Tag Archives: Border Crossings

To Canada!

On Friday the 29th of August we left early for a little road trip to Canada to meet up with a couple of the Mennonite Girls and their husbands who were camping close to the border in Midway, B.C. We traveled new roads to us.

Instead of deer, we were on the lookout for cattle along Boulder Creek Road.

Today I’ll share the destination and the time with our friends and tomorrow I’ll show more of the sites along the way.

Our route was well marked. In the near future, I’ll share what we learned about Ranald MacDonald, too.

We knew this small border crossing closed at 5pm but we didn’t realize it didn’t even open until 9am. We were early so we tracked back to the little town of Curlew and we were pleased to see this sani-can!

Thank you, Beal Park, for your facilities.

We were back at the border crossing at 9am and were welcomed into Canada with a tip that we should be back to the crossing at 4:45pm to insure that the border wouldn’t be closed.

We found Lovella and Judy’s campsite which was about 3 minutes from the border and it was so good to see our friends face to face.

The table was set for our breakfast together.

Judy and Lovella served us a feast!

After our delicious breakfast we played a few rounds of Skyjo!

We had a good catch up time and we might have solved some world problems.

We had another fabulous meal together that we called linner before we said our goodbyes and headed for the border!

Our Linner even came with dessert, fruit filled perishky!

It was such a nice time together but it was time to wave goodbye and head to the border.

Thank you, friends, for your hospitality at your home away from home.

We crossed the border after a nice chat with the border agent and made it home by 6pm.

Saturday was a stay at home and relax day. Sunday we were in church and afterwards stayed inside because of smoke from a few fires burning in our area.

We can’t see our beautiful mountains.

These fires are about 12 miles north of us.

This photo above is from our county fire agency. The fire is in rugged areas that are hard to get to. We are hoping all the agencies and volunteers fighting these fires make progress today. Such hard intense work.

Another photo from Northeast Washington Fire Information Group. This was the caption for this mornings briefing;

Crown Creek – Blackhawk Mtn Fires
Good morning from Fire Camp in Colville and 0600 morning briefing. About 550 crews have arrived to help engage and manage the fire, with more crews arriving throughout the day. 550? That is about 10% growth for the city of Colville.
What an amazing turnout!

Today is Labor Day here in the USA and Canada and we also welcome September! School in our area will start tomorrow and Awana starts on Wednesday.

Hope all is well in your corner of the world.

But the Greatest of These is Love

When God brought the Mennonite Girls Can Cook together little did we know the doors He would open for us to share His love with others and with each other. Yesterday was a day filled with examples of how powerful God’s love and purposes are and what it can do for a small circle of people and extend to the greater community and the world.P1030469

My 220 mile round trip drive up to Abbotsford and back was worth my time.

About thirty minutes into my drive I realized I had left my passport at home and was happy that I had gone to the trouble of getting an enhanced license. It worked great going into Canada and coming back. When I walked up to Lovella’s door I was greeted by Anneliese and Lovella with their cameras in hand. Of course I pulled mine out and started taking photos, too. Lovella’s table was set beautifully for us and the aroma of the food she and Anneliese had prepared set the mood for our celebration.

2014-02-11 Matthews houseThe 4 Chilliwack girls arrived and we sat down for our delicious meal starting off with Anneliese’s Roasted Red Pepper soup (which I forgot to take a photo of). Lovella made a quiche with fresh laid eggs from her farm and an amazing layered salad with greens, papaya, avocado, strawberries, onions cut big enough just in case we wanted to discard them and a tasty home made avocado dressing.

2014-02-11 Matthews house3Lovella will be sharing the recipes soon on our blog.

2014-02-11 Matthews house2We missed Bev, who is out of the country with her hubby on a business trip and our Winnipeg girls, Charlotte and Betty. I borrowed stole this next photo from Anneliese’s blog.

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Judy made a special Valentine’s day dessert treat for us and because 2 of our girls have February birthdays she brought something special to light their desserts up!

Matthews house 019Happy February Birthdays to Marg and Lovella!

2014-02-11 Matthews house4Aren’t these desserts in a jar sweet! What a fun surprise to have them come out of Judy’s Tupperware tote and placed on Lovella’s plates and her mom’s vintage paper doilies from years ago.

The main reason we got together on this day was for a special tour of Matthew’s House in Abbotsford which was scheduled for 2:30. We’ve played a small part in making this dream come true. I will share more about Matthew’s House tomorrow. The house that love built…

We were going to meet at a restaurant for lunch before our tour. We all appreciated meeting at Lovella’s home instead where we could have a more intimate time together. Thank you Lovella for thinking of that and opening your home and table to us.

I made it to the border close to four for my trip home and had a fun chat with the U.S. Border agent. I wanted to give both the Canadian and U.S. agents I encountered this day a Gold Medal for doing their job cheerfully! I was home by six with just one nasty back up close to home. I’m always thankful for the ease of travel from my home to Canada.