Good morning everyone. I just wanted to stop by and let you know that we arrived back in Cochrane on Monday. We had a great trip in Saskatchewan and Alberta. We stored some things, and visited with Shari’s parents and sister, and with my parents.
Of course, there were a lot of other things that we did during our travels as we tried to get a start on all those last minute details. Now we’re on the home stretch – less than two weeks to go before we leave Canada. And the “to do” list is only getting longer! So I’d better get to it. Just wanted to stop by and let you know where we’re at.
Nathanael and Hannah with Grandpa and Grandma Cottrill’s dog, Sasha
Whether in Mexico or Canada, we want to get Hannah started on school this fall (kindergarten). We would like to see her at least part time in a school or some activity in Mexico, but while we’re in transition we’ll be teaching her ourselves.
This means we need to figure out what to teach her, how to teach it, and so on. We’ve got some material now, but along with it we needed a whole bunch of children’s books that we didn’t have. I know, we already have lots of great ones, but Hannah and Nathanael do love books. Of course, we’re also getting rid of some books, so I spent a while going to used bookstores trading in. I found one or two or a few we needed in every store, and a few bonuses, such as Nathaniel Willy Scared Silly (too bad they can’t spell Nathanael right!).
By the way, if you’re in Calgary looking for used books, I recommend Fair’s Fair (any store) and Pilgrim Books (Christian books), though there are quite a few other good ones.
Then we checked out the internet to find the cheapest place to get the rest. Some we could get new, some we couldn’t. This time the best overall deal was at chapters.indigo.ca. I often switch between that and amazon.com. Amazon usually has the better price, and this time I got the ones I couldn’t get at indigo at amazon. In fact, amazon also had some of the best prices for used books too.
A great place to look for used books is AddALL. There are some other good used books searches, but I think this one is my favourite at the moment.
There were some books that were rather obscure and I really had to look, but in the end we ordered all the books we need for the first year. Praise the Lord! We look forward to seeing Hannah and Nathanael grow in their knowledge and love for God.
Now if we can only fit all these new books in the trailer…
Yesterday we got the news that Shari’s Grandmother (her Mom’s Mom) had passed away (in the afternoon). Her name was Ada Winger. We praise the Lord that she knew and loved the Saviour.
Ada hadn’t been well for some time, but this was still pretty sudden. In fact, Shari’s Mom had just talked to her yesterday morning. She (Ada) had company, so she was going to call back in the afternoon.
We would appreciate your prayers for us and the family and especially Shari’s Mom. The family has suffered quite a bit of loss over the past few months. Yesterday some of the family near Ada were heading out to PEI for holidays. Shari’s parents and sister were planning to come to Calgary today to see Shari’s brother and his family, who will be moving to Arizona on Monday. Of course all these plans have changed, and they’ll be heading out to Ontario today for the weekend and the funeral.
Because it was so sudden we don’t have a lot of details yet, but I just wanted to let you know so that you could pray. The funeral will be held on Tuesday.
Hannah and Nathanael were pretty excited about the tamales. Little did they think about the inexperience of the cook – me. Yes, I attempted my first tamales ever yesterday – sweet tamales, to be exact.
There have been a lot of new experiences around here lately, more than just tamales. For one thing, Nathanael has discovered how easy it is to climb out of his crib – leading us to think about an emergency switch from crib to bed. Except … well, we don’t have a bed. Not for Nathanael. We’re raising money to buy him one in Mexico. In the mean time, it may be a mattress on the floor for our little crackerjack. As we sell our furniture and pack up our belongings, each of us will be experiencing more and more transitional experiences like this.
Tamales are steamed, and I don’t have a steamer. So they took a little improvising too – bits and pieces of this and that and *presto* – a small but functional steamer. The corn husks had been soaked, the batter made, and it was time for assembly.
Hannah helped me put in some raisins as we folded the tamales into the husks and tied them. They were put into the steamer, and they filled the kitchen with that Mexican smell while I worked on lunch.
There are lots of things to think about while you make lunch. If you can concentrate with the kids in the background. They’re doing well, but all this busy-ness and change is a challenge for them too. There’s been a lot of talk around here about Hannah’s schooling this fall in Mexico – how will it work? How do we prepare? What’s available? How will we pay for it? How far in advance should we plan?
Anyway, you’ll be glad to hear that in the end the tamales were a stunning success. Everyone enjoyed them, and I have plans for another batch. We were hoping they would be a celebration of Mexico’s win against Angola in the World Cup – a win that ended up being a tie. Ah well.
Tamales are not a lot of work if you know what you’re doing. Which I didn’t. But I know a lot more now. I found a recipe on the internet which I adapted a little – you can try it yourself – they’re sweet tamales with pineapple and raisins. Or you could invite yourself over to try mine. But remember – I’m still only a novice. Better to visit Mexico yourself. Hey, we should do that…
