I'm spilling the beans...

It has been a hard, cruel winter here in Southwestern Ontario. It may only be 3 days until Spring, but for those of us here in the snowbelt there is no end in sight. The heavy snowfalls and colder-than-normal temps that we're enduring means that it could be another month - or more! - before all the snow melts. They're forecasting a late start to spring, and I simply can't wait that long.

So, what's a poor snow-bunny to do? Well, if they have friends who live somewhere warmer, somewhere like, say, oh I don't know, NORTH CAROLINA, then they call their friends and make a plan to escape!

Yes, Denise, you guessed correctly! Debbie has graciously offered to put up with me and Ken for a couple of days in April. She is the BEST! Naturally we are all excited about the prospect of getting together again. I'm sure our cameras will get another work out, teehee. More details to come, I'm sure.

In other news...

I went with my mom and dad to visit my Oma yesterday. She's doing as well as can be expected I guess. She was pretty groggy when we saw her - they're keeping her pretty heavily medicated for the pain. I felt so bad for my dad, it was pretty upsetting for him. I was a bit shocked at how frail she looked, but I was glad to see her. She perked up a bit and we ended up staying for about an hour and a half and she seemed to enjoy the visit. Thank you so much all of you who have been praying.

Yesterday was also my mom's birthday. After we went to the hospital we took my mom out for lunch. It was nice, just the four of us (me and Ken, mom and dad). We had lunch at a truck stop, if you can imagine! The hospital (the one Oma is in) is in London about an hours drive from here, so we stopped on our way back. Ken, who does a lot of driving for his job, highly recommended this truck stop so we gave it a try. It wasn't terribly fancy, but our meals were quite tasty. But I just want everyone to know, this does NOT mean I am a redneck!!

We went to early service yesterday morning (so we could get on the road a bit earlier) and I thought I was going to miss the traditional Palm Sunday procession, but they did it for both services. If you're not familiar with it, the service begins with a procession - everybody participates - into and around the sanctuary. We carry palm branches and sing "All Glory, Laud and Honour" as we process. This is an ancient practice of the church, it goes back at least a thousand years! Another little tidbit - a palm branch from this year's Palm Sunday procession will be saved and then burned and made into ashes to be used at next year's Ash Wednesday service. Cool, huh?

Ken is going to be out of town for the next couple of days for work. He'll be back on Wednesday night. I'm never too thrilled to be left alone, but it is only for a couple of days. I'm glad he doesn't have to go out of town too often.

I can't believe it's Holy Week already! We will be having a traditional Maundy Thursday service on Thursday night and then a Tenebrae service on Friday morning. My pastor told me something that I didn't know: that the Maundy Thursday service and Good Friday service are considered one service. It starts on Thursday and concludes on Friday and even though we go home in between it is considered one service. I will have to do a little research on that and find out more about it. Interesting.