O, Canada.. here we come! :)

 The team, which now consists of Joe Mueller,

Alex Sargent, Amanda Ackeret, and me, left

WI on Thursday morning to start our long trek

to Canada!  We stopped at the Mall of America

in Minnesota on our way.. Amanda pointed this sign out

to me figuring I'd love it.. and I did! :)

We stopped in the food court for lunch, 

and this curly fry reminded me of Tabitha and Nicole.. :)

 Amusement park in the mall

 

What's a visit without seeing the Lego store?! :)

 So, on the way to the mall I was chatting some with Sarah

Magnuson, and she told me about this guy that was actually

living in a "box" for a month!  Of course, we had to see it!

I guess it was supposed to be a healthier way of living?? :)

I wasn't convinced by looking at him! ;)

 We spent the night in Larimore, North Dakota, before

finishing traveling on Friday.. we woke up to this?!

 The travel on Friday was mostly in ice and snow..

the majority of the time Joe couldn't see the road!

It was pretty scary, but he handled it well, and we made

it safely to Brandon, Manitoba, for our first Revival meetings! :)

 This is the room Amanda & I stayed.. it was very nice!

We stayed with the May family.. they were so sweet!

We had some really good talks with our hostess, Jen..

their family has definitely been through a lot, and it is

so neat to see how the Lord has grown them through

it and just their sweet attitudes and responses!

Definitely a big challenge and blessing to me!

I still think you should write a book, Jen! :)

 Here are their adorable girls.. Audrey & Kara :)

 And here are Jen & Barkley with Kara when she was younger.

 On Saturday morning we had a ladies' meeting..

this was the theme.  Can you guess what song I sang?! ;)

 There were flowers to represent "new life".. so pretty! :)

 We went to Pastor Souza's house for dinner on Saturday.

Had to get a picture of these Elk antlers!  They were huge!

 They had an awesome fireplace!

 We all enjoyed looking at BJU yearbooks..

especially at the pictures of Dr. Jim & Mrs. Van :)

This is the picture of Mrs. Van that Dr. Jim saw when

he finally decided that he should ask her to go out with him.. :)

 Meet Caroline.. she's a French Canadian.  We enjoyed

spending a lot of time with her.. the girls enjoyed it too, I think! :)

Here Annaleese & Caroline were comparing thumbs.. :)

 Here they're trying the "pretzel" :)

Can you tell we kept ourselves entertained?! ;)

 This week Amanda, the girls, and I split up the nursery duty..

we had a good time!  The kids were pretty cute, I must say! :)

 We were waiting for the guys to pick us up one morning,

so Amanda decided to try her hand at this confusing puzzle.. :)

 I got a pretty flower from our ladies' meeting on Saturday,

so I enjoyed adding that to my desk decorations! :)

 Janna, knowing my love for "little things",

thought I'd appreciate this little toy.. :)

 On Tuesday, April 19th, was Amanda's

birthday!  The girls surprised Amanada

 and did some really cute decorations! :)

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMANDA! :)

 Can you tell where we could get wireless this week?! ;)

 A lot of our time was spent practicing.. and more practicing.. :)

 One day, Jen brought the girls to church and I watched

them while she went to a doctor's appointment.

We had so much fun playing hide and seek with Easter Eggs! :)

 And we had fun playing with balloons.. :)

 We had Revival meetings from Sunday to

Wednesday and then on Thursday we had

a Fizz Feud, basically a War but with a

different theme for Canada..

 We were trying for a while to get a good picture..

so, I finally decided to just give up! ;)

 Can you tell it was a bit chilly for Big Ball?? :)

We still had a good crowd show up!  There's about

ten kids in the youth group and we had over twenty visitors.

 Pizza anyone?! :)

 Because it was wet and muddy outside, the teens left

their shoes in this room on their way in..

 Stephanie was SO excited to organize all the shoes! :)

 Talk about big & small! ;)

These little blue shoes were so tiny & cute! :)

 Indoor Trashball

 You think Mrs. Van was pretty hungry?!

I couldn't pass up this opportunity to get a pic!

This is such a classic Mrs. Van, although a lot of

people probably don't see this side, but I've had the

rare opportunity! :)  She's so fun! :)

By the way, she was actually going to give the kids

seconds in this picture.. just in case your wondering.. :)

 It's so weird that in Canada they have NO CAFFEINE in MD?!

I had to get a picture of this phenomenon! :)

Mrs. Park & Lois, her daughter

We enjoyed spending time with them as well this week..

Lois & her brother, Simon, helped with recruiting a lot!

And they did a great job actually getting their friends to come!

Mrs. Park helped a lot with food and any other little things that

needed to be done, I'm sure.. they brought lunch in for us one

of the days, and it was SO yummy!  She's a great cook!

The Revival meetings went very well!  We had a great attendance

each night!  Stephanie, a girl who'd come to the church some, also

received Christ as her Savior!  I think the people were very encouraged

in all that the Lord did.. He seemed to really be working in hearts!

The Fizz Feud also went well.. a good crowd and several salvation

decisions!  Praise the Lord for how He worked and the great things He did!