After some torturous travel gymnastics and challenging transitions, Emily has arrived in Jordan and is now with the CMU Middle East Tour. Today we saw her first photos from there, and with her permission, I’m sharing them here. Where she added a comment, I’ll add that to the caption or description of that photo (you may only see those if you scroll down a bit when viewing the photos individually).

Emily’s official status reads as this:
Bachelor of Arts, Four-Year, Major in Communications and Media, and 3-year, Biblical and Theological Studies.

Here are a few snapshots from the day. I stole the nice posed ones from Eileen’s facebook page. The ones I got of Emily frolicking with her summer workmates at the CMU farm also tell a very true part of her academic story. The poor video, including an out of focus portion, adds the formal bits, though you’ll see that too ends with a hug.

Between lunch with my sister and visiting my parents, I had a few spare minutes on Friday to walk around in Morden, where I grew up. I may be biased, but it really is one of the prettiest towns (I put Neepawa and Minnedosa in the same “pretty town” category).  See the individual photos for more detailed descriptions of the pictures and/or their history.

For the last 25 years, save one or two that we missed in order to be in Manitoba, we have started our Easter morning with an outdoor sunrise gathering. Over 25 years that has meant sunny and warm days, snowing and cold days, and everything in between. Today’s strong winds made -8 feel rather chilly, accompanied by fresh snow overnight to cover the spring crocuses.

For me this is the perfect contrast to the Good Friday service of darkening and silence. Today we arise at an unreasonable hour, go out into the unpleasant cold, and go to the river to meet others who have done the same silly thing. And we laugh, and hug, sing a song or two, look for the sun (or eastern light), hike or amble along the river (the speed depends on the weather), gather around a fire, and share some bannock, bread, chocolate, etc., depending on the year. Regardless of the weather, this gathering is warm, heartfelt, simple, relational, and impractical – a perfect acknowledgement that this day is not normal.

At long last, a small corner of our front porch now reveals a more balanced depiction of the heritage of the Klassen Hamm empire clan. Hmmm, am I referring to the different provinces whence we come, or the fact that the plate on the left is from my sturdy Ford Pinto, reliable beyond measure, first car I owned, and the plate on the right is probably from a Toyota Camry, also unreasonably reliable? Maybe we’ll never know. But be sure of this! All license plates and other materials related to our Nissan Stanza have been incinerated and eviscerated from the earth! 🙂

Eileen took me crocus hunting today, on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River. We shot quite a few, and she has some great pics featuring the crocuses she found, full of purple, white fuzzies, and green and brown. I decided to focus more on contrast during this lovely after supper walk.

Part of living in a 106 year old house is that stuff sometimes needs fixin!

Seen below is what happens to an interior wall when some of the pipes in the wall on the 2nd floor are no longer joined together. This pic is from mid-project. If you want to see the finished version, you’ll have to drop in for a visit. It did allow me to refresh my plastering skills once again, so I’ll be fresh for the next upstairs bedroom project.

A second major failing is my next project. You’ll see from the fence below that the Finch nest was just too much for that cross brace and it has come undone. Those birds must be heavier than I thought! So it is now time for these last portions of the fence to become cedar like the rest. But it is worth noting that this crumbling portion of the fence was the first part that my dad and I built 23 years ago, shortly after moving here, so it didn’t do too badly.

Today’s word ‘grow’ also leads me to a 2 part post, with a picture for only the first part.

Grow #1 – The delightful young man featured below is my nephew Jake. Jake has grown 4.5″ in the last year. According to Darryl & Shauna, that equates to shopping trips for 3 new pairs of shoes and 3 new sets of clothing!
Way to grow Jake!
I believe your sister would be happy if you shared some of your mad growing skillz with her!

Grow #2 – This brings me to the end of my “a photo for the calendar word each day” project for the month of March. One of my goals in attempting a “picture each day” project was that the discipline would help me post more freely, rather than waiting only until I had the best idea or a great photo. As I said to Eileen more than once during the month “this photo every day discipline sure forces me to post some substandard pictures!”. And like sometimes happens with disciplines, that challenge has become a gift. So now I’ve posted some poor pics and some I like. Said lots of words, or sometimes almost none. And I feel a new freedom to add whatever I feel like. Time will tell what that looks like. For now it probably means less regular updates, a welcome relief to those of you getting an email every day about a new photo. But some days it might mean 2 or 3. There are no guarantees. But hey, sometimes you get what you paid for!