TREVOR'S WRITING

We have had a lot of babysitters, and we have had a lot of really good ones...but the situation that occured during our night out at a Grey Cup party was one that made us realize that we (and especially our kids) may have experienced the greatest babysitting feat of our lives! We got a call from our kids around 8:30 to say that they loved us and to say good night. "We saw a rat!" says Owen (5). "You mean a mouse," Nicky says. We have had a mouse in "Moby" lately and so Owen was obviously confused. We stayed at the party a while longer and got home at 10:30 or so. Jocelyn (the aforementioned "Best Babysitter EVER!!") greets us at the door and says "...I was able to trap the rat." I was convinced that she was wrong and that I would find a mouse. We went to where she had stood up some books, moved some boxes and a shelf and formed them into a closed semicircle by the wall...we looked under the desk to see a long tailed, 6 inch long, bulgy ...

Today is 4 1/2 months since our house fire. Let me tell you that this has been a real up and down ride. In a lot of ways the first six weeks after the fire were the easiest in terms of being emotionally/mentally/spiritually strong (below I am showing the state of mind we were in during those six weeks - it is a blog entry I wrote that never got published). I also preached a sermon on those six weeks on August 29th which listen to here...on our church podcast . Don't get me wrong those times were hard as we moved from my parents house to one hotel room then another, to a borrowed house, to another hotel, and another hotel, and finally to a mobile home. Everything was so uncertain, but I felt strong and confident. The second six weeks were probably the most difficult where I struggled to keep my head above water, where things got very dark for me emotionally and spiritually. The last six weeks have been a slow and arduous climb out of that dark place. Let me just say that I don't...

We are renovating our upstairs bathroom...so I am going to jackhammer in my basement...makes sense to me. It definitely is something I don't get to do everyday:

3 years ago Ben received a prize from his preschool teacher. It was a small bag full of a number of little things. There were little toys and trinkets, but the thing that immediately caught my attention was an unopened pack of Score Football Cards from 1991. I couldn't figure out why the pre-school teacher would be giving these unopened packages of football cards away. I cracked them open to see what was inside, it was a collection mainly of unknown (to me) football players. There was one that caught my attention, it was a Brett Favre rookie card. One of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game! I couldn't believe it. Ben took the other cards and played with them and eventually they were all worn out and in the garbage. But I took Brett Favre and placed him on my bedside table thinking I might have my children's college fund right there. Brett sat there and sat there, through the time I spilled a cup of water all over my bedside table, shoved under whatever I happ...

I have been thinking quite a lot about homelessness (over the last two years especially) and have come to all kinds of conclusions about myself and the things that I (and the church) need to do in order to help people who are in that situation. I have been involved in a few organizations who work with homeless people and met with many people to discuss what I/we should be doing to help. I finally discovered something very important that I can do right now. I am reading t his book called Bent Hope which is a really interesting read. The author is a Youth Worker who works with young people who live on the streets in Toronto. He walks the streets and hangs out with them and helps when he can. He basically just tells the stories of his encounters with people and talks a little bit about what he has learned from them. I am loving it! So, I know what I am supposed to do to help homelessness. In his book, pretty much everyone he encounters he mentions how they come from a family situa...

I was thinking back a bit on my life...there are many things that I regret, many things I wish would change.  I think about deep things, really crucial things to the survival of my family and my own well-being.  Things like, growing a beard, or driving fast, or watching football, or eating more than I should.   You see I used to grow a beard more or less by accident.  I never shaved more than once a week, and I can pretty much grow a beard in that amount of time.  So, sometimes I would shave, and sometimes I would trim.  Now I shave probably on average about 2-3 times per week, and try to appear somewhat put together on occasion.  I used to drive fast and win any race I was having at any cost (sometimes the cost was quite high).  The other day I was driving next to Nicky and I pulled out to pass her, got to 10 over the speed limit and slowed down because I was worried I might get a ticket.  I feel a bit Granny about that. I used to watch NFL Football on TV no matter what else was going...

Nicky was asking Owen (our 3 year old) a bunch of questions.  He kept answering, "I don know, I don know, I don know."  Finally Nicky said, "well, what DO you know?" Owen's answer was well rounded and thought out... "I know...nothing is impossible with God, I know...how to talk, I know...how to fart." Apparently he knows three very important things.

Our oldest son, Ben (Grade 2) has been doing spelling tests every Friday for the past few months. He is really great at spelling and always gets 6 out of 6, or at worst 5 out of 6. It is fun to see him do so well at it. His teacher always gives the class 5 words that are 2 to 4 letters long and then the 6th word is a longer word like "surprise" or "spectacular." One Friday Ben came home without his test, so we asked him how he did, he said he got 5 out of 6. Nicky said, "that's great!" and asked which one he got wrong, "did you mess up on beautiful?" "Nope," he says, "I spelled 'us' wrong." "Oh...how did you spell it?" "I spelled it a-s-s." True story.

We were at the toy store looking for some good toys for our kids and noticed a bunch of Playmobil Advent Calendars. One of them was a pirate set, you know, what says Christmas more than pirates!? Owen (our 3 year old) loves playmobil stuff and has a fascination with pirates, so we took a close look at it. Here is what we found: Many of these things seem relatively inappropriate to me but the keg near the top left hand side is my favourite. Nothing like getting a keg to remind you of Jesus. There is a story about Jesus turning water into wine in some big basins, or kegs if you will.

I am opposed to pink, well not really opposed, but opposed to what it stands for, when it stands for something I am against. If that makes any sense at all. When it comes to my daughter Hannah, I have always resisted when she wants to wear pink, have pink dolls, have pink shoes (or pink camouflage shoes for that matter). Now she has asked us if she can paint her room pink (the second she in this sentence refers to Nicky and I, since our 5 year old will not paint her own room). The funny thing is I have embraced pink in my life, I have a shirt that some people call pink (actually, it is more of a salmon colour), back in the 80's I remember having a flourescent pink t-shirt, flourescent pink shades and many other pink accessories. I also own a beautiful flourescent pink toque that I love to wear on youth nights (or when I was driving the tractor at camp) I guess my issue is not with the colour pink, it is with the stereotype. I don't want my little girl being taken with pink beca...

"The Event" happened in our family and it forced us to think about greed. I won't tell you what "The Event" was, but let's just say that one of our kids did something that will be regretted for a long time. However, this action has lead us to consider what we are teaching our children about greed. The first thing we thought of was all the things that we allow our kids to do. We let them play Webkinz, where the whole idea is making money to spend on stuff...we let them stare at the Sears Wishbook for hours on end so they can drool over all the things they want...we let them look at websites online that basically exist to sell them things...we take them to stores just to look at toys...we buy them things. All these things, we decided, encourage greed, so we thought it best to put a stop to many of these things. We told our children that we would not be buying them anything for a while (at least until they are "ungreedy" as one of the kids put it). Wh...

We have three children...Ben (7), Hannah (5) and Owen (3). The first two I would definitely describe as skinny, but the words I choose to describe Owen would not include that same word. It could have something to do with the way he wakes up. Owen will walk into our room, anywhere between 6:30 and 7:30 saying, "I need beckist (that's Owen for: Breakfast). I think the first thought when he wakes up is, "I NEED FOOD!" If we try to tell him that he will have to wait for "beckist" he proceeds to completely lose it (explanation: he is the youngest...and we do think he is cute, he might get his way when he shouldn't...on occasion). He has been known to cry, "I NEED BECKIST, I NEED BECKIST, I NEED BECKIST...(and so on)" This whole thing has lead to some really interesting problems with hand-me-downs, you see Ben grows out of his clothes when they are too short for him (thank goodness for adjustable waists because his are still at the skinniest setting...

I am an impetuous person. So far in my life I have held 4 career-type jobs and I am 34. I like to start new things, but I have a hard time finishing them (notice the last post is in March!). I am someone who likes change, but I am never satisfied with it. We are on vacation and visiting my brother in Sexsmith, Alberta (you've heard of a goldsmith and a blacksmith...these guys work on something else here). They have a trampoline, this morning I noticed Nicky (my wife) lying on the trampoline soaking up the sun and I went and lay down beside her. We talked about life and love, and I really enjoyed the conversation. I said, "I could live in a small town like this," and we went on to discuss my need for change and new challenges. The ensuing conversation challenged me to consider something that I have been learning over the last few months. I need to learn to be faithful in the things that I do, not to always look for something new, I need to be content in the life th...

I have never been one to really care about my birthday, but this year I felt more celebrated then ever. It was actually quite enjoyable and did my ego well (or maybe not so good...if it was already too big). On Friday night we have our youth program and during my talk I mentioned that my birthday was tomorrow and there was a huge cheer from the crowd (I didn't even think they listened during my talks). Saturday, Nicky and I both got to sleep in because the kids were at my parents, then we went out for breakfast, came back home and had lunch with Nicky's parents who had just returned from Israel...it was so cool to hear what they got to do there, and to sense how much they really enjoyed it. Someday I want to go there myself! They left me a very awesome present, then I got to have a nap before we went out for supper. Having a sleep-in and a nap in the same day...that is like my ideal day! Then we went out to dinner and a movie with our friends Colin and Jodene (it was Jod...

Owen, our 2 year old son, was singing a song the other day, that I was not able to recognize for the first while (he is 2 after all - and makes up most of the lyrics), but I really cracked up when he got to the chorus. All I could hear was, "hmmm, hmm, la, la, la, pa rumble bum bum ." Fart jokes are always funny right?

Before the mustache contest came to a close my lovely wife and I decided we should take my mustache on the road and let it see the world before it met a decidedly sharp and painful end. So we hopped in a rental car and took it to St. Louis A picture of the 3 of us...Nicky, me and my mustache My mustache saw the sights And even met celebrities (that's Jar's of Clay mere metres away from my mustache!) That's David Crowder's back! (You probably don't even know who he is) Here is a picture of David Crowder on the big screen...we (my mustache and I) never got to see him for real from the front. Much of the trip was filled with frivolity, but... Some of it stunk. Sometimes people even made fun of me, and laughed and called me names But overall it was well worth it When it came down to judging the contest I wound up finishing second in the contest to the fellow sitting next to me, but I believe shaving your head bald (did you have to shave? or is it natural?) and growing h...

I have entered the dark underworld of a mustache growing contest, having been drawn in by Nicky's (my wife's) brothers. This is a picture of how put together I looked without a mustache. If you look at the picture below, it would seem that the mustache itself has gotten to me. I am not saying that growing a mustache means you become a drunk, sleazy, stuck in the 80s, trying-to-be-young-but-not-being-successful-at-it type of person, but that is what it has done to me. I find that when I walk I have a different gait, one that I tried to use back in Jr. High...to look cool. I find that I have a renewed passion for wearing hi-top shoes with the laces undone. I have a need to wear brigh t coloured clothing, and I have been looking for acid-wash pants at Value Village (unsuccesfully). The thing is that I also have many good friends who are growing mustaches, and have had mustaches for a long period of time, it doesn't seem to have this kind of impact on them. I work at a churc...

I have always had a disdain for wearing socks...however, I do live in Winnipeg and there is the occassional need for them - sandals are uncomfortable in -30 degrees celsius. I go with sandals as long as possible. My son Ben though, he has a whole different level of hatred for socks. He is just starting grade 1 and is slowly adjusting to being at school all day. He is a very social kid though and really seems to like school. He had been going a week and a half and we decided that we would go to Boissevain for Nicky's Dad's 70th birthday, this meant that Ben would miss school on Monday. As we were driving back we asked him if he was sad that he missed school that day...his face lit up and he said, "Nooo, I didn't have to wear socks all day ! My feet weren't hot." Of all the reasons not to like school the only one that sticks out to him is the fact that he has to wear socks and his feet are hot. He is suffering...I know how he feels.

Folklorama is an event in Winnipeg where you will come to learn that there are basically four parts to a culture - music, food, alcohol and dancing. There could be a little more to culture then that, but since I have now been indoctrinated into Folklorama-ism, that is what I have now come to believe. The last couple of days I have been attending with Nicky and then with Owen and Hannah last night. It is a great festival where countries or cultures put on a show in various pavilions around Winnipeg. Each evening, you could go to 3 different pavilions and take in their culture for an hour. If I were to label myself a specific culture, I would call myself a Mennonite - of course my Dad would say that Mennonite is "not a culture, it is a denomination." Anyway, in the Mennonite "culture" we have great music, the best food (hello wareneki, sausage and schmaunt fat or roll kuchen and watermelon...mmmm...), but we have no alcohol or dancing - both lead to sex, which is th...

We just got back from a week of holidays...a really great time. We went camping in Spruce Woods and then dropped our kids off at their grandparents for a couple days while Nicky and I got to visit the mall and hotel in Minot, ND. One of my favourite moments happened on our very first night. Carberry ( a small town near Spruce Woods) was celebrating it's 125th anniversary. They had a fireworks display and we decided to take them in. It was a normal fireworks show...actually quite good for a small town. Our kids loved them so much, but my favourite was the drive home. Ben kept telling us which were his favourite fireworks. "My favourite was the one that looked like...[pause as he considers how to describe it]...a water fountain...exploding!" "Actually my most favourite one was the one that looked like a squiggly spaceship from Mars, that one was really cool!" "Wait, the best one was the green one, you know, the one that filled my whole window (we were ...