Mmmm desserts!

Mary and I eating pavlova...it's slowly making it's way around Canada!

Sara, Monique and I at "The Oasis" a great local cafe/bar/restaurant that has a lot of culture and great live music some evenings. Monique's last night in Canada! :-(

Degu!

One of my pet degus and a chinchilla, which is in the same family. :-)

Everything in Canada is huge!

Massive bags of cheesies and pretzels and enormous jars of "Miracle Whip" (more or less fake mayonnaise).

Teepee Camping

Last weekend I went camping with some friends on Gord and Gail's farm (friends we met through Singing Waters last year) in Perth, Ontario. They built this massive teepee near the Mississippi River (yes, it flows all the way down to the Southern U.S.A...not really), which we slept in! It was great, just like in the movies - camp fire in the middle, smoke spiralling up through the opening in the top of the teepee, and we slept around the fire. It's the size of a living room inside so there is plenty of room to move. Definitely beats tent camping! Here are the shadows of Sara, Monique and Sylvia....


And a joke to finish with: A man went to see his psychaiatrist with regard to alternating, recurring dreams he'd been having. Upon being asked to describe his dreams, he explained, "First I'm a wig-wam, then I'm a tee-pee, then I'm a wig-wam, the I'm a tee-pee...."
"Relax!" the psychaiatrist exclaimed, "You're just two tents."

Ha ha ha....

Mmmm, silk worms!

Monica was given a can of silkworms by a Thai student at the school and she kindly passed them on to me; I, in turn, passed them on to Sara as a "welcome back to Canada!" gift. Silkworms are a "staple street snack" in Thailand, according to the can label. Actually look more like gross, brown, pupae and the smell that exploded from the can as we opened it was absolutely horrendous! Sara, Monique and I tried to sample these things but didn't get very far...upon making tongue contact, the only thing to do was rush outside and spit repeatedly (I'm sure you wanted to know that).

Mmmm....ARRRRGGGHHHH!

Loretta: This one's for you! :)

Church

This is the church I'm attending in Port Hope.

Sara and I at the church lunch today - it was going to be a picnic but it rained. :-(

There were lots of great games organised in the afternoon, it was like going back to youth group days! :-)


Last night we went to a Robin Mark (worship leader/song writer from Northern Ireland - he's written "Days of Elijah", "Lion of Judah", etc) concert at Lakeshore Pentecostal Camp, a huge camp complex just a few minutes from where I live. The auditorium fits 1,500 people - I'm not sure if they have that many kids in their kid's camps! The concert was great and I saw a few people I knew in the masses that attended...makes me feel at home when that happens! :-)

A seagull that knew how to read...

Kiwis of the World UNITE!

It was great to meet up with Cliff and Jenni, friends from Nelson, recently! Here we are in a car-pool park off highway 400 in Newmarket, Ontario. They were en route to a camp in Muskoka Woods and it was great to be able to spend a little bit of time together in the middle of their travel schedule. :)

Raccoon Update

Bucky and Max have been released into the wild! Here are a few pictures of them all grown up. Well, actually they are "teenagers"! :-)

Max and Bucky climbing me.

Max in his food-washing water (raccoons always wash their food before they eat it!)

Eating peanuts!

In the water again...

Bucky meets Lucy the pomeranian face to face.