This past week we have been camping in the Whitewater region near Renfrew, ON.

It has been relaxing being in the outdoors, even if I haven’t been sleeping the greatest in the tent.

I spent some time down at the lake tonight before supper with my oldest son. It was nice just looking out over the lake and the surrounding trees. We also spent some time talking.

It definately is a change of pace being out here. I like it, it reminds me of the series I taught in Catalyst called “God is Green”.

Tomorrow, I might try and rent a canoe for an hour or a kayak.

The last two days spent in Cape Cod, rain for one day and travel back to Massena NY the other day.

Day 7 we took a short trip up to the North end of the Cape, to Provincetown. This town is where the Pilgrams stayed for 40 days before going to Plymouth. It definately has a New England fishing town look to it.

We did two geocaches while there, went for two tracking items. Got them and bringing them back up to Canada. One cache was located in the sand dunes, this was one tough trek, massive slops of sand to climb. Thought I was in a desert, except for the lack of extreme heat.

The drive back was such a scenic drive, and it seemed that I used less gas, must be because I had the wheel bearing changed, I guess.

Yesterday we went on the recommendation of the activity co-ordinator to the historic town of Sandwich. She said there were lots of local shops to walk through and shop in. Disappointed on that one, not sure what she was thinking, we only went in one shop. Not many shops, a couple at most. Odd recommendation.

There were a couple of good things about the trip however; historic route 6A and the sea captain towns, and the boardwalk.

Route 6A is rated as one of the most scenic in the USA.

We took a nice walk on the boardwalk, lots of the boards had names of people engraved or sayings. Beautiful location.

In the evening we setoff to find a couple of geocaches to get the trackable geocoins. However, someone did not update the cache logs because the items were not there. The first one we did was a nice short walk into the woods. The second one was a bit of a funny one, I couldn’t find the parking, the driving directions on my blackberry took me into two homes private driveway. So we knocked on the door of one home, no one answered. So we thought the cache wasn’t to far away on the GPS, let’s go for it. We found the location fast and jumped in the van and drove away. The whole time I was thinking one of the home owners was going to flatten our tires, or call the cops because they saw 4 of us roaming around the property.

In the evening relaxing and swimming in the pool.

Up in the morning yesterday we decided to do some geocaching. The GM at the resort is a geocacher and I asked him for a cache to try. He suggested Eagle Point. The location was amazing, nice trail in and around a huge pond (more like a lake). The cache was hidden on a highpoint offering a tremendous view. We dropped the last geocoin we brought down, the iCache geocoin.

After that cache, we went to Shiverick Shipyard. This was a microcache, easy find, but offered some interesting information about the shipyard and the vessals that were built there; clippers and schooners.

The afternoon was a bit of a downer as I had to get the van fixed, right side front bearing and hub. The parts were high enough, but labor was a killer, 90USD for an hour. Ouch. Prayer is needed for my member of the junky car club.

After I got back, went and played racquetball and a swim with the kids. I had to teach the boys how to play a real game of racquetball.

In the evening we all sat down for country night at American Idol.

The vacation on the Cape is going good. It is the off season, so there are a lot, I mean a lot of business closed for the season.

We took a drive down to the elbow of the Cape to Chatham. We stopped at the Chatham Lighthouse.

Then we went over to the Fisherman’s Wharf. Saw a couple of fisherman prepping their boat. Would have liked to see a boat unload their catch.

In the evening we went out to find some real fish and chips eateries. That was harder then it sounds, due to it being the off season. I am sure we paid a premium for it.

After that we drove over to Cape Cod Bay to watch the sunset. Nice and peaceful. I could see myself having prayer walks in that setting. I had a little talk with God while sitting down with my daughter.

When I checked the geocache locations on Cape Cod by Brewster one of the ones that was interesting was Tidal. It was located out in the ocean when the tide went out.

We headed out and spent a couple of hours walking to the location. We started from a bad parking spot, so it took some time to get there. When we got close within a few hundred meters the tide was starting to come back in, and the water was to deep to continue. But it was cool to walk on the ocean floor.

Later in the day we went to Nauset Beach. The waves were big and the kids thought it was pretty cool to throw rocks in the ocean. They also played with a big yellow lab on the beach. We were hoping to see some seals, but no luck on that front.

Driving around the small towns on the Cape is beautiful, some amazing looking homes. It would be really nice to come back in the summer.

Yesterday was the first day on the Cape, we took it pretty easy due to the long drive the day before.

We went swimming in the pool a couple of times. The boys played racquetball and shuffleboard.

We checked out the high tide at one of the local beaches.

We did some geocaching, we dropped some geocoins we brought from Canada. We took a geocoin that we will bring back to Canada. The cache was located by one of the many ponds on Cape Cod. Absolutely beautiful spot. The walk on the trail was very peaceful.

Lack of WiFi in the condo makes it hard to post some photos. Will try sometime this week when I am in the Commons building.

We started the trip from Massena NY. The highlight of that road was passing through a massive Wind Farm. Driving on the two lane roads through NY and Vermont was cool, passing through small town America.

The mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire offered amazing views.

Driving through Boston gave us traffic and added an hour to our trip. We arrived under the stars in Brewster on Cape Cod.

The house at the resort is very nice.

This is the first vacation for B4.

I wish a was a better photographer, as so far I could see some amazing shots.

This is also the first post from my Blackberry (HT Don Ryan for the Wordpress plugin. The name of it escapes me)

Here is an update from the past 4 days. 

Friday was our first outing out of the foster home with just our daughter.  My wife and I took here over to Cosmic Adventures. Once she got into the ball pit to play, she just wanted to run to all the different structures in the under 3 area.  It was so fun to be there with her.

Saturday was another big day, on this day she met her new brothers and sister for the first time.  Her three older siblings were so excited to meet her in person for the first time.  They knew that they needed to allow her to become adjusted to them.  It was lunch time so we headed to Wendy’s.  Then we all went to the Aviation Museum, we knew that it was a huge wide open hanger that she could run and explore with the added bonus of the huge airplanes to give her something to look at.  They also have a fun kids area that they all could play together with some toy airplanes.  She absolutely had a blast with brothers and sister.

Sunday was the first day that she could come over to her new home.  She spent the afternoon with us, and played in the family room, explored the upstairs, and loved how she could make a maze through the upstairs and keep finding Mom.  She had supper with us, and laughed with the kids at the table.  Then we had to bring her to the foster home and my wife was able to put her down to sleep for the night.

Today she was over again for the afternoon, and had so much fun.  She kept going into her new room and looking at her bed and smiling and laughing as she walked around.  We had to bring her to the foster home again and put her to bed.  This is a very hard thing to do, to leave the foster home and drive back home without her. 

We have a few days left in the transition.  The adoption is to be finalized this Friday.

Here is an update on our adoption process. Here is my last post on it.

We got the call on Monday that we would go and meet our new daughter Tuesday for the first time in person at the foster parents home.  Then we would plan the transition phase on Friday.  We were happy that we could meet her for the first time, but we weren’t pleased that we would have to wait a few days before the transition would start on Friday.  That would be very hard.

We went to the house and our daughter came right over to my wife to have her pick her up. We then got to spend the next hour playing with toys with her. 

We got a surprise as we got to set the schedule for the transition while there, and it started today, and it is set until next Monday.  The next couple of days we go to the foster home, for her to get more comfortable with us. Friday, my wife and I get to take her out for a few hours to a playplace.  Saturday our other kids get to meet her for the first time, and Sunday she comes to our house all afternoon and we bring her back to the foster home to put her to bed. Monday we set the rest of the schedule after her doctor appointment.  Hopefully, middle to end of next week, she will be in our home permanently. So far things are going very good with the transition.

Our case worker is very good, and has been really getting things in place and the process moving at the right pace, as we had thought we wouldn’t get to start the transition until Friday. 

Today’s visit was very good, we brought a couple of pictures over to leave with her, so that she can look at them when we are not there and the foster parents will talk to her about us and point to the pictures. We started being called Mommy & Daddy to her today.  Again, when we got there, she had my wife pick her up.  We also got to give hugs and play games.

The foster mother also told us today that she thought our daughter was meant for us, that we are the right people to adopt her.  You could tell that she was saying that from her heart as well.

The hardest part is leaving the house, and having to wait until the next day. It plays on your emotions. But in a short time she will be here permanently.  We have also been getting lots of encouraging emails, Facebook posts and messages, Twitter DM’s and @replys, and phone calls.

It is such an incredible experience.

During the first week of vacation, these were some things that we did as a family.

The 2nd week of vacation for us, had us doing the following:

- Found out we were matched to a 19 month little girl to adopt into our family.
- Went to the Royal Canadian Mint, where we found out a lot of cool information about Canadian coins and the process to make them. Very interesting fact was that Canadian can refine the purest form of gold, 99.999. Also, Canadian has made the biggest currency coin; face value $1 million dollars and there are 5 made….collector value 3.5 million. Canada also make coins for other countries, 15-20 in total.
- Next stop was the Aviation Museum
- New Year’s Eve service at Calvary Church
- Went down to Upper Canada Village for the Alight at Night in Morrisburg, Ontario.
- Played some more of the Wii console.

This post is kind of a mini dump of some thoughts that I have been thinking about since receiving the phone call on Friday about the adoption match.  About my little girl…..

• I have been wondering everyday what you would be doing since I heard about you.
• When I was closing my eyes to sleep, I wondered if you were sleeping already
•  Did you wake up through the night?
• What did you dream last night?
• When I have a meal, are you eating at the same time?
• Did you play with your favorite toy?
• I found out today that you have an ear infection and pink eye….are you doing ok, I wish I could be with you to help.
• Do you feel better tonight?
• What do you look like, I get to see a picture for the first time tomorrow.
• I wore a blue shirt today, what color did you wear?
• Your brothers and sister played on the Wii today, they want to build you a Mii character
• I prayed for you and so did everyone else.
• Faith Apostolic and Calvary Church will be praying for you
• We have been getting phone calls, Tweets, Facebook posts, and emails from people when then found out about you.
• Did you play in the snow over the weekend?
• I listened to some of my favorite music while working….I can’t wait for you to come into my office when I am working and sit on my knee and listen to music together.

We are excited to meet you!

Tags: Adoption, thoughts, daughter

This past week of my vacation our family has been spending time doing the following things together, (we stayed home for Christmas this year):

• Christmas Lights - Did the tour of the lights downtown around City Hall, Confederation Park and Parliament Hill. Then through Taffey Lane, there were a few houses not done up as much this year, but we did venture into someone’s backyard that was nicely lit up with LEDs off their patio, the homeowner was telling us that it makes for a nice dinner scene.
• Geocaching - Went into the Larose forest just south of Bourget and did our first winter geocache.  Went through at some points of deep snow, mid-thigh high snow.  Took some nice winter pictures of the kids climbing some downed trees.
• Wii - Playing the new Nintendo Wii: Wii Sports and Wii Fit. Will be connecting with the Wii Speak to talk with my parents and so the kids can play their aunt on Mario Kart. (We limit who our kids connect over the Internet on the computer and consoles)
• Christmas Eve Service - Before service we went over to Perkins to have dinner together, and then attended Christmas Eve service at our church in Ottawa.
• Massena, NY - Last weekend we spent a couple of nights over in Massena, and this coming weekend we will go down on Saturday night as well.
• Next week - A few more activities planned.

Tags: FamilyTime, Christmas Lights, Geocaching, Wii, Wii Speak, Christmas Eve Service, Massena NY, Christmas, Massena, New York, Cornwall

This past Sunday we were in Ottawa for the weekend services, as our children were in the church Children’s Program.  The two youngest ones were part of the sign language group, “Little Hands of Praise.”  The whole family was thinking about how it was going in Cornwall at Faith Apostolic. My middle son asked me who was in Cornwall speaking in the evening service (Sr. Pastor canceled the evening service there) when he saw Kofi back Sunday night in Ottawa. He was concerned that there would be people sitting in the church and no one to preach.

After the program was completed, I was standing in the lobby of the church with just my Dad, and he said that he had something to tell me, he told me that he has been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer.  His specialist said that he has a low PSA rating, and that they are going to monitor it every three months.  He may need to get the seed in a year and a half.  He has not been sleeping well for the past three weeks as a result.  Yesterday, my parents were also going to my older sister place to let her and her husband know. 

A few years ago my Dad went through some health issues with Diverticulitis and it wasn’t looking good until he was finally able to get a surgery to remove a grapefruit sized pouch, since then his health had improved.

Please pray for my parents and that Jesus can touch my Dad with a healing of his body. 

Tags: ProstateCancer, Diverticulitis, Dad, Ottawa, Cornwall, Faith Apostolic

Lately I have not been in a regular blog rhythm…some of that can be attributed to Twitter, I use Twitter a lot more and short posts that may have been done on the blog are now on Twitter.  So if you read this blog and are not following me on Twitter, check it out and subscribe to my Twitter feed.

Here is a quick list of things that have been going on. in my life. Blogging has be slower lately, which is odd because I am on the laptop so much. I am going to try to give a recap post for each of the following this week; hopefully that will get me into a regular rhythm again.

1. Cornwall - The past few weekends we have been going down to Cornwall preaching in the services there.  This past weekend, the kids were away, so my wife and I went down on Saturday night and stayed over in Massena, NY.
2. Adoption Training - Each Wednesday evening and this past Saturday (all-day) we have been going through the PRIDE adoption training.  We have also had homework after each session to complete….some weeks it is more then others.
3. Adoption Meetings with Case Worker - We had a couple meetings with our case worker, one being with interviews with our children.
4. Catalyst - The weekends that we are not down in Cornwall, Catalyst is held.
5. BMX Season Wrap-Up - We have completed the BMX Season, and I am wrapping up the loose ends and preparing for the AGM at the end of September.

Tags: Cornwall, Adoption training, PRIDE, Catalyst, BMX, Massena NY

This past week we had our third training session for PRIDE Adoption training.  We dealt with the topic of “Attachment.”

There was one video that was played that was just words and children voices.  We were warned that many people breakdown during this video presentation and there were tissues at everyone’s seats.  After watching we had to comment on what we thought.  My reaction was two-fold, I wanted to give my children a big hug and tell them how much I loved them, and also I wanted to give a big hug and tell the voice of the adopted child that I love them and that they are safe in our family.

Lots of reading to do between sessions and homework.

Tags: adoption, family

Last night my wife and I after church had the opportunity to talk with an older couple in our church that adopted a child over 30 years ago. They are actually this week going to visit the birth mother in British Columbia. They shared some of the experiences they had over the years. 

They have been open with their son from day one that he was adopted.  Later in his life he decided to contact his birth mother, what stuck out to me as they explained this was how their son honored them through this process.  He wanted them to understand that even when he made contact with her, that they were still his parents and that would never change. 

They were excited to know that we have started the process of adoption. They told us that the experience has been absolutely magnificent for them.

This coming Wednesday, we have our second training session; actually it will be session 3 as Saturday was considered two sessions.

Tags: adoption, family

Today we had our first sessions for our adoption training, called PRIDE. We started at 9am and ended at 4pm, and yes it was a long day. There was some group work, interactive communication between the group and instructor, and we have homework to complete for Wednesday night. There were 16 people in our session today, with 4-6 people absent (they will have to make up the sessions). We also have a lot of reading to do, the training material they handed out, the instructor called it a brick.

The training is not just for Adoption parents, but also Foster and Kinship parents. I find the training geared more to Foster parents so far. There were less adoption parents then both Foster and Kinship in our group.

Here are some stats on Ottawa that stuck out to me today:

Families Receiving Services from CAS: 1965
Children in Ottawa CAS Care: 850
Children Who are Crown Wards: 410
Kinship Homes: 30
Foster Homes: 201
Adoptive Homes Available and in Use: 66

Tomorrow our case worker comes over to our house to begin our homestudy process. In a couple of weeks we also start the PRIDE education sessions.

I have been playing around with some new Wordpress Templates. There was one that really fit with the title of the blog graphic wise, but I can’t get it to work. I am going with this template for now, not sure how long I will leave this one on for.

Also, this evening I had to take the front tire off the car to check the brakes. So I am walking out outside after finishing work and I am getting the jack from the trunk and start to position it under the car. My wife who was outside looks at me and ask me what I am doing, I say I am going to take the tire off and check the brakes…she says, “do you know what you are doing?” With that look that your wife gives, when she is sure you have no idea, and then says, “I going in to make dinner”….I am not known for being a mechanic. Just to note, the tire is back on the car after successfully taking it off.

Yesterday, we went down to Cornwall again, for both the AM and PM services. This week my wife did a session for the Children downstairs. She tried the sample material from Kidmo. It looked like it would be fun. The only downside of it is the $$$ to purchase. The people were very excited that the kids were going to be heading downstairs, as they have not had a session for the kids in quite some time.

I spoke in the morning session on reframing our problems through worship. Praying to God about what he wants us to learn or get out of the situation. We need to zoom out of the situation through worship. Just like Paul and Silas did in Acts 16. They made the choice to worship instead of complaining about their situation. One of the purest forms of worship is when things are not going well, when it seems that the walls are coming down on us. When you worship God when things seems to be at their lowest, you never know what will happen. Worship reframes our problems. It helps us to refocus, it helps us to have a different outlook.

In the evening service I spoke on embracing uncertainty in our journey with Christ. The journey means that we may have to step out into the unknown, it may go against common sense. That maybe required to reach the God-given potential and destiny. Examples used: Jonathan (I Sam 14:6), Abraham (Hebrews 11:8), Noah (Gen 6:22). Life is always filled with uncertainty, God is infinitely complex, just when we think we have Him figured out, we find a new things about Him and His plans for our life. We have limits, He does not, we need to embrace the uncertainty that comes with being a follower of Christ. As Carrie Underwood sings, we need to let Jesus Take the Wheel on the journey. We need to expect the unexpected. Anything can happen on the journey, and that is exciting.

They asked us if we were going to be down again next week. We are not sure yet, because our Sr. Pastor is to let us know this week when we are going to be going down in the month of October.

Today my wife and I had to go back to CAS Ottawa to meet with our new case worker. Our previous one changed jobs so we were reassigned.  We basically had to go back through the same questions as the first interview with our first case worker. 

We also found out that we have been slotted into the Adoption training program - PRIDE.  We are also going to be going through the SAFE Home Study.  This starts in 3 weeks.

Tags: Adoption, Case Worker, CAS, CAS Ottawa, PRIDE Training, SAFE Home Study

Here is a slideshow of some geocaching pictures

Last night my daughter and I went for a geocache and we took a side road that turned into a dirt road, which led to me trying to make my way around a bug puddle. The result, $60+ tow truck pulled us out. No way I was getting it out. I even tried having her push the gas pedal as I tried to push us out, no go.

The pics are some locations where found some geocaches.

BubbleShare: Share photos -

A few weeks ago we had dinner with the family my wife does daycare for. During the evening they introduced to me geocaching, explained what it is about and what caches they have found etc. It sounded like a good hobby for the family to try out. It would also add a different element to our walks through the forest that my daughter just loves to do. We bought a GPS unit off ebay and last week we tried out the two closest caches planted near our house.

Tonight after supper my youngest son and I took the GPS unit off to a small island near our house to track down a Travel Bug (check the definition below). It was getting dark so we brought a flash light with us. Once we got there, my son was excited to find this trackable item in the cache. We were making our way through some long grass and ferns before we found it at the base of some trees. I had to end up piggybacking my son through for most of the trek. The comment of the night that he made, “Dad if a wild animal takes me away you would chase after it wouldn’t you?” Classic.

I am post some pictures of our trek in the next few days….that is if I do not forget.

Definition - geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.

Travel Bug - Simply put, a Groundspeak Travel Bug is a trackable tag that you attach to an item. This allows you to track your item on Geocaching.com. The item becomes a hitchhiker that is carried from cache to cache (or person to person) in the real world and you can follow its progress online.

This past Sunday my family and I were asked by our Sr. Pastor to go down to Cornwall and speak in the service there. This was the second time in the past couple of months that we have been there. This time it was for Sunday morning as there were no Sunday night services for the month of August. For those that do not know, this church is a daughter church of Calvary Church. There is currently no lead pastor locally in Cornwall and that means the lead Pastor at the moment is our Sr. Pastor. The church is a small church, there were about 10 people out this past Sunday morning, and one child.

I spoke on the topic of “Defying the Odds, Overcoming Obstacles.” I really felt that this topic fit for this local church, with everything that they have been through over the past few years. Also, with some of the news and history in the city, makes for some strangleholds on it. This makes for some odds set against this local church. This makes for some obstacles to overcome.

The scripture text that I used was,

2 Samuel 23:
“20 And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man, of Kabzeel, who had done many acts, he slew two lionlike men of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow: 21 And he slew an Egyptian, a goodly man: and the Egyptian had a spear in his hand; but he went down to him with a staff, and plucked the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand, and slew him with his own spear. 22 These things did Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and had the name among three mighty men. 23 He was more honourable than the thirty, but he attained not to the first three. And David set him over his guard.”

Some points made:
- He defied the odds.
- He didn’t focus on his disadvantages.
- He didn’t make excuses.
- He didn’t try to avoid situations where the odds were against him.
- God is bigger and more powerful then any problem faced in this world.
- Impossible odds set the stage for amazing miracles
- God sometimes invites us to defy impossible odds.
- Maybe it is one way He can show us His omnipotence?
- Maybe God allows the odds to be stacked against us so He can reveal more of His glory?

I closed with these questions:
So how big is your God?
Is He bigger than your biggest problem?
Is He bigger than your worst failure
Is He bigger than your greatest fear?

Then we had a good time in the alter.

At the end of the service my wife and two youngest kids were talking with a young boy that was there, really wanting to have Sunday School. So the next time we are there, my wife told him she would have a class ready for him to go to. My kids also were pretty excited to know that they would help in getting a class ready for the next time. With this being the first Sunday morning we were there, we were not aware that there would be none. We are supposed to be going back a couple more times in September, just not sure the dates as of yet.