The Royal Canadian Circus was supposed to be performing up in Fort McMurray this weekend, but that was obviously not going to work with the city evacuated. It must have been a pretty quick and harried number of phone calls to find a new venue, but they chose to come to Olds. The first night all the proceeds went to the Red Cross for the people of Fort McMurray, and they announced that they had raised $20,000.

This is the second time for the kids to go to this circus, and they really enjoyed it.

In May our three children participated in the A.C.E. Alberta Jr. Convention. There they got to compete with students from a few other schools in things like art, poetry, music, sports, science, etc.

Ellie (11 yeas old) wrote the poem below for a recent school competition. I thought she did an amazing job with it and it earned her 1st place for poetry!

Jesus, Our One and Only Saviour

They sat at the table, drinking wine and eating bread.
Sitting nearby was John. “Eat, Master,” he said.
“I feel grief,” came the reply.
“For my death is nigh.”

Ten minutes later, wine and bread all gone,
They went to the garden while they sang a song.
Jesus went to pray. They were to watch, but they fell asleep.
Just then soldiers came. Afraid, his friends didn’t make a peep.

Soldiers arrested Jesus—God’s Son, of all things!
The disciples could only wait to see what morning would bring.
Jesus was put on trial, had him falsely accused,
By this the disciples were not amused!

Worst of all, they had him crucified.
Peter was so sad and Bartholomew felt petrified.
When John got home, he cried himself to sleep.
Why did Jesus have to die? Oh he couldn’t help but weep.

Mary went to the tomb, when three days had gone by,
But when she got there, you could hear her cry.
She ran inside the tomb, but what did she find?
Two angels sitting, side by side!

“Good news! He is risen!” they said.
But their words didn’t get through her head.
She turned around to leave, distraught.
She saw someone. Maybe the gardener, she thought.

The man said, “Mary,” in the gentlest voice.
“Teacher!” she said and began to rejoice.
She ran to the disciples. She had so much to tell!
She told them all, “Jesus is alive and well!”

They said, “It all makes sense!
“How could we have been so dense!
“Jesus is God, who died so we could live,
“He rose again, so we have hope and hope to give.”

Ethan‘s Uncle Andrew helped him make a clock out of an old piece of wood. Thanks for all your help with this one, U. Drew!

Ethan also did a science display on crystals. He loves rocks and crystals, and he had been given a gift of a crystal growing kit. We also made some other crystals from scratch, and he had to do a bunch of reading on crystal formation and what crystals can be used for.

Ethan competed in a number of things. Naomi was especially pleased that he was willing to try things even though he knew he wasn’t good at them (such as sprinting). He had wanted to sing a duet with another boy, but when the other boy backed out, he wondered who he could get to sing with him. His big little sister, Adelaine, volunteered and the two both won first place for their song together. Ethan won in a number of areas, but here’s just a few highlights:

1st Place Woodworking

1st Place Lego Sculpture

2nd Place Science Exhibit

Adelaine is a very hard worker and very creative, so she put a number of art entries in, including drawing, a colouring page, cross stitch, lego sculpture, plus sang in three groups among other things. She also participated in several sports (she’s the athlete in the family). She won 10 awards. Here are a few of them:

1st Place Colouring Page

1st Place Coloured Sketch

1st Place Cross Stitch

3rd Place Lego Sculpture

1st Place Piano Solo

2nd Place Vocal Trio

1st Place 100m Race

Ellie had less time to prepare, but still managed to enter in several areas. She was very eager to do a science exhibit with her beta fish. She also sang with the school choir and built a lego sculpture. She did well in every area she competed in:

1st Place Lego Sculpture

1st Place Science Exhibit

1st Place Poetry

2nd Place Piano Solo

On a very hot Saturday the week of the fires in Fort McMurray, our kids, along with our neighbours grand-kids who were visiting, came up with the idea of an setting up a stand to raise money for the victims of the fires. We were working outside that day, and saw the kids starting to carry things to the front yard. Once we found out what they were doing, we were able to get some iced tea going and help them out. They put up signs and were waving to drivers going by. We saw some people drive by, turn around and come back to make a donation. We also had some friends in BC who saw a picture of it on social media send $50. At the end of the day, they had raised $200.30! Thanks to those who stopped by to buy a drink or donate money. The kids were very encouraged and thrilled to help out in some small way.

We have more wood than you can shake a stick at. Whatever that means.

I grew up surrounded by lots and lots of trees in New Brunswick. I love trees and was thrilled when the Lord provided a house for us on a property with many trees. They can be quite a bit of work though.

So far this year we have taken down 6 trees. A big poplar in the front yard was the first to go. It was on our property, but an old break on it had caused it to grow precariously out over our neighbour’s yard. You could see the dead section on it, and it was unknown how far down the rotten part went. Our fear was that it would fall over on its own soon, so we had to get it down. Because of the lean, much of the weight of the tree was off to one side, so we had to hire professionals to take it down.

After a few shocking price quotes, we found someone who could get it down for us for $1000. It’s painful to spend that much without really adding any value to your property. It took just about two hours to come down, and of course I took a time lapse.

All three kids were home that day, so they enjoyed watching the tree be taken apart piece by piece.

It was pretty rotten.

Last summer one of the four willow trees between our house and the neighbour’s fell down in a storm.  It turns out the base was completely rotted out, to the point that when it fell, it just broke off at ground level without any roots coming up. Thankfully, the woodpile took most of the weight, and the part of the tree that did hit our house simply snapped off because it was so rotten at the top too.

A quick glance and you would think the tree looked healthy, yet I could reach into the base and pull out handfuls of soft, wet wood. This made us a bit nervous about the other three willows that were the same age and could also hit our house. When we had an arborist take down the poplar, he pointed out signs of rot at the bottom of two trees, and fungus growing at the top of the third. They needed to go before they too fell on our house.

We wanted to get them down quick before the leaves came out, and we were blessed with a Saturday with nice, warm weather and almost no wind! Makes it much nicer taking trees down near houses that way. My father-in-law offered to take them down. In addition to being a well-travelled missionary, theologian, author, former pilot, scuba diver, artist, and now full-time grandpa to my kids, he also happens to have lots of experience felling trees. My brother-in-law came to help out too.

A giant willow in our backyard that had some real problems. We liked this tree because it gave a lot of shade to our yard and swings, as well as the neighbour’s yard. But it had a large split develop in it that you could see flexing on a windy day. Water was getting in there and was causing the core to rot. This crack was so big, I could stick my hand down inside it and not reach the back.

I had two different arborists tell me that the tree was a danger, one saying that I shouldn’t let the kids play in the back yard on a windy day. That did it; the tree had to go.

The crack went deeper than we thought, over half the depth, at least 30 cm (12 inches) inside the tree. The wood in there was quite wet, so this tree really did have to go.

Of course, I took a time lapse of the whole process!

The sixth tree was crushed by the fifth tree. Poor little apple tree.

I estimate that we got about 3 cords (total of 380 cubic feet) of wood out of these trees, not including the apple tree!

At the end of the day, the family tree still had all its branches and each of us still had our limbs, so we count that a very successful day of cutting wood!