Well Another Year Has Come and Gone and Soon We Will Be Looking Forward Wondering What

Dear Friends:

Well another year has come and gone and soon we will be looking forward ...wondering what the year 2015 will bring. Reflecting back on 2014, we acknowledge the challenges we faced and rejoice in God’s everlasting presence in our lives.

Bruce and I rang in the New Year seated near a fire in a charming little European restaurant where we have eaten in and celebrated at a number of times over the past 23 years. With live Jazz music playing in the background, we were feeling somewhat nostalgic, knowing it would be our last New Year’s Eve in Edmonton. Acknowledging that the upcoming year would bring about a major change, not only for us but for our family. We reminisced about how good Alberta has been to us and our family over the years.

Appreciation of family time this year was especially precious as we celebrated the birth of Hazel Lynn (born December 20, 2013) to Grant and Sarah. Bruce was able to fly in to meet his grand-daughter shortly after she was born and immediately fell in love with her. Andrew loves being an uncle and is looking forward to being the coolest uncle ever! Over the next few months we savoured each of our family times together and fully appreciated the ability to keep in touch via Skype, text messaging, and the sharing of pictures, as we knew that at the end of February, Grant, Sarah and Hazel were moving to Stockholm Sweden. Grant had a wonderful opportunity to work with an expert in his field of study (Biochemistry) to do his post Doctorate work at the University of Stockholm.

At the end of a long and arduous winter, separated from each other by over 3,000 miles, I endured a longer commute to work with only all season radials, and no garage to park my car in (boohoo), and Bruce living alone with Shadow, endured the frequent travel back and forth to our property making decisions, keeping me informed, getting my ideas and staying on top of the workers and the many many details related to the construction of our retirement home, we survived and still love each other! (Whew!) In all seriousness though, it was a good year, interesting but good for both of us, but admittedly harder than we could have imagined. Bruce has enjoyed serving in his 3 rural Churches, joined the Rotary club and is now an expert apple peeler for the Church’s “Holy Rollers” pie making group. Personally for me, despite the challenges I quite enjoyed my time spent with friends and family. I am particularly grateful for the kindness extended to me by Kay, a lovely lady from our church in Riverbend, with whom I boarded with for the first few months after Bruce left for Ontario. For the remaining time, I was offered an opportunity to stay with Jenifer - a friend from the Presbyterian Cursillo group. Jenifer and I quite enjoyed each other’s company and with us both having a background in nursing had a lot in common. We had the best conversations about life, kids, our faith and whatever else came up. A special time indeed!

Andrew, our youngest is in his second year apprenticing as a welder. He is getting a lot of great practical and technical knowledge and experience that is preparing him for the next stage in his coursework. He is a proud homeowner and is quickly learning the responsibilities related to this. He has a plan in mind to become debt free as quickly as possible along with future career aspirations that will expand his knowledge and skills into other trades. We are very proud of him and his accomplishments. We are looking forward to his visit at Christmas this year.

At the end of May, I said good bye to my friends and work associates and headed East with my good friend and running buddy Linda. We arrived in Ontario just in time to celebrate Bruce’s birthday. Since Linda had visited us when I was on holidays in August and had seen the house during the framing stage it was exciting to share with her the finished product.

In July, Bruce and I picked up Gran t, Sarah and Hazel at the airport and had a wonderful 2 weeks together. Hazel had grown and changed so much during the time of our visit from sitting up by herself to almost crawling. The next time we see her (in person) she will likely be walking. We also had the opportunity during their visit to bring all 3 Great Grandchildren together at my Mom’s. All three babies were about 2 weeks apart in age from each other. I think all the adults were more excited than the babies, but nonetheless an exciting time.

Our new home on the lake has and continues to be a joy in our lives. The exciting “wildlife sightings” such as the deer, mink, muskrat, snakes, turtles, frogs, fish, geese, swans, skunk, squirrels, raccoons, and the many varieties of birds have brought such delight to us. It takes a bit of getting used to, being “city folk”, as it gets pitch black out here at night with only the sounds of the bullfrogs, crickets, fireflies, coyotes and who knows what out there, including the crackling noises of the house settling, but we are loving it. We are getting used to being on a lake and have explored the bay in our Kayaks and I have almost mastered getting in and out of the kayak semi-gracefully. We bought a 4th hand 14 foot sail boat from one of our neighbors and look forward to learning how to sail next year.

Bruce and I love the outdoors and being close to nature, we feel so blessed to have been given this wonderful opportunity to build our retirement home here. Many years ago on our honeymoon in Scotland we were told that “White Heather” one of Scotland’s native plants is a symbol of love, purity, strength and good luck, as folklore has it. Since we both have a Scottish heritage and having had Heather as part of our wedding flower we have adopted the name “White Heather Glen” for our home.

Bruce is enjoying his 3 point charge at Winchester, Morewood and Chesterville congregations and I am adapting to “retirement”, although it feels strange to be “retired. I am slowly becoming accustomed to spending my time seeking and finding “My Joy”. Who knows what great opportunities God has in store for us for this upcoming year. We look forward to 2015.

We wish to take this opportunity to wish you and yours all of God’s many blessings for 2015 with much health, hope and happiness.