Are you Spontanious? A Trip to Canada

Ever wake up and know you had the whole day as a clean slate... no appts... no plans....nothing that MUST be done that day? You are free to do as you want and then wonder... what DO I want to do today? Well.. this past weekend was such a day for our family. We had nothing planned at all. I was going to do the "usual" which is work on my eBay business. This is something I do everyday... no set hours but always have something I could be doing business related. Its actually rare for me to do something just for myself (like a hobby or such).

But anyways...Saturday we were bored. John did work some OT that morning 4am to 8am and did take a couple hours nap when he got home. About 10:30am, he asked me... want to go on an adventure? I said sure... I need to know what time we needed to leave the house as I was working on my shipping at that moment. He said ASAP. I said, ok.. give me 10 minutes to finish my shipping. I printed them off and he and our daughter taped the labels on the boxes while I changed my clothes, brushed my teeth and put together a bag with a book, mags, and my camera. We left the house in 10 minutes and headed to Bishop airport. I had no idea where we were going. I was just there for the ride. Unfortunately, we arrived too late. John was not aware that NW had pushed up their leaving time 20 minutes. We had just missed the cutoff time for loading.

Oh well.. back to the car and home again. Now what? We can't fly anywhere and didn't want to stay home and do the "usual" so what was left? A drive in the car! It was a very nice early spring day with the sun shining. I still didn't know where we were going but I did see John pull out our passports and our daughter's birth certificate. ummmm... We go east on I-69. We end up in Port Huron and then over the bridge into Canada. We are asked a few questions as far as where we were going (nowhere in particular) and how long we would be staying in Canada (just a few hours). That was it.

My daughter asked for the camera so these are her shots (I took one) of the day... In Canada we stop at the visitor center for a map and bathroom break. We decide to just head south and drive along St. Clair Lake. We passed several huge freighters on the lake. Its kinda boring on that side of the lake.


We go past several smelly oil refineries and rundown houses. I was saying to John... you would think the houses would be nicer as they have the lake view right in front of them. We drive until we hit the small town of Sombra.












This is where we end our Canadian drive and take the ferry back over to USA to Marine City. We are now "home" again as we once lived in this area and this is familiar to us. We stop at a Flea Market in Marine City and then drive along the shoreline until we hit the small town of New Baltimore. When we moved to MI from PA back in 1994, we lived in New Baltimore for 2 years before we moved to our current home in Flint.

Of course we had to stop by our old neighborhood and see if our old house was still there. IT WAS! and its for sale again! LOL. It was a nice house. It is a doublewide home. I loved the layout and large rooms but space was limited and no basement, etc made it hard. I also did not like how close the houses are. When I did the dishes, I could look into my neighbors living room. I would be very curious to see what it looks like inside now.

It was interesting driving through the town and remembering what was there before and what has changed. We checked out the church we used to attend and the elementary school our oldest attended. We checked out the beach we used to take the kids several times a week. They have a nice play-scape there now. We decided to stop for supper here and went to Ponchos which is a REAL Mexican restaurant... not Taco Bell!

We then headed up north and arrived home again about 7:30ish. So... that how we spent this past Saturday... being spontaneous!

Now this morning I got a text from John saying... do we have any plans for this Saturday? Are you up to leaving the house EARLY and arriving home LATE? Sure! Looks like another day of being spontaneous and just going "for the ride"! Who knows where we will end up!

Hero Video by Kirk Franklin

A friend of mine sent me this video called HERO by Kirk Franklin. It was performed live at her church in Columbus, Ohio on Easter Sunday.

While I can't actually hear the music, I can sing along by reading the words.

YES! Jesus is my hero
YES! He saves and He saved the Day!

Enjoy

Fire in Self Cleaning Oven on Easter Sunday

I had a terrific Easter weekend. It started with our regular monthly Deaf Cafe, Flint program on Saturday night. We had a Bible time Jerusalem theme. ALL the team members wore Bible time costumes. We had the usual dramas, songs, videos during the first half of the program. During the second half, we served Bible time food such as hummas, feta cheese, nuts, dried fruit, raisins, grapes, oranges, apples, olives, olive oil, honey and pita bread. It was wonderful meal. While eating, we showed part of the "Jesus" movie. The program ended with a short devotion. We decorated the room with props that made it looks like Jerusalem. We had drop cloths on the walls that were painted to look like stone. One of one members made two palm trees and more walls and gates from cardboard. It was one of the best Deaf Cafe programs we have done in 5 years.

Sunday we went to Deaf Church at Cornerstone where John, my husband, taught Sunday School and then preached in ASL. We had a very large group which was great! After church, we had two families over to our house for the traditional Easter meal of ham, etc. My husband did most of the cooking with Kirstan contributing her ozo salad (yummy). The food was terrific. I'm still stuffed! We spend the afternoon just sitting around the table chatting. It was a great day of being with good friends and knowing that Christ is alive!

However...the day almost ended in tragedy. My husband had gone back to church but I decided to stay home and clean up the kitchen. That's my job.. he cooks and I clean up. I started washing the dishes and I noticed that the oven got dirty so I decided to run the self-clean cycle. I then continued washing the dishes. I finished that and something made me turn around to check the oven and there was a fire inside it! It was shooting flames about 10" high in the middle where the crusted over food was. I did panic. My first thought was to open the door - which didn't work as it automatically locks when set for cleaning and it will not open until it cools down. I pushed all the buttons to turn off the cycle and that was successful. I must have screamed as my two teenagers came running to the kitchen. My 16 yr old is holding his phone saying... I'm going to call 911! I tell him to wait... as I could see the flames were getting smaller.. and smaller.. and smaller and finally it burnt itself out. big breath! This all happened in about 2 minutes.

It was another hour before the oven cooled down enough to unlock itself. I realized that it was the sugar glaze from the ham that set off the fire. I made the mistake of not cleaning up that mess BEFORE I set the cleaning cycle. I had used that feature many times over the years and never had a fire before. I don't know if I will use that feature again. I think I'm scared to now. But I praise my Lord for taking care of us and for patting down that fire. I praise the Lord that I was NOT successful at opening the door as that probably would have made it much worse feeding it oxygen. I praise the Lord that I was at HOME and had not left the house!

So.. please take this as a warning. If you use the self-cleaning feature on your stove, please make sure there are no grease or sugar drippings on the bottom that could catch fire. Make sure you are HOME. Never leave the house while this cycle is running. Most of all, make sure your smoke detectors are operating. I didn't have any smoke so my alarms did not go off.

Devotions for the Deaf and Hearing too!

Are you looking for a site that will give you the word of God in a fresh way? I would like to take a moment to plug a new blog site for you to consider checking out. I am partial to this one because it is written by my husband, John.

John is lay-pastor of The Deaf Church at Cornerstone in Swartz Creek, Michigan. I guess that makes me a Lay-Pastor's wife!

Every week John writes a short devotion for the Deaf Cafe, Flint team and others on his mailing list. He will now post his devotions on his blog. I hope you will bookmark it and check it out. Just click this link to go there. Be sure to leave some comment too!

Many thanks! Many blessings!

ASL Rocks Video

Just for fun!

Called ASL Rocks by Jon Savage.
Answers WHAT, WHY, WHO, HOW, WHERE, WHEN in 34 seconds!!