Colouring Contest Winner

Yesterday we received a phone call from the County Fair Mall. As soon as I saw the call display I knew what it was. Caile and Ella had submitted Easter colouring contest entries after seeing the Easter Bunny. 

Turns out Caile won her age group and we went to pick out her new bike today from Canadian Tire!

I’m happy for her because she took a long time and put a lot of effort into it. It paid off! She went the extra mile and added coloured sparkles to things like the Easter eggs. 

Here she is picking it out and then again in the house at home. Still a bit to snowy for it outside. 

   
 

Snowy Easter Walk

Yesterday we went for a beautiful wintery walk at Miners Marsh. The only problem is this was Easter weekend and it is supposed to be Spring time. 

Easter Egg Hunt and Game Day

Yesterday we got together with Friends and Family for what has become an annual Easter Egg hunt. Looking back it seems like we started in 2010. Starting out I was a little disappointed that we were going to have to hold it indoors this year as there is still far to much snow to be hiding eggs outside. The temperature felt like Spring yesterday but it still doesn’t look like it.

There was tonnes of great food and treats that everyone brought. While the kids were playing some of the grown ups were able to play some games. I love Settlers of Catan and was actually able to win the game of that we played. Also played my first game of chess in many years and with some really sloppy mistakes managed to win that game too. Once everything was winding down the Risk board was brought out. It’s been over 15 years since I played Risk but four of us stayed and played. My armies were destroyed quite early on in the game but it was still fun to watch and hopefully I learned some things and will do better next time.

Here are some pictures of the last few years of our Easter get togethers.

Easter 2015
Easter 2014
Easter 2013
Easter 2012
Easter 2011
Easter 2010

Unsure of my own beliefs

Not sure how to approach this topic. It has been something that has been rattling around in my head for quite a while now. Hopefully this will be coherent, but it will basically be a brain dump of my thoughts. This is something I’ve not talked to anyone about so I’m really just trying to get my thoughts straight.

Usually its Sundays that it has been on my mind. Maybe because that is the one day a week that I really think and pay attention to religion. Sitting in church questioning myself, do I really believe what I’m listening to being preached?

If I really believed wouldn’t I be doing more about it than just attending church once a week? Being a true Christian you dedicate your life to Jesus, you work to build disciples and bring more people to Christ. Seeing as this is the first time I’ve talked about my faith, or lack there of,  publicly for sometime that doesn’t make me a very good Christian. But I don’t think this is unique to me. I would say the majority of people who call themselves Christians are like me. Attend church once a week and that is it.

That isn’t everyone though. I personally know a number of people who I’m confident fully believe and live the teachings of the Bible. Honestly, I admire that they believe in something that much and dedicate their lives to it.

Maybe I’m jaded from growing up in the Mormon church. The founder of that church, Joseph Smith, started a religion which has grown to over 15 million members across the world, according to their website. They consider themselves Christian but I believe most other Christian religions would argue this. Unless you are one of the members of this church I think most people would also agree that Joseph Smith was a just a man who took it upon himself to start a new Religion and wasn’t directed by God. This was in fairly modern times that this started when, I would think, it would be a lot harder to start a religion than when Jesus did. If he could do this than why couldn’t Jesus have done something similar in his time?

There are many good aspects of Religion and Christianity. The community it builds and the the kindness that is genuinely shown. These things can also be found elsewhere of course, but Church is an easy well known establishment that makes it easy to find if you are looking for it.

Some of the ideas of Christianity are very nice to believe in. I would much rather think that I could have an after life than everything just be over when I die. Even if this is the case than the work I’m putting into it isn’t going to get me there, and at least currently, my faith isn’t strong enough to get me to want to put in that work.

This is hard for me. There are many people who in many ways I consider much smarter than myself who do believe. Am I not smart enough to see the truth? Maybe it’s because I haven’t put in the work to really study the Bible. It’s hard to want to put in that effort for something you’re not sure on.

So why do I bother going to Church most Sundays? I’ve even volunteered helping out on Sundays and my wife still does. The main reason is my wife and Kids enjoy it. I mentioned the community aspect earlier and the values they teach aren’t going to be a bad thing for my children to learn. The church we attend has a great worship team and I really enjoy the music.

I consider myself to be open minded and as I’m concerned people can believe what ever they like. As long as they are happy than the more power to them. I’m also not ready to choose sides and say I’m an atheist or that I for sure believe in Jesus. What about all the other religions out there that I know next to nothing about? What if one of them are true and I really haven’t been exposed to them yet.

It could be that I’m just an overly privileged person that has too much pride to admit that I didn’t get to this point in my life with out Jesus. There has certainly been a lot of help along the way and many of these people have been Christians. Maybe they were put in my life by Jesus.

 

Ross Farm Museum Maple Syrup Weekend

This weekend was the maple syrup weekend at Ross Farm Museum. It was a beautiful day even with all the snow. The kids got to play in the snow, take a horse drawn sleigh ride and watch maple syrup being made, then taste the results.

Easter Bunny

We took the kids to see the Easter Bunny at the mall today. He didn’t offer me any chocolate.

Tough Call

Tonight, just as we we’re sitting down to eat, my wife looks at her finger and holds it up.

Is that chocolate or poop?

Not something you want to take a chance on. The joys of taking care of little kids.

St. Patrick’s Day Cupcakes

My wife’s always doing fun things for the kids here. Check out the cupcakes she made for St. Patrick’s Day.

All the Bacon

We are having breakfast for supper tonight. When dishing everything out Jen asked the kids, “how many pieces of bacon do you want?”

Ella and Caile each say 1 or 2.

Noah chimes in:

I’ll have all the pieces of bacon that are left

Forgetful Sunday Morning

For once we were actually running a little early for church this morning. Jen decided to take advantage and run into Wal-Mart quick to pick up a couple things so we didn’t have to stop on the way home. We dropped her off at the door to save time and then went and found a parking spot.

It was pretty slow that time of morning so we parked very close to the door. For that reason we were all confused when she came out and started running in the opposite direction of our vehicle. There wasn’t even a vehicle that looked like ours over there. I turns out the woman in front of her had forgotten a bag at the cashier so Jen was running it over to her.

We pulled up to the other car to pick up Jen. From there we laughing about how we couldn’t figure out what she was doing at first. As we were pulling away the cashier came running out of the store. It took a minute but then I noticed Jen’s phone in her hand.

Forgetful morning all around it seems but everything ended up fine and everyone got their things.