Just wanted to put up some cute pics of the family!

Judah is totally obsessed with the giant corn pops box! Takes it everywhere around the house.

Convention

So this past weekend our family got to go to the CLB(Canadian Lutheran Brethren) Convention in Edmonton. All in all it was a great weekend! But it has taken me all day to recuperate.

It was a really great time getting to see the leaders in the CLB. I have met quite a few from the US side of things. But this time I got to see who we will be working with in the future now that we are in Canada. And since Daniel spent most of his growing up years in Canada, I got to meet a lot of people that he grew up with. It was really great being able to put some faces to the names. And apparently the Stenbergs made quite an impression up here. A good one of course. :) 

The hardest part of the weekend which was also quite a large part of the weekend, was that there was really nothing for the little ones to do during the sessions. I think we are trying to pave the way, for it to be easier to for families with younger children to go to these things in the future. The kids really did very great, with having to sit through all the sessions. But I was a bit stressed with trying to keep Judah from screaming when he couldn't get what he wanted. Which happens too often. lol I wasn't sure how we were going to make it through the banquet dinner when we sat down with all the glass dishes and immediately Judah pulled on the table cloth. But he was stopped before the dishes went tumbling off. And right after dinner we had our speaker in the same room. During that time Judah decided that he really did want the rest of his dinner that he had pitched on the floor and started eating that up in front of everyone. I just had to laugh at that point. 

One neat thing we did on Saturday morning, Kim, the pastors wife from Birch Hills, Mandy and I went to a coffee shop that has a play area in the middle for the kids. I've never been to a place like that before. So we got to do some visiting and the kids had fun playing. 

I thoroughly enjoyed my time hanging out with the women and getting a feel for the CLB. (And getting out of the house). I'm so thankful we all got to go up!

Happy 6 year anniversary!

So life has been pretty busy the last few days really. 

We have been waiting for a long time to receive our tax return. With that it has given us a lot of time to think about what we wanted to do with it. What we should buy how much to save all that. I have been in the process of researching vehicles and dogs. 

I will expound on the dog part. Most of you know we lost our dear Belle right before we had to move. That was really hard. I was really hoping to not have to jump into training a puppy for a very long time. I really don't enjoy the puppy stage very much. The chewing the potty training, all that is not really worth it to me to have them little and cute. I'm fine with them growing up and then I can trust them to not destroy my house. I was really missing Belle, and Kaiser was not quite the same. He was depressed, and even more high maintenance. So I started looking into dogs, I did a lot of research on a bunch of different breeds trying to figure out what would be best for our family. We decided to go with a West Highland Terrier. When I was looking into getting one I found out they were very expensive in Calgary, CKC registered and all that. Well we were not going to pay 1000 for a dog right now. So I found some in the boondocks 2 1/2 hours away(poor Daniel), for a third the price. So we drove down on Saturday and picked our puppy up. I think we bought our puppy from Cruella Deville. We met her in the bigger town that was a little closer to us which was nice. We had lunch at one of our favorite places in Canada A&W and she met us there. She was with her husband and they drove up in her new black sedan, she had black fur around the collar of her coat and was smoking a cigarette. Anyway, I think she was a nice lady. But her whole lot made me chuckle. So now we have our little Tula. She is a sweet dog but a puppy none the less. But I'm very happy to have her. And Kaiser has been enjoying her for the most part. He was so excited when we brought her home. 

Yesterday we bought a Mini Van. I guess I am now officially a soccer mom! Originally we wanted an SUV but the more I looked into the practicality of them with having two kids in car seats and then if we do have another baby, it would have been hard. That was another thing I spent a bit of time researching them as well. As most of you know, when we bought the Jetta we bought a bad year. We didn't know that at the time. But we sure do now! So I didn't want a repeat experience. The Honda Odyssey's and the Toyota Sienna's have the best reviews. But since we are sticking with the Dave Ramsey way, we bought a 2002 Dodge Caravan. I am really happy with it so far. I think it will be great for our family. We will be able to take other people, and it will be fun to road trip in! The pic I have above is not the actual one, but I didn't want to go through the work of pulling it out of the garage in the cold to take a picture. But this is what it looks like.

And finally, Daniel was able to get his tv that he has been waiting for I don't remember.

So now we are working on being able to drive legally in Canada. Getting all the paperwork we need from the states so that we can get insurance and drivers licenses up here. I'm looking forward to when all of the immigration stuff is done!! 

Tomorrow is our 6 year anniversary, and we have a lot to celebrate. Although, Daniel is still trying to get used to the fact that he owns  mini-van now. ;)

We are feeling very blessed and thankful for God meeting all of our needs and more.  

Mini Van or SUV?!?

Mini Van or SUV, oh the debate.

We have been thinking about getting a second larger vehicle since we found out Asher was on the way. Now that Asher is here and our car hates the snow and seems to get smaller and smaller and smaller with the boys getting bigger we are really feeling the crunch.

Its looking like we will be able to get something in another month or so. Praise the Lord!

So now we have to decide what to get. The top of my list would be a Honda Pilot, but since 40k doesn't seem to be in the budget that car is out of the running. We are looking at an older mini van or  SUV with a third row seat. Besides the cool factor of an SUV(I'm not feeling to worried about being cool these days, I suppose that's what having a couple kids does to you) we like that fact that it would be great in snow and would be able to tow something, also the kind we are looking at the 3 row folds down when we need to put more back in the trunk. But it does look like it will be a bit harder with hauling little ones in and out, and they take a  little bit more gas.

A van would be much easier access to the kids and the third row seat when we have others ride with us. But we are not sure how great they are in the snow. Although there seems to be a lot of  vans up here, so it can't be to bad. But the church is on top of a hill and Daniel would like to still get into work when it snows.

Or we could just go with a 15 passenger van, get the towing power, 4 wheel drive, and space for the 12 boys we are going to have.... Just kidding! 

Anyway, if you have any suggestions or comments let me know!

Snow Snow Snow

After much thought and deliberation, I have decided not to learn how to drive around this city until it warms up... so June. June I will get behind the wheel and figure out how the roads work around here. Sorry to all of those who are visiting before June hoping to be able to leave the house while Daniel is at work.

On Friday it got very cold and we got our first douse of fresh snow here. It is absolutely beautiful. Judah just kept looking out the window and pointing for us to look at all the snow, the guys out shoveling and the guys out with snow blowers. We had to tell Judah we needed to stop looking so we wouldn't look like creepy neighbors. We didn't actually decide to venture out until Sunday when we went to church. We got very bundled up(the high that day I believe was around 0 F.)It was very slick and lots of snow still on the roads. They don't believe in ruining the roads, cars, and environment with salt like Buffalo did. So there is nothing to melt the snow and ice they just plow(some) and put gravel on it. At least that is all I can tell. Out car was definitely slipping around in it. Also when the sun comes out it is so bright! Its so hard to see. It reflects of all the snow and ice, I'm going to have to get Daniel some sunglasses. Anyway our church is on top of a hill (it has a very pretty view of the city), so we were very worried about getting up it. With good reason. We got about half way up before the car started going backwards when Daniel tried to get it to go. We had people flying past us. But one of the guys from church stopped to help. He drove while Daniel pushed and one of the young adults from church came running down the hill to help Daniel push too. He told us you kinda have to get a running start at that hill. Apparently we aren't the first ones to get stuck. Makes me feel a bit better. I'm so thankful for all the help. We were able to get the rest of the way up.We barely made it for Daniel to do scripture and prayer. I guess we are going to have to get winter tires or all season tires, and our second car will have to be more snow equipped.  

It is suppose to warm up tomorrow to above freezing, we are looking forward to that.

Move to Canada

So I promised my friend that I would start a blog once we got to Canada. So everyone can hear about what is happening in our lives up here.

We made it to Calgary! After many delays with paperwork needed for crossing the border we are here now. We are enjoying settling in. I'm loving having a town house, and the room we have to spread out. And I love having a garage in this cold weather!

In coming to Canada I figured it would pretty much be like the states, however their are some subtle differences that I have started to experience and I'm sure I haven't seen the end of! 

On Sunday night we went to pick up a few groceries for the first time since we have been here. On our trip to the "Real Canadian Super Store" we hauled the boys into the store and I went to grab a shopping cart so we didn't have to carry the boys around the whole store. I couldn't find them at first and then Daniel spotted them in the parking lot. He went to go get one and came back empty handed. He explained to me that you need a loonie to retrieve a shopping cart and then your loonie is returned when you bring back the cart. We had no Canadian money yet. So Judah got to walk around the store like a big boy(which he loved... but made for a lot longer trip at the store) and Daniel had Asher in his carrier and I had the few groceries we were getting. When we got to the check out the cashier asked me how many bags I wanted... how many bags do I want?!? I have no idea how many bags I usually use when buying grocery's and am I paying for these plastic bags? So we figured it out, got the grocery's bagged, turns out its 5 cents a bag I believe. Apparently instead of just trying to convince people to go green like they do in the states, you have more incentive to get reusable grocery bags up here so you don't have to pay for your bags every time. And that was just our first trip to the grocery store! Now I'm just laughing at myself wondering what other things will be surprising me.