you with all the details why, i'll just say that it was significant for me personally and also signified a new chapter in my life. The next season that brought a significant change and began a new chapter in my life was when I was 21 and Darryl and I got married. This obviously was a great and significant change in my life. So, after I realized that this year had been pretty significant for me too and was signifying more change and new beginnings, I thought back to how many years later this was, and realized that my life has been in 7's. Ages 14-21-28. With each 7 years I go through, something closes in my life and something new begins.
My mother made a comment on my blog from yesterday how 8 is the number of new beginnings because on my blog yesterday I had been talking about how I wondered if it was significant that our anniversary was our 8th year of marriage on the 8th of july and in 2008. Well that would be fitting because this year is the end of one season or chapter in our life and we are now venturing into a new phase, personally, geographically, career wise and within our family life.
Isn't that interesting?? God has been a huge part of all these aspects in my life and he often seems to work with numbers throughout the Bible, and even today numbers seem to be significant. What do you think? Do you have a number that is significant for you? Do you think that these life numbers keep the balance in our lives where they are supposed to be? Or is it just normal that after 7 years things have to change. For me, it has'nt been something I created b/c I felt I needed a change but its just the way it worked out with things that have been out of my control.
Makes me wonder where and what I will be doing 7 years from now...

8-8-8

Today is our anniversary!! 8 years today on the 8th in the 2008. Does this make it significant somehow?? Is there any chance I'm supposed to get a special gift (? ;) on a special anniversary like this?!
It is truly amazing how 8 years has flown, but fun to look back on all the amzing things that have happened, things we've done and things we've gotten through :)

My honey is cooking me a special dinner tonight (I don't even care what it is as long as I'm not cooking it). Since we don't have sitters here yet we are doing the "put the kids to bed and pretend its an evening alone date". Hey, whatever works.
So happy anniversary D, love you!!

How starbucks made my day

I didn't have a plan for today and I don't do well when I don't have a plan for the day, especially not on a monday knowing I have the rest of the week to come up with a plan for as well. So I decided to drive around my new neighborhood (with my handy GPS) to discover what was near by. I was very excited to discover that here in London they have many starbucks drive-thru's. One of them is very near my house. This could be dangerous and is definitly not going to help me quit coffee anytime soon :)
Its not that i'm a huge starbucks fan or anything but its what they offer. The variety is sooo much more than Tim's or anywhere else, and they also have sandwhices, breakfast sandwhiches, which they serve ALL DAY!!! I love breakfast so I was very excited to find this out today as I decided to drive through a starbucks for a coffee. It leaves me wondering why Ottawa doesn't have any drive-thru starbucks? It was also neat to have GREAT customer service. Now this is definitely something that is lacking in Ottawa and I don't expect much from a drive-thru anyway. But the girl who served me at this starbucks today was so friendly. She actually chatted with me while I was waiting for my order. I know, crazy. I almost asked her what her name was and if she wanted to hang out, lol. Starbucks definitely has a knack for hiring great staff but my experience with service here in London has been really great so far. So what's the difference? Why does the service and hospitality differ so much?

I know people think drive-thru's are eveil b/c they are bad for air pollution and they make us lazy, but when you have kids in carseats drive-thru's are a life saver!!

I've decided that I really like my new neighborhood, there is a lot near by that I will take advantage of.

Next, I will be trying out the Dairy Queen drive-thru that is minutes from my house :) For my Blizzard buddies (Sarah, Erica and Erin) you will understand how wonderful of a find this is (he he)

Beach bums

Today was another beautiful day at the beach. Southern Ontario is definitely blessed to have some amazing beaches. Although, sandbanks (aprox. 2 hrs from Ottawa)is very comparable. D is a huge beach bum. I always tell him that he should have grown up on the beach. I think it is definitely one of his very favorite things to do. (One of the reasons for us heading to NZ :) I mean I really like it, but sometimes the thought of the work that goes into packing up for us and the the two girls sometimes overwhelms me to the point where I wonder if its worth it. That and the idea of the clean up after of sand that get's in every nook and cranny can slightly deter me...sometimes. But once I get there I always have such a good time that I realize how ridiculos it is to let things like that get in the way of doing the things you love or find enjoyment from. I think we will be doing quite a bit of the beach thing while we are here and it is so close.

Thank God for GPS

I just have to write how much I LOVE our new GPS!! It is making a huge difference in my adjustment here in London. I'm not nervous to drive anywhere, or get lost with two kids. And if I do, I just hit HOME. Its also been great at orienting me quickly with a new city.
I love that I can type in something like "shopping centres" and it lists all of them and how far they are from me. Or "community centres". Getting around with two kids is hard enough, especially if you are directionally challenged like me, and to have to get out a map and figure it out or map quest it would take way more time than it would be worth getting us out the door. But with my GPS I can get anywhere :) Its my new found independence!!!

Settling in

Okay. I finally have couple of minutes to myself to write a little on here.
We've been settling in London really well so far. My (Heather)
parents were here for the first couple of days which wa a huge help, and our good friends from NL just moved here as well to do the same thing as D. And to make it even less of a transition, our friends the MacGowan's were nearby visiting to help us unload everything they helped us pack :) A BIG thanks to everyone who helped us move.
Ella had a little trouble in the beginning adjusting and wanting to go back to Ottawa but nothing too bad and once we found a couple parks and things she was all set. London is a beautiful city and we are looking forward to enjoying all the things on this side of Ontario.
So far we've been to the beach, shopping, Story Book Gardens, visiting.... Feels like we're on vacation!
One thing that isn't going so well is sleeping the two girls in the same room together. It took a week but I seem to have finally got a little routine going for them to make this work. Zaiah is a little too young but they seem to love it. I miss the easier bedtimes and extra minutes i'm able to steal with them being in seperate rooms. Anyone else have any suggestions, ideas of stories about sleeping the kids in the same room this young???

Darryl is really liking his fellowship so far. The Hand and Upper Limb clinic they have here is amazing apparently. Still some long hours ahead but no studying and he's at least getting to do more of the things he loves best.

Me, I think i'm going to join an ultimate frisbe team next week, get my but back to the gym and hopefully get connected in a church here. I also need to find a sitter for the occasional time D and I would like a night out. Anyone have a suggestion for a church or a baby sitter in London???

-H

Starting my blog...more to come

I've decided to creat a blog for all who are interested in keeping up with us as we travel for the next year. I figure this way, if you are interested in knowing what we've been up to and what adventures we've been on you can check for yourself.