21 Aug 08
I have to pinch myself to really believe it’s summer. I’m feeling a little homesick for a good Calgary summer. August has been full of either rainy days or cloudy days. This picture of Lauren says it all.
This has been a fairly quiet month, no drama rehearsals, or life groups, so we’ve had our evenings to ourselves. We are however working on preparing for The Marriage Course. Doug and I have wanted to do something to “enrich” our marriage ever since we moved here. After some discussion with our life group leaders we decided to encourage a course in our church. The pastor and his wife and then the four of us from life group are now taking the course in preparation for leading it starting the beginning of October. This course is produced by Holy Trinity Brompton, the same church that began the Alpha Course. It uses the book, ‘The Five Love Languages’, which is a fantastic read and every couple should read it!
As we mentioned in July, we have a little program that we do with Lauren daily. Now that it’s been six or so weeks since we started we can definitely say there is some great improvement. We struggle to get her to sit still for some of the things, and we’ve had to adapt some of them, but overall, we are quite pleased. Today for example, she had a lot of stuff to say, most of it gibberish, but she is starting to try to communicate more and more. Her balance and leg strength has come on in a huge way. Beside her program, we go swimming once a week and we go to Funky Monkey’s once a week. FM is a soft play place, Lauren has learned to climb and be more confident. We are quite encouraged!
16 Jul 08
Lauren and I are going it alone this week. Doug is gone for 11 days! We miss him!
Just to give a bit of an update on Lauren, at the beginning of July we went to a place called Brainwave. Lauren is now 21 months old and we are seeing some definite lags in her development. We felt at a loss as to how to help her. From all our reading we knew that the sooner we get on it, the better it is for her.
Initially Brainwave does a two day assessment and so we travelled down to Somerset which is about two hours away and stayed a few nights. Brainwave has accommodation right on site, so it was very convenient. The care and attention we received was amazing. We had so much contact ahead of time and they try to think of every little detail.
We were given a graph to show which areas Lauren was doing well in, such as major motor skills and socialization and which she needed work, like communication and cognitive. Then some great time was spent with Lauren to develop and little program specifically for her. She also got some hydro-therapy (fancy word for swim time) and here she is having a great time.
We now have a 20 minute program to do with her 5 days a week. For the most part it’s fun for her, but it does make her work a bit so she sometimes gets frustrated. We are excited to see her progress. The team at brainwave told us she has excellent potential.
On our way back from Somerset, we decided to visit the city of Bath. What a beautiful place! The buildings are all built of beautiful stone and look very grand. Many of the streets are full of long rows of stately looking homes. They probably cost a fortune!
The city was buzzing with people, had a plethora of great shopping and had lovely parks too. I told Doug that we definitely had to go back since we only had about 3 hours to visit there. Click here to see all the photos from Bath.
As some of you may know, my birthday was last week (and for those of you that didn’t know, please mark July 8th in your calendar for next year… YELLOW roses are my favorite). It was a busy day so we didn’t do much but go out for a quick dinner before going to our marriage course. What Doug did do was this.
He made me a little card all by himself using my stamps and paper. What a guy! And my pressie (present in british slang) is to go back to Bath sometime - and stay overnight! I’m very looking forward to that!
In case you are wondering, that green website is my Stampin’ Up! blog. As a demonstrator, I’m trying to have a spot for my customers to come to get some ideas and inspiration.
30 Jun 08
June has been a full and fun month!
Doug’s parents came for weeks visit. We spent a couple days in London with them and then they came out to Bedworth. This was their first overseas trip and they were two weeks visiting Doug’s Sister in Uzbekistan before us, so good job to them! Lauren had so much fun with Grandpa and Grandma.
Here they are by the London Tower Bridge:
Midmonth, we had my good friend Mylee come for a visit. Mylee and I have been friends since our days in Bible College. We had some great fun with her, we took her to North Wales, a spot we hadn’t visited yet. It’s on the coast, a little place called Llandudno. I kind of know how to pronounce it, but if I do, I might spit on you!
Here’s Mylee and I on the Pier:
After a week with us, Mylee and I went on to have a short visit to Paris. I know what you are thinking, what kind of amazing husband do I have? Doug is awesome, taking care of Lauren, taking time off work, allowing me to go to Paris without him. Mylee and I had a FABULOUS time, it was so beautiful, the tree lined streets and atmosphere in Paris is AMAZING! I wished Doug was there to share it with me, so I guess that means I’ll just have to go back!
I have so many photos of Paris, I’ll just have to do another post later with some good shots. But here’s the classic, the Eiffel Tower.
Finally, the last week of June we had four visitors at the same time, although two of them were much smaller. Derek and Lara and their two boys Caleb and Keon honoured us with some time on their European tour. Once again, we had the pleasure of playing tour guide and just having some good fun. Lara is another old and very good friend, so it was such a pleasure to see her (and Derek too!). Their kids are adorable and Lauren loved having friends to play with every day! Here’s a shot of the three kids while we were in Stratford upon Avon.
28 May 08
Hello!
I have no good excuse for not posting much this last month… i just forgot! Doug kindly reminded me that it had been a while.
Lets see, at the beginning of the month I attended the Colour conference in London. Doug took care of Lauren, and I spent two great days with three other ladies. The Colour conference is a womens conference put on by Hillsong Church. Each year they do the conference in Australia, London and in Kyiv. It was a fantastic experience and really challenged me in some areas. It was held in the Royal Albert Hall, what a gorgeous building, it’s breath taking. Judith Linnell and I stayed in a sketchy hotel, and that was an experience in itself!
Lauren has had a couple of doctor appointments this month. She had her eye check up, she has these every 6 months, as there is a possibility her Tuberous Sclerosis could affect her sight. This last appointment showed everything is great, no concerns. PRAISE GOD! Her other appointment was with the Neurologist at the Birmingham Children’s Hospital. He was very, very impressed at how well she has progressed physically. This was very encouraging to us! While the medicine she is currently on has not changed anything with her seizures, we have a plan to try a new medicine in the next month. She has also had a hearing assessment, as her speech is not coming along, we discovered that she has fluid in her inner ear, which can affect her ability to hear well. We’ll check again in three months to see if the fluid has left yet.
I took a baby resuscitation course this month too, very handy information to have, I should have took it much sooner. With my stamp selling business, things have been very slow, so I booked a table at a small craft fair a few weeks ago. It turned out to be very profitable, I’ve got two new parties booked a several other people interested in attending parties. This month our drama team is working on the drama for the 5th commandment, which is honour your father and mother. In this one, my character and her husband are annoyed at their Mother in Laws. It’s the funniest one yet, it’s great fun to be a part of this group of people, we have a great time every Monday.
This past weekend was a long weekend (Bank Holiday weekend is what they call it here), and we went to visit the lovely Tal and Jim who live in Monkland, Herefordshire. This county is the least populated county in England and is just full of lovely rolling hills and green pastures. The weather didn’t cooperate, but we managed to see Berrington Hall and Croft Castle. Mostly it was just a chance to get away for the weekend, Tal and Jim are such wonderful hosts, and won’t let you lift a finger to help. They just adore Lauren, even after all the noise and destruction she caused! Their house is definitely not toddler proof, but we managed to avert any great disasters.
Today, Doug’s Mom and Dad arrive in London. They have just spent the last two weeks visiting his sister in Uzbekistan. We drive into London tomorrow and will spend the next couple days showing them the great city. Hopefully the sun will shine for us! Then they’ll come out to us in Bedworth and we show them around Warwickshire. We are looking forward to this!
And here finally are a few photo’s of Lauren from the last month:
In the sundress her Grandma Schultz sent her:
Playing in the back yard, we’ve had some nice weather this month:
4 May 08
Doug’s Grandpa, George Rieger passed away last Wednesday. His funeral is on Tuesday. Just want to honour and remember him. Here’s a picture of the last time we saw him before we left Canada.
29 Apr 08
Lauren is officially a toddler now! She walks everywhere! She loves it and we have a hard time getting her to hold our hands now. Sometimes it still surprises us when we see her pop up and walk to us, she’s becoming such a little person.We went on a short break this past weekend to the Yorkshire Dales. I had no idea what to expect, which is the best way really. It blew me away how beautiful it was. The first day we were there the sun was completely hidden, but it seemed to suit the area, all misty and grey. Anyway, the Yorkshire Dales is a national park, but it has a unique look of green rocky hills. Here are a few pictures.
We saw new lambs frolicking everywhere, they were so cute!
This is the Malham Cove, a large sandstone fault.
Dry stone walls as far as the eye can see.
This is by far the cutest thing we saw in the dales.
We stayed at a fabulous old manor house that has been converted, we felt so at home and comfortable there, it really made the weekend. Saturday was spent at a little village and we did a lovely walk along the river and looking at an old ruined Abbey. A friendly passerby kindly took this picture for us!
I (Kara) am off to London tomorrow to attend a womens conference called Colour, connected to the Hillsongs churches worldwide. I’m going with Judith Linnell, Doug’s coworker, and we are looking forward to the time away and looking forward to hearing from God. I will be sure to share more about it when I return!
14 Apr 08
The much anticipated walking video. She started walking on Easter monday. Like a proud daddy I stood her up on the floor to demonstrate to the Green family how wonderful she was standing all alone. She fumbled with her soother for a bit, got it in her mouth and then took six full steps before launching toward a couch.
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29 Mar 08
Since Christmas I have busy working on an Easter Production with the drama team at church. It was a huge cast and undertaking for just three months, but we had amazing feedback - wish I could have seen it for myself!
This is the first scene. The play has several different stories that intertwine. The guy on the right is the tour guide through the museum where we are looking at the “live” Last Supper painting.
After we leave the stage, the scene comes alive. From that scene on you see the whole of the last days leading up to the crucifixion.
These two shots are my scene with Anna Karin, she is the director of the drama. The first shot shows that she has only one shoe on. In this scene she went to kick a balled up piece of paper and she kicked her shoe off into the audience, so when she is supposed to be angry, she can’t stop laughing and neither can the audience. Backstage, we couldn’t see what had happened, we couldn’t figure out why everyone was laughing. So I came on the scene and I supposed to ask what has made her so angry. (She’s actually upset cause she won the lottery, but everyone keeps coming and asking her for money). Trying hard not to laugh, she told me she “lost” her shoe. Since that wasn’t an actual line, I had to think quick and asked her “where did you last put it”? This made the audience just roar with laughter.
This is the scene where the angry crowd shouts “crucify Him” and “give us Barabas”! That’s me in the background in pink, trying to “blend” in. Rich, the guy who plays Jesus is our life group leader (along with his wife) and they are good friends. He did a fantastic job of his role, he took it very seriously and worked very hard to accurately portray the emotions.
We did two performances on Easter Weekend and we had a lot of new people come. Our drama team became very close, it was a fantastic experience! In other news…. Lauren took her first steps this past Monday. We don’t think she knew what she was doing, but it won’t be long now before she’s running and we can’t catch her!
21 Mar 08
I realized that I hadn’t posted any photos of Lauren in quite a while. Here are a couple I snapped yesterday. I’m desperate to catch one of her beautiful toothy smile. These aren’t exactly what I was looking for but I’ll keep trying!
