Between events

First, Mum's 80th party went off so went. PTL We managed to keep it a secret and all 50 of the guests I invited came and waited quietly as she approached the cafe. She loved it! It was a full weekend with her cutting into 3 cakes, family party (she knew about), surprise party and the church through morning tea with another cake.
Plus as a family we almost looked healthy and functional which was really nice. I'll post some photo's from it.
When Mum thought it was all over I had a hot rod organised for her as she said years earlier if she ever made it to 80years old she wanted to go down the road in a noiser vehicle. So she did.
Now that's all over, I feel a little flat and I need to wait till we can avoid a fancy flash for Jay's new camera and for him to take his first wedding shot's before we can post our services as wedding planner/photographer. Probably end of October.
Also need to wait till we move to get next phase started with asian students boarding and small child care. That will probably be January. So in the meantime I continue to care for my two boys (Jay and Joshua) and get more into the church here and all Joshua's weekly events with other kids. This saturday I'm off with other Mums on a mystery bus tour. So looking forward to it. Mum's only and Jay gets to care for Joshua all afternoon.
Can't wait for spring. Tired of cold days and battling colds. Bring on the warm weather....
Bye for now...

New ideas

First before I share what we've been processing. Found this photo of the last DTS staff team I lead at Vancouver the other day so thought I'd post it.
We've been wandering how to make some more money and move on to serve more. Two weeks ago a friend of mine asked Jay to photograph her wedding in October. He wanted to but we don't have a good enough camera so she said she'd give us money for one as payment for the wedding photo's. WOW so God arranged a camera sale for us and Jay bought his dream camera. I soon told friends our exciting news and he was asked to photograph a kid's party and a 50th birthday. This may be the new thing to help boost the income. Pretty exciting and I'm full of ideas for it. We may even do a wedding package and I be a wedding planner. How cool would that be! Plus Jay has been invited onto the worship team to play his percussions and I may help out with planning women's events. Also hoping to move to a bigger house next year to be able to entertain you fine people and maybe get a student to live with us plus I may run a small day care for 3 days a week starting in February.
Plus there's more, we get to share our vision for encouraging churches in Christchurch to focus more on the 10/40 window to the unreached people groups with our church Monday August 6th.
Joshua is doing well in the midst of Mum and Dad's endevours. I've also discovered I love scrapebooking. I'm working on one for my Mum's 80th birthday next month. Hey winter doesn't have to boring after all.
Lots of love till next time....

Just added a couple of photo's from our dating days in Vancouver to go with last blog.
You may remember them.....

We met 5 years ago

We're got some friends coming to babysit tonight and I'm so looking forward to it. Not having family nearby we rarely do go out but we've decided to book one night at least once a month. Tonight's the night. Aye!!!
We are also celebrating that Jay and I met 5 years ago at his churches social evening. A month later we were dating and 1 year later we were married. We need to feed and settle Joshua first, so we'll go to the movies then dessert afterwards. Going to see Shrek 3. You North American's have probably already see it. We loved the 1st two.
Joshua is finally crawling well and getting into everything. I so enjoy this age. To be honest I've loved every age except the 1st 7 weeks because of lack of sleep. Need to go. Bye for now, lots of love....

Try again

You know what it's like when you type an email, share your feelings and then push the wrong button and loose it. Well, that's what did with the last blog entry and it put me off for weeks. Anyway, hopefully I'll get to post this.

First, congradulations to Ketaurah and her up and coming wedding July 8th and to Ralph and Audrey for their recent engagement.
Cool. Marriage is great but I must confess when the man gets sick it's not always that easy to be around. Ha Ha.
That was partly what I wrote about last time. My poor Jay hurt his back and was off for 2weeks from work. Now I can do 2 to 3 days but 2 weeks was pushin it. It certainly showed the least prettier side of me. Joshua on the otherhand thought it was great having Daddy home ALL the time. I guess I've just used to my way of doing things around here with my routines and such.
Anyway, he's back at work now and doing fine.

We've both on diets - Blood type ones. So far so good. Missing bread, potatoes, corn and chocolate but as enoying too many treats got us this way, it's time for a bit of suffering to redo this. Lot's of meat, veg and fruit which is is always good.

I sometimes wish I was on the old fashion YWAM base of the 80's/90's where you all live in community especially those times when the meneal tasks can be so boring on your own and bumping into someone at the base laundry could give opportunity to a good chat. Plus, singles always got to chance to serve the families with chores around their small rooms. I actually wrote that with a sarcastic tone as I didn't do well with that. Still might to need to give that one to God.

My son's favourite thing at the mo is to be on his birthday bike and follow me around the place. Just like he is in this photo.
Bye for now. Love hearing via blogs how you are all doing.
Love Mary.

Party photo's

Joshua's 1st Birthday

Joshua turned 1 on 5th April and he slept most of the day. Which was unusal as he normally only sleeps 1 1/2hrs at a time at the most. He must of known we were going to have a party for him. Because when the people came at 7pm this boy sure entertained them. When I learn how to post some photo's I will and then you'll see what I mean.
He's so much fun.
My Mum came from Napier and stayed for Easter. It was great time with her. The highlight was going the Good Friday church service which was so simple and yet beautiful. The core of our faith. I cried especially when we sang Above all Else. We had communion and it was a solem time then Sunday was the time to celebrate our risen Lord. The contrast was triumphant!
That's it for now.
Love ya, Mary.

Joining Bloggers to stay intouch

Hi friends,
This is my first blog so here goes. It's been too long since I've heard from you lovely people and I'm to blame. Until recently we were still only going to the library to check emails, but a month ago we finally got a computor at home, plus a digital camera and printer from a small inheritance I got so hence I've joined the 21st century again.
We also downloaded SKYPE and have a webcam so we can talk and even see you and you us, especially our beautiful boy Joshua who will be 1year old 5th April.
I love being a Mum and seem to keep quite busy with that and spending time with other Mum's. I love befriending people that don't the Lord yet. We are just about to change churches due to location of where we live and a desire to get more involved in a smaller church.
Jay is going through some things but it's all good and he wants to change his job. Hopefully sometime this year.
I'm journally again and loving it. I've got a special room(our conservatory) in our place where I met with God and it overlooks our garden. I love it there. Last year it was hard for me to have regular times with God but this year I'm really trying harder to do this when Joshua is sleeping even if there's heaps of housework to do. I've started a word study on mothering which I'm finding good. I want to learn God's way to be a mother. Along with this, Jay and I are doing a Marriage Course run by Alpha, really recommend it. My focus at the moment is to be the best Mum and wife I can be to help the two men God has given me to be all He wants them to be.
Bye for now, ,much love Mary.