Previews tend to delete things...

The date is January 10, 2008. It’s been a month of change and travel, of stress and bliss, snow and sun. I write this as I wait for Karina to return from Starbucks. Lol, she has a grudge against Tim Hortons… lol, yeah our last place wasn’t that great. :S
Well, for those who have been wondering about what has been going on, I got married and had a honeymoon in Saskatchewan and Ontario. Karina’s beautiful by the way. Coffee’s back! :D
Well, I was in Calgary with my team trying to finish up our CD EP of VTI experiences around the second week of December, and right after that we headed back to Prince Albert to try and get our last minute planning all done up. Well, again, Karina and I had no idea how we’d get back home. Then again, a few days before, I was able to get a hold of the same James who gave us the ride out here at the start of the Encore year back in August. He was a dear. We were so grateful! :D So, we stayed a day at Rhys’ place again, and then James picked us up at 5 in the morning, and we were back home by 2 in the afternoon! Whee. Alright, so then the planning extras began. Flowergirls to honeymoon plans, we began to get stuff ready… well… we tried. Right when we got back we had to get ready for another wedding. Karina’s brother and his fiancée got married the day after we were back home!

It was very nice, but suprising! Lol. Anyways, although our brains were a little scattered, we did eventually get on track and thanks to our parents, things all worked out great! They even had some fun with it in the end. Everything went perfect for the wedding. The weather, the church, Karina’s hair, the getaway car, it all went great! It snowed in the morning, then it got sunny for the actual wedding and then when we left inbetween the ceremony and the reception for pictures, the sunshine became a bit hazy… which is beautiful for outdoor pictures! The wedding ceremony was great! Special thanks to Mike, Rick, Kyle, Bryce, Dielle, Mark, Cheryl, and Jeremy for helping everything sound great with your expertise and musical talents! Another huge thanks to Pastor Howard and Pastor Wilf for the encouragement before our wedding and then all the work you put into the actual ceremony! Thanks so much to Brent, Nathan, and my own dear brother Luke for all the video work! The DVD turned out great! Thanks! And lastly, but not leastly, thanks so much to all of you who came, didn’t come but wanted to, those who wrote, called, visited, and other wise sent other forms of congratulations via other forms of communication. (ie. Smiling, or not pranking me…) And on the pranking note, I know where you live, Jamie…Wade… and I will find you. And your conspirators! O.o
Well, we spent a few days in PA before we went anywhere. We spent our time at a secret location as well as visiting family, skating (which Karina enjoyed very much), and eating. Goodness, it’s like I’ve been eating forever. :) As I told my Aunt Debbie the other day, ‘the food paradox is when you are too full to eat without dying…but the food in front of you is so good. Whether to live to eat another day, or to die happy…’

So, we chilled out in PA, then we went to Saskatoon and went to visit my Dad’s family in southern Ontario, courtesy of my parents. They rock by the way! :D
So, we got down to Toronto around midnight. However, there was a few delays after we had landed and then we also had some trouble with the baggage. In the baggage pickup area, there were about a couple hundred people, but there was 4 or 6 times that amount of luggage there. We figure from other flights people got tired of waiting and so they left. Therefore huge piles of luggage were left. So, we eventually did have our stuff show up, and we had no problem finding my Aunt Debbie and Uncle Bruce. That was good. We got to Mount Forest about 2:45am where we were pulled over by the cops. Aunt Debbie was driving at the time, and she had hesitated at an intersection when she was uncertain what another driver was going to do. As such, we were pulled over. He came to the window and asked for her drivers and registration… she was already digging into her bag and promptly handed him her debt card… lol. We bugged her until we left about it. Hehehe. Sorry Auntie! It’s just so funny! :)


Mount Forest was great! We stayed with Uncle Bruce and Aunt Debbie and we visited Uncle Barry and Aunt Joanne, Uncle Ian and Aunt Phyllis as well as my cousin Troy and his band, Uncle Gary and Auntie Gwynne Smith, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Nan, Aunt Shirley, as well as my Grandparents Elmer & Yvonne. I suppose I also visited my cousin David there too… though it was over the phone. :P As we were visiting many people, we kept fairly busy. However, we had a lot of fun.

The first day there I was able to bring Grandpa and Grandma to Uncle Bruce’s place, after Karina got a tour there. She really enjoyed that, and it was a breath of fresh air to see Grandpa getting around being able to show off his new toy tractor colletion. It just keeps growing! I sang some songs for them at Bruce’s home, and we were able to share supper together. It was really great! The next day we went to Durham. When I got there I found out that Troy was out with his band practicing. (some of them had come from Hamilton which is a pretty long drive for that area) However, we were invited to and visit them there. So, with Uncle Ian leading the way, we went off to the edge of town to a workshop of sorts. So amongst powertools and sawdust, Troy, Stuart, Aaron, Jimmy, and Kyle were jamming away trying to figuring out new songs that Troy had written. I was actually quite shocked by how good they sounded. Their band is called the Land of Caanan. Give them a listen at www.landofcaanan.ca! Troy does the singing. Anyways, we had some hot chocolate there, courtesy of Aaron and we enjoyed listening to them and sharing some songs with them too. After that we went back to Ian’s and visited until supper. Troy and his girlfriend Stephanie joined us, and we enjoyed Chicken Fajitas! :D Yum. Right after that, Barry and Joanne came by and visited with us too. Haha, I was pretty well talked and listened out. Whew… but what a great day. Did I mention to check out land of caanan? :D


We had other times to visit and catch up with Gary and Gwynne, as well as Grandpa and Grandma. Gary was mourning the loss of his large train set, but now has a smaller one and is beginning to expand that one as well.
Lol, when we went to visit Uncle Bob and Aunt Nan, I had directions to get there, and I had directions to get to Aunt Shirley’s … lol, I got them mixed up… I knew I had it wrong, but it didn’t really clue in for me. So it was kind of a shock when I realized that I had showed up on time at the wrong Aunt’s place. Haha… It all worked out in the end. I found out that Uncle Bob and Aunt Nan do more travelling then I had thought, and I found out that He’s Welsh! From Swansee. Now I have to go tell Rhys, from my team. I thought he was like the only Welsh guy I had ever met, other than his family that is. Apparently not. I found out they’ve also been to China at least a couple times. It was great to be able compare pictures… while eating Christmas cookies of course.



Everywhere else, it was catching up and seeing faces that seemed only familiar as if I had dreamed of them once upon a time. That’s a weird feeling. Oh yeah, we went to Church twice on Sunday. The First Baptist in the morning and in the evening to the Faith Baptist. In the morning we met up with Gary and Gwynne. We met a couple there that have done mission work in Russia, so we had fun greeting each other as such. Lol. I’m a bit rusty I think. In the evening, I shared a bit about VTI and what I’ve been up to the last few years. Then Karina and I played a song. But not, I might add, before Karina played piano for a couple of the hymns that evening that she had never been able to practice. She did amazing. Lol, the only consolation about me not being able to play the piano very well is that she can. :P I felt kind of bad at the end of the service because we had a number of people express that they would have loved to hear more of our singing. That was nice. :P And it gave me incentive to start working on more music and songs. That’s something I’d like to do this year while I’m touring and getting ready for next year.

Karina and I had a great time in Mount Forest and we both got haircuts a few hours before we left. Uncle Bruce and Aunt Debbie drove us to the edge of Toronto. There we were able to meet up with Jeff & Paula. Paula (Bruce and Debbie’s daughter) got married a few years back and I had seen Jeff just once. As such it was great to be able to visit with them and get to know them better. I really was glad to have been able to meet them. Yesterday, Karina and I went to the CN tower, the Royal Ontario Museum and basically just walked around a lot too. It was really fun! However, I don’t think most travelers on the subway felt the same as we did. I think we were only ones smiling. I think people don’t like to smile in big cities. :P Weird. I was glad Jeff and Paula smile… but they’re from small towns originally, so that seems to make sense to me. In the evening, they took us to the best Asian food restaurant I have ever been to. It’s called Spring Rolls. Wow. What a place. It’s one of those places that you wish that you could have brought several stomachs along. So…soo ….sooooo…goooood…. I highly recommend it, that is if you enjoy Asian food. If you don’t, then I recommend Burger King or something. :)
Well, that was just last night. This morning Karina and I braved buses, subways and security checks to arrive to where I have been sitting typing for the last couple hours. This trip was great. I was glad to see relatives as well as things like the CN tower… and being able to help Karina to overcome her fear to be able to get off the glass floor after I had pressured her to try standing on it. It’s over a thousand feet up on a pane of glass. Crazy. It’s scary… (Karina says: Even for you James…) Meh, it’s true.


It has been amazing to see how God has been provided so much and blessed, not just us, but the people around us. I am really looking forward in this next little while to see how He is going to lead and open our eyes to see so much more. I want to see people without hope find it. And really hope that God will use Karina and myself as tools to bring that hope to those who need to find it.
Thanks for your prayers!
Grace and Peace
James