Scenic..Monday.

Hello from the cold north!  Its been crazy weather here.  Last week we had super warm weather - like in the upper 70's and it was great!  I got to open all the windows and air out the house without freezing our tushies off.  We were actually quite warm at night and had to pull out some fans.  I also turned on a few of our ceiling fans and realized afterwards just how dusty they were.  Oops!  Guess there's another thing to add to my spring cleaning to do list! :-)  But then it turned cold again and we even left church yesterday morning with it snowing.  So now everyone, even the poor birds that flew back early are all confused.  I guess spring is still fighting a losing battle to come.  Soon, though.

Anyways, here are a few pictures of just stuff from around here.  Hopefully soon I will have the time (and mental power) to write more details about what's going on with us.

I don't think I have mentioned before that we live in a river valley.  There are several rivers all around us. Our church is right across the street from a river.  For obvious reasons, the rivers are always frozen over during the winter, and thaw out in the spring.  Each spring there is always some flooding that happens, but this spring it is a different story.  I guess because of the sudden heat "snap" we had, the rivers thawed faster than normal, which has caused MAJOR problems. We went on a family drive Friday night to go look at all the ice in the river.  The picture above Matt took.  It is in our downtown.  You can see all the ice, and I need to not that the level of the ice/water is FEET higher than normal.  

This is just to the right of the bridge in the picture above.  You can clearly see where the river has overflown and covered the road.

This is just a little father down the road from the top pictures.  So much ice and so incredibly higher than normal.  About five minutes after Matt took this picture, the ice broke and it all started floating downstream.  It usually flows okay until it bottlenecks somewhere and all the ice gets stuck and that's when the big problems start.

Thankfully our church is safe and our house is high enough that we don't have to worry.  But I can't say the same for a small town just a short ways from here.  Perth Andover has been declared to be in a state of emergency due to the flooding.  They had to evacuate the small hospital, which now the whole first floor is almost all under water.  Many homes were evacuated too.  And it all happened so fast that many people were not able to get out in time and had to be rescued by helicopter, etc.  And remember - this is Canada.  In the winter.  That water is COLD!!!!  Thankfully, no major injuries or deaths have been reported.  But many people have lost their homes.  The schools and hospital have been greatly damaged. There is a lot that is going to need to be done to repair all the destruction.  Please pray for the people of Perth Andover.  It is not a large town and many of the people are not wealthy and do not have much.  What they did have is now gone.  We do have a couple in our church who live there, but their house is also high enough that they are safe, but they are unable to get anywhere out of town without going far out of the way.  We are glad that they are safe!

So, you all know that due to the circumstances, Lexi is being formula fed.  She was not nursing well and therefore, was not gaining weight.  In 2 weeks time she only gained about 2 ounces.  Not good.  But, she has been on formula for month now, and we had a dr. appt last Thursday and found that she gained 1 1/2 pounds in less than 3 weeks!  Praise the Lord!  She is a lot more contented now and I am so happy that she if back on track with her weight gain.  But, formula is expensive.  So that has been an extra expense we have had to figure out how to fit in the budget.  But, as always, God provides for our needs.  While at the dr. on Thursday, I asked them if they happened to have any coupons or samples of formula.  Well, the look on the nurses face was priceless!  She almost was relieved that I asked!  She said they get formula all the time, and if no one asks for it and it expires, they have to throw it out.  So she gave me the only package they had at the time, but said she would call me when they got more in.  And I was absolutely shocked when she handed me not a sample, but a full size can of formula! (The big one on the bottom right is the one she gave me!!!)  That size cost $30 in the store!  Then she called her mom who works at another dr. office and asked if they had any.  Her mom had 7 cans to give me, so we drove over there to get them from her!  And both said they would let me know when more came in!!!!  I can't tell you just HOW excited I was!  God is so good to provide for our needs! I am ashamed to say that I hadn't even prayed about this, just tried to figure it all out on my own. But God proved yet again that He knows our needs always, and will provide for us always!  Amen!

This little girl seems to grow by leaps and bounds every single night!  Her new favorite phrases are:

"That's mine!" and "I don't want to."  Hmmm... we are working on that!

A silly girl and a tired mommy.

Dancing with Daddy.  Awww.....

Until next time....