Happy Anniversary to Us!

Well today is our 31st Wedding Anniversary .....somehow since it is May 31st, it seems appropriate to blog this occassion. We enjoyed a dinner out tonight at one of our favorite restaurants here in town, and then they surprised us with a free dessert and a rendition of 'Happy Anniversary' by the serving staff! I had to capture the moment with a picture since they say that a picture is worth a thousand words!! This post is dedicated to my awesome, amazing husband who is the love of my life! Thanks for putting up with me for the last 31 years!!

After dinner we went over to Heather's and played some card games with her since Matt is out of town......since it was raining again when we got home, I just had to cut some of my peonies before they end up laying on the ground because of the water weighing their stems down. This one captured the prize....I tried to hold it so you could see my hand and get some idea of how large the actual blossom is! And no, I did not plan my finger nail polish to match the flower!! (nice color though if I do say so myself!)


Dave's Mom is here for a visit and we took this picture of her and Megan on Sunday....two Mrs. Becks! How exciting for Grandma to be able to see Megan pregnant with her first great grandchild. She doesn't want to be called Great Grandma, so we agreed on Grandma the Great instead!

I've Been Tagged!

Well, it happened...Heather tagged Megan and now Megan tagged me. Since I absolutely love reading other people's tags, I feel it is only fair that I take the time to give you some glimpses of my life that you might otherwise never see!(and yes, it is true, I am a Blog Stalker and Dave tells me that only people without a life do that...so guess what? I guess I am a people without a life! He just doesn't get it! ;-) But I love him anyway!)

1. Although I love people and it is probably hard to believe, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Zoology and Chemistry from the Unversity of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, a very long time ago! In case you are wondering whatever possessed me to do such a thing, I hated English and in those days if you were in the Science Faculty, you didn't have to take any English courses! I took one language course, a German Literature course, but that is another thing you may or may not know(see #2).

2. Which brings me to #2.....I am a first generation Canadian, which means that my parents were immigrants. As a result, my first language was German and that is all I spoke until I got to school in Grade 1. Imagine what a shock that was! And yes, I still speak German and love to practise it any chance I get! It's a challenge to remember the vocabulary and sometimes my grammar stinks, but I speak it just the same!

3. I spent a summer between my first and second years of University travelling through Europe(mostly Germany and Austria) with a good friend. Unfortunately, she went ahead of me and worked for six months so I had to fly over on my own when school was out. At precisely midnight of the day I was flying, ALL, and yes, that meant, ALL, the commercial pilots in the world went on strike and every plane was diverted to the nearest airport!! Imagine the chaos when instead of landing in Frankfurt, Germany I landed in London, England and the immigration authorities wouldn't allow any of us out of the airport terminal or through customs!!! We had to wait 8 hours until morning to try to find a new way to proceed and I ended up in Hamburg, Germany instead! What craziness! Some day I hope that I can take Dave back to that awesome continent and show him the haunts of my youth! My favorite city was Vienna and someday I will be back!

4. Heather gets her OCD from my side of the family! Without a doubt!! I am borderline and can get quite ridiculous about certain things. But I try really hard(as does my entire family, thank you Dave and kids) to not let it rule my life. However, when it comes to bathroom fawcets, pillows on the living room furniture and the direction pictures are facing on furniture, yes, it is sad but true, all need to be a certain way or I will go around rearranging them! I have tried to leave them but I can't...does that spell OCD?

5. I cannot go to sleep when I have lost or misplaced something! Unlike Dave who just rolls over and forgets about it, I will stay up until all hours of the night, searching in every nook and cranny for that which is lost! It drives me crazy that I have to find it, and more crazy that he doesn't! So even when it is something he loses or misplaces, I am the one staying up half the night to find it! Oh dear...does this also spell OCD?

6. For some of you this won't be a surprise or even random, but I have an insatiable need to know! So the way my family and good friends reel me in is to tell me that there is something I don't know and then not tell me!!! It drives me crazy! And in their quest to rid me of my idiosyncracies, they will sometimes do that just because they know it drives me crazy! Oh the joy of people that love me!

And now I get to tag three people! Since most people my age are totally unaware of how tagging works, this is going to be a challenge. But there are some of you out there, my friends, who I would love to know 6 Random things about, so I tag, Nancy, Laurie, and Jods! (Heather also tagged you so I am hoping that this will motivate you to blog today!) Love all of you!

A Visit to Lake Hart, Florida

One of the highlights of our visit to Florida last week for me was being able to visit the International Headquarters of Campus Crusade for Christ in Orlando. This was my first opportunity to see where the hub of the ministry is located!
We were actually staying across the Lake at the US Headquarters of Wycliffe ..... so we could see the Crusade buildings from where we were.
Notice the bars on the windows....hurricane insurance! And hurricane season begins next week in Florida. All the windows provided great natural lighting for the over 900 staff that work at Headquarters.
As we toured through the office, Dave pointed out Canada on one of the large banners of the various Area of Affairs. 

Ooops...I upgraded Picassa and don't know how to blog all my pictures anymore....

Yup, it's true! I finally upgraded my Picassa program and now I don't know how to post all of the pictures in my tray...Eeeks! I will have to figure that out before my next post...here are just a couple more pictures I thought you would all enjoy..... Megan doesn't even look pregnant from the back so I took this picture so she could see too!





Here she is making the delicious spinach salad! It was scrumptious!
Here's Heather...can you tell that she has been enjoying the warm weather out on their porch? She is doing a great job of keeping her Dominican Tan!
I had to include this picture too even tho it was taken last weekend when we belatedly celebrated Heather's Birthday(which was Mary 4th for any of you that missed it) In our family everyone gets to pick their birthday meal and dessert and Heather wanted Lemon Meringue(I am sure that is spelled wrong...oh well) Pie.....since I was busy teaching at our Ministry Essentials Training on Saturday, I picked up her pie from the ABC Restaurant! Nobody can top their Mile High Pie! It was delicious!

Celebrating Mother's Day

It's been quite the couple of weeks since I last sat down to blog. We have had over 50 people through our home in that time, and have had several of the empty bedrooms filled at different times with friends from far away places. I had great intentions of blogging about everything that has happened, but it is 1:02 am Monday Morning and I really should be in bed. But I just had to give you a glimpse of my weekend...Saturday was spent with two of our Chat Hostess Team in North Vancouver. Here we were at the Cleveland Dam....an amazing reflection of God's Creation!
Today I was treated to Sunday Dinner at Jamie and Megan's house(the two couples take turns hosting Mother's and Father's Day each year) Matt, Jamie and Dave are enjoying their covered deck with it's view of the North Shore mountains. It was a perfect day out...sunny and warm. Only Jody and Darin were missing!

The kitchen table was moved into the Family Room so we would have more room to enjoy the stuffed pasta shells and spinach salad(thank you Megan) and the cheesecake for dessert(thanks to Heather) Everything was delicious and after the past two hectic weeks, I really appreciated the break from cooking!

This was Megan's first 'mother's day'.....I thought you might enjoy a glimpse of Baby Beck as Megs talks to her mother(Happy Mother's Day to you Nancy!) At 26 weeks Megan really does look like she has a basketball under her shirt! Such excitement and anticipation of the arrival of this little one some three months away.