Life by the Slice

Malawi Recordings PT 1

I recently went through some recordings I made when Britton and I were in Malawi last October.  I want to share these recordings with you in a series of posts. 

This first post is from the first Sunday that we were in Malawi.  Pastor Matthews is the voice you will hear speaking english and he welcomes us to Ngodzi and then a choir sings as part of the worship service.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed the service.

Download Malawi Recording 1.mp3

Regina and Back a Cowman's Tale

We went to Regina over easter and I finally downloaded the pictures I took from my cell phone. It's great having a cell phone that takes pictures...but then you have to remember to get the pictures off the phone.  Oh well, better late then never...

On Good Friday we set out early in the morning for Regina. Here's Britton and my youngest daughter as we crossed the Alberta into Saskatchewan.  The other two kids were in the back playing the PS2 and watching movies. 

We had supper with my nephew Lann and his bride to be Amy that evening at Houston Pizza...we are all sick of Calgary pizza so we were looking forward to some good old Saskatchewan style pizza.

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We spent Saturday morning with Nanna and Poppa (not pictured) and then went over to Chuck E Cheese.  Even though Calgary has a Chuck E Cheese we prefer to go to the Regina one as it isn't even half as busy as the Calgary one. 

Here's Britton and my oldest daughter chowing down on some pizza.

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Still at Chuck E Cheese's, here's a picture of my very determined daughter.  She played game after game and mastered the Ski Ball game.  Here she is in front of the highest score in the family, 28,000.  I came in second place with 26,000.

After lunch we then went over to Grandma and Grandpa J's and the girls went shopping with Grandma while my son and I went back to the hotel to waterslide and take it easy.

The girls and Grandma and Grandpa came to the Hotel for dinner.  We had Houston Pizza once again!  For the record that was pizza 3 times in 24 hours. 

Our niece Tyra also came over and went water sliding with our kids.

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We went to Tim's the next morning for breakfast and played the Canada's favourite pass time...Roll up the Rim.  1 Tea and 3 Hot Chocolates and we one a free coffee.  Britton really wanted to win the boat. 

Then we headed off to Rosewood Park Alliance Church for their  Easter Service.  It was a great service.  They had a special group sing some songs, an upbeat worship team and Pastor Weekes preached a great message.  The service wrapped up by celebrating communion. 

It was nice to see a big crowd in attendance, my guess would be around 300 people.  From the sounds of things, the church is doing well again.

After church we had lunch with all of the Regina Cowman's and then had dinner with Britton's family.  Lots of fun! 

Monday morning we had Brunch and Nanna and Poppa's and then set out for home sweet home Calgary.

We didn't meet up with any hobbits, elves or rangers, we just had lots of fun. 

Go Flames Go

Last night my son and I went and saw the Flames play the Oilers at the Saddledome.  We sat in the Sportcheck section of the Saddledoame, which is located about as high up as you can go in the Saddledome.  We were four rows from the top, any higher and we probably would have gotten altitude sickness.

The game was dubbed the Battle of Alberta and we had a fantastic time cheering on our Flames.  It was a great game, right up to the end.  When the Flames scored the place went nuts.  Unfortunately the Oilers also scored...not once but twice.  We had a group of Oiler fans around us and they had no qualms about cheering load and proclaiming that their Oilers were better than our Flames. 

The score was 0-0 for most of the game, then we scored and the Oilers followed that up with their own set of goals.  30 Seconds before the game ended there was hope that we could tie it up.  The stadium roared and all the Flames fans were on their feet as we thought that the Flames had scored. Unfortunately the refs ruled that the puck never actually went in, but just came really close.  So, we sat back down and the Oiler fans got up on their feet and cheered.  In a stadium there of around 30,000 people, there were probably about 100 Oiler fans and believe me they were all standing and cheering.

So we lost, but my son and I had a fantastic time.  Groove to the music, screaming and clapping, eating licorice and popcorn and just being guys together.  My son, who is always enthusiastic, said it was the best day ever!  I'd have to agree.

Connecting with Connections

I spent this morning with the Connections Ministry Team.  The Connections ministry is what we call the people who serve as greeters, parking attendants, information desk workers and ushers.  We had a great time!  We had brunch together and got to know folks from the different sites.  We then broke into site specific groups to hear the vision of what we want at each site and then we talked about what we do well and what we could improve on. 

Pastor Geoff wasn't able to make it this morning so I went with the Bearspaw site Connections Team.  It was fantastic.  We had some great discussions about what we do well and what we could do better in Connections.  The group also came up with some good goals for next year. 

I thank God for the team we have at Bearspaw, they are enthusiastic and really want to express the love of Christ by welcoming guests to and making them feel comfortable at Bearspaw.  It was a great morning, and I look forward to doing it again with our Connections team. 

Celebrity Apprentice

I'm catching up on my Celebrity Apprentice.  Watching the last two episodes, the finale between Piers Morgan and Trace Adkins.   

Donald Trump dug up the Backstreet Boys from somewhere for a charity event.  And Trace Adkins didn't seem to enjoy working with them.  At one point he said...

"Talking to the Backstreet Boys for an hour, is an hour of my life that I'll never back."

I feel the same way about their music...

Unfortunately Trace didn't win...as usual nice guys finish 2nd in reality TV.

Easter in Regina

We are celebrating Easter this year in the sunny, balmy oceanside Regina, Saskatechwan.  Okay, not quite.

After a busy couple of weeks with our oldest daughter competing in the Kiwanis Music Festival (she was robbed!), Liam's Food Fair, Youth Conference, Parent Teacher interviews, lots of overtime for Britton and some hectic weeks at RockPointe for me we have abandoned Calgary for a few days for some RR&WS (Rest, Relaxation and WATERSLIDE.

Also hope to catch up on my reading and blogging over the weekend as I've fallen a bit behind.  So stay tuned for some thoughts from Regina.

What did you do this weekend?

We are renovating our main bathroom, so I spent all weekend working on the floor in the bathroom.  We've ripped out the bath tub, toilet and sink and taken it back to the studs up to at least 4 feet. We had some dry rot so I also had to replace some of the floor.  Just got to put the sub floor in and then I can get my plumber friend, Jason MacDonald (the best plummer in Calgary - Mariner Mechanical) to come and put our new soaker tub it.  We are also putting in a low flow toilet and pedestal sink. It'll be a few weeks until its done...okay probably a month at the rate I'm going...but it'll be great when it's done!  Then we are going to do Britton and my ensuite. 

One good thing about reno's is that I get to buy new toys...I mean tools.  Last time I did handiman stuff...like over a year ago, I bought a bunch of RYOBI One+ battery powered tools.  It's kind of my reno ritual, start a project, buy a power tool.  So, today I bought a new RYOBI tool for my set, a wet/dry shop vac...it uses the same battery that my other tools do, which is great!  What will they think of next?