Teen Challenge Opening

Today was a very special day for us. Not only were both set of parents coming up to visit us for the weekend but today was the Grand Opening of the Teen Challenge Center.

Teen Challenge Atlantic Canada is a residential rehabilitation program which offers men ages 18 and over, freedom from drug and alcohol dependence. Based on Christian principles and funded entirely through donations, the program offers spiritual, academic and vocational training, equipping individuals to return to society as responsible citizens. They give all the glory to God and rely completely on Jesus to restore their lives. It's awesome!

Since moving to Moncton we have become very close friends with the director’s family and some of the men who are working in this ministry. The men have hearts of Gold and love the Lord with all their hearts! The day was filled with food, tours, prayers and worship. The celebrations began early with many worship teams coming in the morning to sing their praises to God. The Africian choir that Micah and I are a part of lead the crowd in an up beat worship set right before the offical ceremony started.

The ceremony got underway shortly after lunch with a bagpiper from St. Stephen (my daddy) leading the flag precision of provincial flags to center stage.

Stephanie Mainville along with her worship team and dancers, offered the center and the land to God as she lead the crowd in the Maritime Song.

The rest of the afternoon consisted of speeches, ribbon cutting and many thanks to God for starting a center like this in our area.

The Teen Challenge Choir then took stage and entertained us with there joyful music and heart touching testimonies.

Stephanie Manville and her team had everyone up dancing and tapping their toes as she worshiped the Lord on her fiddle and the night ended with the great music from a local Blues band “Higher Ground”.

Ryan and Kristy Short

Micah and I were so honored this weekend to attend an amazing wedding!! Two of our great friends were united together in God’s love. Everything about the day represented who Ryan and Kristy are, the wedding colors, the music, the style of the dresses…everything just reflected who they are. The bride’s maids looked stunning as they made there way up the aisle and as the bride walked in with her big, "here I AM" Kristy smile, you could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit walking down the aisle with her to greet her lover. As Kristy’s dad lead them in exchanging their vows I don’t think there was a dry eye in the church. We all witnessed what God’s design for a family really looks like.

After the ceremony the couple joined their friends and faimly as we all enjoyed food, laughter, music and a few tears.

Once all the formal things were done Micah and I got the chance to grab some laughs and hugs from the wedding party! We all figure that Kristy pretty much wore the smallest jacket ever on her wedding day and yet still manged to looked very very beautiful.

God Bless you two as you start your new life TOGETHER!!

Road Trip

This weekend we packed up our little AVEO and headed down to St. John on an adventure. We packed up a picnic lunch and decided on our drive to stop in Sussex… Now there probably are many romantic picnicking places in Sussex but of course Micah chose to enjoy our lunch with two very BIG COWS!!!

As I enjoyed the pinic lunch, Micah was busy seeing how he could climb up onto the biggest cow. You can see from this picture that Micah has pulled this pinic table over to the back of the cow. He used it to boost himself up on to the cows tail which he found out is not very sturdy. He didn’t end up making it on the biggest cow, despite all his efforts and begging me to boost him up, but he was victorious in getting onto the little one to have his picture taken.

Oh boys will be boys!!!

Strawberry Pick'in

After Micah and Weiwei finished work we got into our grubby clothes, gathered every bucket and container we could find and headed out to Utopia U-pick to get some Strawberries. Weiwei’s mom has been visiting from China since May so we had the privilege of having her come with us as well. After we picked 4 buckets (this picture is only the best looking berries..haha) we headed home to enjoy a taco supper and of course strawberry short cakes.


Weiwei’s mom helped me to make the tortilla’s, she was really good and made them perfectly round (I still need work on it).

When I found out that Weiwei's mom was a great tortilla maker I started on the biscuits for the short cake. Weiwei and his mom had never had this yummy Maritime dessert before, so after a yummy taco supper, made mostly by Micah and Weiwei, we whipped up the whip cream and enjoyed our freshly picked berries on hot biscuits topped with yummy maple syrup flavored whip cream....

It was a wonderful night!!!

To The Zoo!!!

After church this morning we met up with my cousin and her family from St. Stephen! They were on their way home from PEI and decided to stop by Moncton to see us and the zoo. We had so much fun hanging out with our family. Before we even got inside the zoo, Micah and Chloe climbed up onto this giant moose to have their picture taken.

The first thing we saw on our way to the lions was this endangered species…

After spending some time admiring the beauty of this animal we decided to catch up with the crew who were already half way to "Pride Land" (that's where the lions are). Despite all the visitors Mr and Mrs Lion had, they still decided to spend their time sleeping in the shade. We did however get to see Mr Lion roll over.

We got to see lots of different animals as we followed the map around the zoo. These two were our favorites!!

Chloe ended the day with a pony ride around the little track.


What a great day we had!!

Lobster Lore

Well, as you can see, it was a pretty crazy day in Shediac. After we went swimming with Phil and Genieve, we decided to do the tourist thing in Shediac since neither of us had really done that before. Phil and Genieve know the area quite well, so they took us to this nice spot where we could see a great ocean view. That's when things got a little weird. We tried to get a fun picture with this local NB pirate. Phil and him hit it off right away, but he didn't take to well to a land lubber like myself!!

Next we stumbled onto an empty lobster cage. We didn't think anything of it, but not a few minutes later wouldn't you know it, a lobster jumped out and attacked Phil! It was a little startling and Phil did his best to kick it off.












Next thing you know, a lobster the size of a whale comes out of nowhere and starts getting his picture taken with our girls!!














I of course got upset with the lobster, probably not smart, and I quickly became lobster dinner.


This is all a whale of a tale, but it was really fun in Shediac! The lobster is great and I can't believe I've never been there before! We had a blast and I would highly recommend going to see this ginormous lobster!


Thanks for the great day Phil and Genieve!!

What is a spider dog??

Sorry it has taken one of us this long to answer your question "what is a spider dog". Well a spider dog is made when you take a hot dog (length wise) and cut a cross shape in both ends. Then you put it on a roasting stick and cook it over the camp fire!! As the hot dog gets warm the ends that you cut begin to curl up making it look like a spider!! Once the spider dog is done you top with ketchup and enjoy!!!




Micah likes to try new things so last time we were at a camp fire he decided to stick some cheese in the middle.....that boy and his cheese!

Tourists in our own Province

Monday morning, our camping adventure brought us all out to experience the Hopewell Rocks. The NB Tides have done a number on those old rocks eh!?

This international camping gang is comprised of (from left to right) Joel, my cousinette Rebecca, Harry Morell's good friend Kat, my brother Ben, my other cousinette Sarah, Mark-Andre, Rebecca's friend Melanie and my beautiful adventurous wife Katie!! Others present were Pascal, Sarah's husband Davie and myself.

When we first got there, we started doing the camera thing. Everyone was getting some great "rock shots". Katie and I decided to make an action shot of us jumping off one of the huge hopewell rocks............well, it was big ok.

I took a few pictures myself, I was dwarfed by the talent of Ph D. Parson, but I like this one. I call it "big rocks, little girl"


The guys soon tired of the photo shoot and decided to climb the cliffs!!





























Pascal was so excited about the Hopewell Rocks that he started flipping out..........literally!!


We ended off our adventure by playing in the Fundy Mud. So pure, so brown, so pasty, so slippery and sooooooo much fun!

Once the fun was done, Katie cleaned off her feet and had me carry her out of the mud with my brute strength *flexing*.


Me on the other hand, I had a lot of brushing to do at the top. They have sweet water guns to help clean off your feet, but the power went out while we were on the beach. We all said our goodbyes after a great pinic lunch and Katie and I headed back to Monk Ton.

I love camping

We needed to leave the wedding a bit early in order to get home do a Canada day show with the African Children’s Choir. So it was about 8:00 when we finally got home. We had a wonderful surprise when we got home from the celebration. We found out that Dee was in town and she was on her way to our house! We spent the evening eating pizza and talking all night long! It was so much fun.

Our church was having a HUGE Canada Day celebration on Sunday, so Dee got to come and hear both the adult and children’s African choir sing! It was a great service. After the service we had a BBQ which had to be moved from outside indoors due to the rain but it was still VERY VERY VERY fun!! The gym was packed with huge blow up things that the all kids (big and old) loved! They also had a free ice cream truck which was one of my favorite things! After watching all the kids have so much fun in this really big blow up train that you could go through like a fun house, we decided to find some kids who were too “scared” to go themselves and took them in. Really this was just a plot to get in on the fun so after eating, Dee and I spend the afternoon running through this train with lots of the kids from the church!

Soon it was time to say goodbye to Dee once again. After Dee left, there was no stopping for us. Within the hour we had our tent, cooler and bags packed and we were off to Fundy to join a group of friends for the night!

Last time I went camping I didn’t really have a great time due to the freezing cold weather but since my husband enjoys camping very much I decided to be a good sport about it and LOVE camping! We enjoyed great fellowship with new and old friends around the fire as we ate smores and spider dogs.

And the two shall become one...

Our weekend started out great!! We were so blessed to be a part of Jamie and Marie-Helene’s wedding. We headed home to Saint John Friday after work and arrived at the Peterson house just in time to enjoy a wonderful meal of Sea food chowder and hot biscuits. When we were finished eating we headed down to the Dayspring building to help decorate for the reception. Once all the decorations had been "sporadically" placed around the room, it was time for bed!




We woke up bright and early to finish up some final touches on the property before getting ready for the morning wedding. We headed into the foggy city of Saint John around 10 am and soon enough the church began filling up with friends and family. After making the groom sweat a little, Marie-Helene and her girls finally showed up. It’s a good thing she had her brothers and the Mainvilles keeping everyone calm with their soothing music!



The wedding was a very beautiful service in both French and English. When it was all over the couple opened the big doors on the old Stone Church to find a beautiful sunny day!!! They took all their pictures at Dayspring, so while they were doing that, everyone had a chance to take their own family pictures, walk around the property and maybe catch a frog or two!




I did however make a point to get a picture of the beautiful bride and groom!!!


The reception was very beautiful with a fabulous spread of food! We all got to enjoy strawberry short cake for dessert and strawberry smoothies for our toasting! When we had finished eating, we enjoyed a slide show presentation of the life of Marie-Helene and Jamie before watching them share their first dance together has husband and wife!



It was a beautiful day filled with God’s blessings and Love!!!