Pauls Family Christmas

The past few days have been a busy and eventful time. We have met with both of our families and received more then we can enumerate. Christmas morning was spent here at home with our immediate family, and then in the afternoon we went to Reinland for the Dyck family gathering.

The Dyck gathering was made up of an even 15 kids and 15 adults (Henry and Agatha have another one on the way. I guess we could use a few more adults...but that'd just bring more grandkids.) Tiffany and Andrew shared the honor of reading the Christmas story of Luke 2. The day was loud and fun. We came home full of food and hauling a pile of loot.

Boxing day was a day of recuperating and preparation for the Pauls gathering. The Pauls gathering was an over-nighter at Chris' parents home. The moring of the 27th we opened our gifts and later that day we all went to Winkler and checked in to the Days Inn where we spent 2 nights. Grandma Pauls (Chris' grandma) bought the whole extended family (somebody said 36 people) an all inclusive two night stay (wow!). We spent our time singing, swimming, visiting and water-sliding. The singing/sharing times on Sunday were a highlight. We counted six individuals/families that lead worship in their churches and this was definately a contributing factor. It was also a treat to see the out of province relations.

Our lives are simple, so here's a video of our new kettle that we got for Christmas! (we're pretty proud)

We've also enjoyed sitting on our couch watching our new "Little House on the Prairie" DVD on our new portable DVD player while wearing our new Christmas socks! Perhaps next week we'll start on our new "MASH" season.

Justin's Birthday Party

Last Thursday, we had a party to celebrate Justin's 6th birthday. We thought it'd be easier to accomodate 10 kids at the school gym, so we rented it for two hours after school. The boys had a good time running up and down and playing games. Chris got a well needed workout and Nettie got a few pictures while assisting with crowd control.





















This is a video of us playing "Turtle Tag". It's like regular tag except when you get tagged, you have to roll onto your back and paddle your hands and feet like a turtle that's been rolled onto his back. Then another kid has to roll you back onto your feet before you can continue. The kids taught it to us.



By the time our time was up at the gym, the kids were pooped. Their energy came back on the ride to our house, a lot quicker than our energy.


















The meal was typical 1st grade birthday party material. Hot dogs, juice and birthday cake. Justin and the boys had a good time. We found that we were really tired once the adrenaline wore off. Many thanks to Nettie's sister Sara for her help with transportation and helping at the house.

2008 in Review

Since we don't send out a Christmas letter every year, we've decided to do a similar thing on our blog. 2008 has not been an uneventful year, it began with the closure of CP Steel in January, a decision that had been made earlier. Closing the shop after 7 years was difficult, many of the tools and machines were sold off. In February Chris started his new temporary job, welding at General Metal Fabrication. In the Spring he started his permanent position as Customer Service Representative at General Metal, a job he enjoys.

As I look back on the Spring, I can't beleive that Justin only learned to drive without training wheels this year. He's so good without them now it feels like he's been riding without them longer.

The summer brought swimming lessons, soccer, gardening and house painting. In Spring Nettie bought a family pass at the pool and we spent as much time as we could there over the Summer. Justin did his swimming lessons over the summer and greatly improved. When he began, he was a little nervous of getting his face wet, by the end of the summer he was jumping in without a life jacket on. We also did a bit of swimming in Altona and later in the Summer we went to Delta Beach North of Portage where the water stays shallow a long way in.

Nettie spent a bunch of her summer in the garden. We doubled the size of our garden this year which made for some great summertime stir frys. We had more than we could deal with, so at the end of the summer we filled our wagon up with the last of our corn on the cob, a few tomatoes and some peppers and found neighbours who would take them. It was a fun way to meet the neighbours.


It sounds sort of stupid to say that I spent my summer painting the house, but that's the truth. With all of the other stuff (not sure what it was now) that we had up this summer, I fought to get a few hours in at a time.


The fall began with Justin entering into Grade 1 and a new renovation project, new windows. We got half of our new windows in before the weather forced a hault to the work. Fall also saw the creation of a new Bible study group. We, along with Barb Klassen Nettie's sister Mary and Jim & Judy Wiebe's family began a study on the Book of John. It has been a challenge to all of us and we've had some really good discussion along with some wonderful desserts.


Kaitlyn has turned into a little lady this year. Kate loves to dress up and she loves to be pretty. Kate learned to drive a tricycle this spring and she likes an excuse to run. She's learned to speak very clearly, better than a lot of kids that are older than her.


Charity is developing quickly. In the past month, she's mastered walking and is now working on climbing. Though she's still small for her age, she's learning some of the sign language that the other kids know and she's starting to babble sentences to people. Every now and then she even says an identifiable word (we're her parents, of course they're on purpose).

2008 was a year of change for our family. God has blessed our family.