Spring has Sprung!

I LOVE spring trees here in Nashville!! They are beautiful !!! And I am not allergic to them yet... The magnolia trees are my new favorite. Not the normal big white ones like this These are not blooming yet. But I LOVE the different types of Magnolia trees here.
The Saucer Magnolia
And the Star Magnolia


Every time I see these trees I have to look at them... Which makes driving rather dangerous... But Don't worry I went to the botanical garden to look at them and learn their names :)
I'm excited for the Dogwood trees to start blooming !

Oh Canada!

I planned on blogging each day that we were in Canada but that fell through because nap time and DQ are pretty much mandatory for free time. The Bible camp has been going well. I’m working with puppets. The first day was a little rough but were getting better. The kids declare after each puppet show is over “We know it’s you back there” and “Puppets are real!” But most of them enjoy it immensely. We are constantly trying to think up things for the older kids to do because they are not interested in puppets. The kids are always clamoring for attention and climb all over us.
Now for brief highlights:
Singing Kids songs that I can never get out of my head.
Eating Chinese Buffet.
Watching the same veggie tales 3 times in a row.
Watching the Jonah veggie tales movie.
Home cooked food!! YaY!
Playing with the kids
Going out to the overlook of Hamilton and seeing the city at night.
Having the kids sing that Canadian national anthem to us in English and French!
In the end it’s been an amazing trip! I can’t believe tomorrow is our last day. It sure has flown by.

Customary to Customs.

Don’tcha know I’m in Canada. Eh?
Well I’ve just started my week long mission trip to a small town in Ontario called Hamilton. The 20 of us spent yesterday in a bus for 16 hours. This bus ride was surprisingly eventful.
Right before we pulled out of school we said a prayer asking for protection for us and for the bus. Then we start to drive .We get a total to two feet down the road when the back bumper of the bus hits a planter. Yep a big concrete planter with dirt and flowers inside. We managed to pull the planter a bit until we realized what we had hit. With little damage we continued down the road. For the next several hours we spent time sleeping, talking, playing catch phrase, and taking bathroom/ Mc Donald’s breaks. It was at the Canadian border that things got more interesting. We made it through the first time with no problem; we got out of the bus they check our passports and we continued on our merry way. It was a few minutes later that we realized that we were headed back towards America… They would not let us turn around so we had to cross over the bridge back into Detroit. Our story was slightly suspicious to the border patrol. “You see sir, We were just in the US and were trying to go to Canada and we were there… for five minutes… but then we got lost and now were back in the US could you let us go back through?”
Well they searched the bus and rechecked all of our passports. Luckily American border patrol is more humorous than the Canadians. They turned us around and we crossed the bridge for the third and final time. Once we finally made it to Canada the first thing we did was eat good ole MC Donald’s. The Canadian menu is different…
Several more hours of driving, through rain and snow, brought us finally to Hamilton where we met the families we would be staying with and headed to bed. I’m staying with the pastor and his wife who live 30 minutes away from the Church. So due to the time zone change and the time change we did not get to bed until 2:30. It was a dreadfully long day!