Halloween and Haunted Houses

So Sunday night a group of seven of us went to check out "Reapers" in Chilliwack. This is a great Haunted house AND Haunted Maze!!! You can check it out at www.reapers.ca. The house was quite scary with lots of things and people popping out at you. It's great when you've convinced yourself that it's just a maniquine and NOT a real person then NOPE, it's a person running at you now. Good times, good times. The best part was the checker room! This was amazing. It's a room that is painted in white and black checkers and there is a strobe light in it... AND a man dressed in a black and white checkered suit. It's hard to see him and when the light goes off he moves and when it comes back on it takes a second for your eyes to adjust and find him... and of course he's right beside you. That was great! Very trippy.
The maze was pretty good, the wind outside made it creapier by blowing the plastic walls around. We had creapy man in mask follow us around for a bit, Taya really didn't like him. They could have used a few more actors in the maze to make it really good.
Tonight I get to help hand out treats at our house. I can't wait to see all the little kids dressed up. I got pictures of my nephews and my niece all dressed up for school this morning. I'm SO sad that I don't get to hang out with them tonight. It's a far drive late at night on Halloween and thanks to a practical joke about 9 years ago, I don't drive late at night on Halloween by myself... isn't that right Sarah, Charlene and Janet!!!! I know you're laughing still.
Anyways, everyone have a great time tonight, keep safe and have some fun. PS I really, really, really like CANDY, Rockets being my favorite. Just FYI.

The Dance! El Baile!

So yesterday in Chapel one of our directors Mike shared bits of his testimony and what God is doing in his life right now; and he made a comment on something that I have thought about before and he has caused me to think about it again.

Do you like dancing? Have you ever tried to learn a new dance? The waltz or Swing dancing? I have and I love to dance! Dancing is just so much fun and it's just so amazing to slide around a dance floor with a partner and be in total rhythm and sink with each other. I thought about this in relation to my relationship with God. Trying to walk a life with God is like trying to learn a dance. When I was learning swing dancing if I had a strong lead it was the easiest thing in the world and I TOTALLY looked like I knew what I was doing. I looked really good because of the strong lead. Well, I love to dance with God. I love when He pulls me close to Him and leads me to where I should go, He shows me the next move or the next turn. Some days are easier to follow His lead than others. Sometimes I feel like I'm just spinning in circles, some days I'm stepping on His toes. These days I realize are the days that I am trying to take the lead, like I know how to dance better, or I’ve figured out the next spin on my own. But when I'm in total sink with God, when I'm praying to Him and reading what He has to tell me in the Bible, when I leave everything in God's hands and let Him take the lead in my life, the steps of the dance and the spins are done with ease and excitement. We glide together beautifully along this dance floor of life. Even though I go through trials and harder times I know that God has me in His arms and He knows where He’s leading me to.

Lately I feel like I have been stepping on God's toes, trying to do life or the dance my way. It doesn't work. So once again I find myself in that place handing over control of my life to my God, to the one that is always there waiting patiently to pick up the pieces and hold me in His arms and lead me through this dance called life. He is amazing in his faithfulness, we are so unworthy yet He picks us up again and again. I love my God because HE loves me so much that 1 He created and first love me and 2 He never gives up on me. He’s a constant in my life.

Ayer en nuestro culto de trabajo uno de los directores compartir partes de su testimonio y que Dios esta haciendo en su vida. El nos comentio de algo de que yo pense alguno tiempo atras, y ahora estoy pensando en este otra vez. Te gusta bailar? Trataste a aprender un baila nueva, como el Waltz? Lo hice y me encanta bailar!!! Bailando esta muy divertido, es incredible a mover con su pareja en rythmo con la musica. Yo pense en este en relacion de mi relacion con Dios. Caminando con Dios es como aprendiendo como bailar. Cuando aprendio a bailar Swing si tuve un companero que supio como hacer el baile y estuvo fuerte el baile fue facil y muy divertido y parece que YO supe el baile tambien! Me encanta bailar con Dios. Me encanta cuando me lleva cerca a su lado en sus brazos fuerte y me guia el proximo paso. Algunos dias son mas facil que los otros, a veces siento como estoy solo hacienda los vueltos y pisando a sus dedos! Estoy aprendiendo que estes dias estoy tomando el posicion de Dios como yo se el baile, yo se la proxima vuelta. Pero cuando estoy en communion con Dios cuando estoy orando y leiendo la biblia a aprender de que esta hablandome, es estes dias que el baile esta facil! Hago los pasos facilmente y hago las vueltas con entusiasmo. Este dias son los dias que el baile esta buenisima y bonito. Y con los dias dificiles yo se que estoy en los brazos de Dios y el va a giuarme al proximo paso del baile.
Este dias siento como estoy pisando a los dedos de Dios y solo haciendo las vueltas. Este no vale! Asi otra vez me encuentro mi mismo pasando los controles de mi vida a los manos de mi Dios. El siempre esta esperando pacientamente para mi, para tomarme en sus brazos otra vez a guiarme en este baile que llamamos vida. Es incredible, no importa cuantos veces que cayamos, El siempre esta esperandonos a tomarnos en sus brazos otra vez y otra vez. Estoy enamorado con mi Dios porque el me ama tanto que me creo y primero el me adoro y el nunca va a renunciarme! El esta fiel!

To Our Tulsa Friends

We hope you guys all had a fabulous time on your cruise!!!! We saw your ship, the beautiful Galaxy docked in Naples. We were watching out for you guys hoping to run into you again. Welcome back home and hope to hear from you.

Oh the Lord is good to me

Well, I am back on Canadian soil and it feels good. We had an amazing adventure and have so many memories and stories. And already looking back the thing that sticks out the most is seeing God’s hand in our trip every day! Every day we can see something that we thought “Wow, God is good and is really taking care of us!” We had a theme song for our trip. Some may remember it as a camp song but we changed a line in it to fit our trip. We sang this often as we didn’t book any hotels before we left and sometimes had to call a few places before we found something and they always turned out amazing in these situations. So our song was…..Oh the

Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord
For giving me the things I need,
The Sun, the Rain and A PLACE TO SLEEP
The Lord is good to me 3 amigas AMEN!

His blessings were abundant from places to sleep to local people helping us with directions, to really short line ups getting into Vatican City. There was a German man that didn’t speak a word of English but was determined to help us get around a highway closure (and he did) and Charlotte that drove with us for 20 minutes to get us on the right track, and a Mother and daughter that let us follow them to our hostel. Driving into Salzburg we got turned around with some of the one way streets and were driving down a “mostly pedestrian” road….. if there wasn’t another car coming behind me I would have said it was ONLY pedestrians. I was driving and there was too many people walking in front of me…. Out of frustration I turned down the next road I could and stopped so we could look at a map to get our bearings… as Rita pulled out the map I looked up and saw the sign “Institute St. Sebastian” the place we were staying that night, I had stopped right in front of the door, you couldn’t get closer without driving through it. These kinds of things happened over and over again, things that are too much to be a coincident… and I don’t believe in coincident. God’s hand was upon us and kept us safe, and helped us to have fun through it all. Not only were we seeing some of the most beautiful parts of the world that He created for each of us to enjoy but we saw His hand guiding us daily too.
Our last night of travel was spent on the island of Capri off the coast of Naples and it was amazing! We treated ourselves to a nice hotel to relax before coming home. To our wonderful surprise we were upgraded to a Junior suite and had our own private terrace, a HUGE soaker tub and the most fantastic shower I’ve ever seen (three shower heads!). We spent an hour on the beach and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, I couldn’t believe I was actually there! The water was so clear, it was about 10 feet deep and you could see right down to the bottom. The rest of the afternoon/evening was spent on our terrace. As we were sitting on our terrace watching the sun set over the beautiful blue Mediterranean (life is rough), I said “the only thing that would make this perfect would be fireworks.” Well at 6am all three of us woke up and to our amazement there was a thunderstorm. It had past over us already so we sat on our terrace and watched God’s fireworks light up the sky with fork lightening. It was beautiful and amazing. What a way to end a trip. God’s blessing upon blessing. He is good to us always, you don’t have to look to hard to see his blessings each and every day even in a day at work. The first day back at work was fun, my eyes were heavy but so many people stopped to welcome us back and ask questions about the trip. And Holly made the day perfect by buying me a Dr. Pepper! I don’t know how I survived three weeks without it! Well thank you to everyone for following along with our adventures, and a special thank you to everyone praying for us, God is always faithful, He kept us safe and gave us just an amazing experience. He answered your prayers. Thank you! This isn’t the very end of this blog site…. Just the end of this adventure…. Hopefully I’ll be disciplined enough to keep this up to date with life. Have a great day and thanks for coming along to Europe with us.

When in Rome......

So they say "When in Rome do as the Romans do", we tried to do this on the subways and local transit...however there was a transit strike! We ended up getting an all day ticket on a tacky tourist open top double decker bus. This is full of tourists sitting on top with their cameras flashing and maps in hand. But it did turn out to be a great way to see the city. I have heard that Rome had random ruins just scattered throughout the city....but until you see it, it's amazing to turn a corner and see massive aquaducts or VERY old buildings. We stopped at the Coloseum, I had no idea that this was built in 80A.D.!!! It was very strange walking around a building knowing it's that old, and learning all that took place there. In the first week it was open 2000 people were killed and 6000 animals. We also saw the Arch of Constantine, this was very cool to see. It represents Constantine who in 312 A.D. made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire, it sits right outside the Coloseum. It's ironic considering many Christians had been killed in the Coloseum because of their faith. Once we left the Coloseum we had to wait and wait and wait for our bus. With the transit strike the traffic was insane. From the top of the bus it was very interesting to watch seas of Vespas weaving in and out of traffic. We made our way to the Vatican.... over an hour on the bus.... normally 30 mins. The line up wasn't too bad, we were in within 15mins. We hurried our way through the Vatican museum to get to the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo's greatest work. It's beautiful! Our necks were soar just looking at it for a few minutes... I couldn't imagine four years of lying on your back to paint this. We had a tip from a book to go out the tour group exit to get into Saint Peter's basillica faster....so we joined a tour group and ducked out the door..... the funny part was how well we fit in with the Chinese tourist... tee hee... no one stopped us and we bypassed a line up that would have taken about an hour to get through. Gotta love good travel tips. The Basillica was amazing, it is two football fields long and one football field high at the dome. The statues and artwork were beautiful, about half way up the wall there is blue lettering which is every word that Jesus spoke to Peter. These words from the floor looked no bigger than your hand... when in fact they are 7 feet tall!!!! Some statues of babies that are a quarter of the way up the wall looked life size... they are the size of an average adult. It was alot to take in but amazing. We walked out of the basillica in to Saint Peter's square, this is where you see the balcony where the Pope pokes his head out of his appartment and waves...if you've ever seen that on tv that is where we were.
We then hopped back onto our bus and waited in traffic again, it wasn't as bad as before the strike only went till 5pm. Which was nice, apperently there were protests right by our hotel and all the streets were closed, we were tired and very hungry (forgot to eat lunch today). We had an excellent dinner and have booked train tickets to the nice tropical island Capri... YEAH!!!
It will be a perfect way to end our trip...... sitting on the beach and taking it easy in a clean hotel where the toilet should flush properly.... you don't want details!
This may be our last posting from Europe, I plan on sitting my butt on the beach and not moving tomorrow, UNLESS it's to jump into the Mediterranean Sea to cool off CAUSE IT IS HOT HERE!!!!!!! How cold and wet is it at home????????
We come back to Rome Sunday night and fly out early Monday morning for a day in London and get back in time for Turkey dinner!!!! I am so looking forward to mashed potatoes! YUM!!!!!
See you all soon and hope you enjoyed the blog... I will write about London FROM HOME SWEET HOME!
Love ya's.

Charm and Fairytales

The Charm of Venice

We had two nights and one full day in Venice. If you have never been there you have to go. It is something that you see in movies and understand that it is a city with only water ways and boats, no cars no roadways, but in reality it is nothing that you could ever imagine! It's so amazing, taking boats everywhere and seeing houses that literally the first step out the door is a wet one if your boat isn't there. We toured the Duke's Palace and met a GREAT group of 6 retirees from Tulsa Oklahoma. These guys were so nice and we tagged along with them touring the palace. (if you guys are reading this we plan on taking you up on your offer to visit you). We ran into them later in St. Mark's square feeding the pigeons and pigeon feed was quickly put in our hands and we had birds ALL over us!!!!! I never thought pigeons could be fun. It was so much fun feeding them that we went back later and did it again. Katie got a great picture of me with a bird on my head. I think the record was 7 birds on my arms. Some guys from Montreal video taped the whole thing, saying their friends will have a great laugh at my expense, great! We did alot of shopping in Venice and got some amazing souvenirs. The souvenirs were the cheapest we've seen but the food and drinks where the most expensive! The belini was born in Venice so we had to try them....at $15 each!!!! That was cheap though, we also had an ice coffee (heaven in a cup) and that was $15 as well!!! Italy is not a cheap place when it comes to food. In the evening we went on our Gondola ride, we had a true "Italian" gondalier that made our 30 min ride very interesting. It was very cool going down the narrow "streets" and down the Grand Canal in a gondola. It was very touristy but a must do when in Venice. It was really hard to leave Venice, one day is not enough. We were supposed to go to Milan for a day but skipped over that to ensure getting enough time in Rome to go to Vatican and see the Sistine Chapel. Skipping over Milan brought us the Cinque Terre a day early.

The Fairytale land of Cinque Terre (Five lands)

The Cinque Terre is an area of five towns that are only connected by a milk run train and walking trails, no cars in the towns. Each town is small and filled with bright colored buildings (red, orange, yellow, white, green, blue) built on on cliffs leading to the Mediteraean Sea!!! The trails lead you on a walk that is beyond belief. The ocean on one side and vineyards on the other. The sea was rough today so we looked down on the massive waves crashing into the rocks below us. At some points we were about 50 above the water and we could feel and see the mist from the waves breaking. One man that we met in a restaurant described it perfectly.... "It's like you are in a fairytale, the views are to beautiful to be true!" At times we were walking through olive groves too. Katie said one part reminded her of the Secret Garden. Another reminded us of the seven dwarfs... as another hiker was whistling whistle while you work. The hike was just amazing... our pictures will do it absolutely no justice. We stopped so many times just to take in what we were seeing and trying to etch it into our minds: The crashing of the waves a constant reminder of God's amazing creativity and power. We have been so blessed in this trip seeing God's amazing creation. We have seen so many beautiful places. And the weather couldn't be better! Last night we were sitting on the beach at 7pm, no jacket needed...actually it was a little warm for pants. haha. We are finishing our hike tomorrow, we got into the forth town (were we are staying) after 5pm, not enough time to hike to the fifth town tonight, so tomorrow morning we will get up and hike to the 5th town and take the train back to pick up our bags and head to Rome. We will be in Rome for two nights and Saturday we'll head to Capri for some rest before we head back home on Monday. Can't believe that we have just 5 days left. Italy has been amazing, a great way to end this trip as it's been so completely different from the other three countries we visited.

We'll see if we can find internet in Rome.... must go now and make some hotel and train reservations.