Hello, and please to meet you, and for those of you that already know us, great to see you again!

We are a family of five. Papa, Allan, Mama, Maryvel and Kids, Mikhael (16) and Hannah (13) and Dad or Grandpa. Dad doesn’t live in the house with us, but for the past three years, since Mom passed away, Dad shares the main meal of the day with us everyday, so it almost feels like he is living with us. His house is only a few yards away from ours. We feel very lucky and happy to be so close to him, specially in this time and age when most kids want to be as far away from their parents and family as the can be! Why? I don’t know and can’t quite understand, maybe is cultural, I don’t know. But for me, having grown up in Latin America, we treat our parents much, much different that we do here! So different, that there are hardly any old folk homes or nursing homes! No such a thing! We are our parents responsibility while growing up, and when they are old, they become our responsibility, fair enough, don’t you think?

We live on a farm in the province of Saskatchewan in Canada. Therefore we are grain and Catle farmers but we also do other things. My husband besides from being a farmer, is also the pastor of the Eigenheim Mennonite Church, Teacher of Theology and other subjects at Bethany Bible College in Hepburn and during the summer months we works as head guide at the Historical Provincial Park of Fort Carlton. I have had the privilege and the honour of being a Stay at Home Mom most of our married life (19 years) and I love every minute of it. I help Allan with as much of his work as I can. I do most of the secretarial and administrative part of our church work, plus the visitations and tending to company and all that kind of staff.

On my “spare” time, I love to take pictures and have done a few photo shoots here and there mostly for family and friends, but hope some day with time make a more serious business out of it! I love to photograph my family, birds, wild life, flowers, actually everything and anything! My camera goes with me almost every where I go! In the past few moths I was introduced to “Card Making” and I am enjoying my new hobby VERY much! making all kinds of cards every week to give away mostly to the members of our congregation, friends and family. If you would like to visit my hobby and card site , it is call, “Prairie Chick Stamper“.

Thank you for your time and your visit. You are most welcome to come back and say “HELLO” any time!

Well, let me tell you, I am having a pretty quite house these days! Hubby and son are enjoying my beautiful homeland, Ibague, COLOMBIA. Along with them are 4 other members of our Congregation (Eigenheim Mennonite Church) who went along for our Annual "Service and Lerning Tour" of our sister church in Colombia, Semillas de Esperanza (Seed of Hope). So far things seem to be going well. They arrived in Bogota on Tuesday and in Ibague the next day. They are also planning a trip to Pereira next week to visit another of our Mennonite Churches. Their pastor, Martha Gomez, was here in Canada a week ago, for a couple of weeks together with 4 other ministers from South America with IMPaCT (International Mennonite Pastors Coming Together) a project of Mennonite Church Canada, with the purpose of bringing together international pastors to take part in discussions surrounding the global church. Martha got to spend a lot of time with us as she didn't speak English and needed a translator. It was nice to get to know her and that's why they would like to also got visit her Congregation while they are there!

Today, as I write this note, I am little bit worried about my daughter! She was pretty sick yesterday with cold symptoms but just before going to bed she had a pretty high fever too! I gave her medicine before she went to bed and during the night so I am hoping she will be OK this morning! We have had N1H1 cases around here, so I am hoping and praying is not that, just a simple cold!

October 11, 2009

Savanah is finally home! Now that harvest is over and winter is here, it was time to go to Sunnybrook, AB and get our new curly and hypoallergenic horse, Satin Savanah! Hannah had been counting the days! I don't I have ever seen her so exciting about anything! so that was good to see!

The trip was LONG and VERY tiring! The weather was absolutly awful especially on the way there! Cold, Windy and periods of snow here and there! We couldn't drive faster than 80km/hr! We had originally planned to go all the way to my sister in-low's place, but everything took so much longer than we cut the trip short and rather stayed at Allan Aunt and Uncle's place, which at the end worked out really well and was really for the best.

Next morning we were up early and out of the house at 6:30 am and our way to Sunnybrook! By the time we got there and Savanah was loaded it was like 9:30 am. We didn't make it home till 7:30 pm! At least the drive was much, much better, with better weather and not so much wind!

So she is home now, and doing VERY well! She seems to be a really, REALLY nice quite horse and Hannah can handle her quite well, which is all a blessing! We look forward to continue to see her grow and be trained so we can someday enjoy some nice rides with her! So we'll keep you posted!

This weekend we are celebrating Thanksgiving here! And we do have so much to be thankful for! God's mercy, love and faithfulness constant in our lives. His love and his care for us and our families, his ever wonderful grace and forgivness when we fail him. Thank you God for loving us in such a special way!

First of all let me tell you how THANKFUL we are for the beautiful weather we have had for the last few weeks, which has been perfect to get the harvest off the fields! We had a few problems with our tractor and it was not ready on time when the peas and lentils were, so we had to hired out one of our neighbours to do this for us, which was fine, the main thing was to be able to get the crop off on time! The yielding on this two fields was very good, so we are VERY thankful for that! Our wheat field on the other hand wasn't good at all! We will barely break even on that one! All is left to do now is the canola, but it will be at least another week until that one is ready to be harvested. Here is a few pictures I took when the lentils were being harvested. Enjoy!

Today I would like to share with you all our latest and very exciting news! We are now the proud owners of our VERY first horse! Her name is Satin Savanah and she is a Curly Horse! Curly Horses are special horses for people with bad horse allergies, like my husband! Our daughter Hannah is really into horses and have been asking for a horse for a while now, but due to the severe allergies of Allan, we had been talking and waiting till she was at least 15 and able to care for the horse all on her own! Hannah is 13. Well . . . thanks to the type of horses we found searching through the Internet, she will no longer have to wait! Well . . . only 2 months now till until harvest is done and can take time to go pick her up in Sunnybrook, AB.

Here is my husband having the allergy test! He touched the horse, smell him, pet him, stand right beside him and NO REACTION whatsoever!! We were amazed! My daugheter Hannah had been watching these people's website for a while, and had her heart set on the filly on the top picture, Satin Savanah. She is a little over a year old now, and seems like a very nice and quite horse. We spend sometime with her while we were there and we were very impressed with her good disposition and good looks! ;)

On this picture you can see some of the VERY distintives and unique characteristics of this horses, like the very curly hair inside of the ears, curly manes and curly eyelashes! Aren't they pretty and cute? We love them!