N - Montreal

I am currently in Montreal, Canada with several elders from our church. We are visiting Roger Saumur, a missionary working with the Ville Emard Church of Christ. We have had a wonderful time getting to know Roger's family, learning about the work here, and doing a little sightseeing.

Today for lunch, the Saumur's took us to a Sugar Cabin. These are only open from around late February until late April. It is basically breakfast food smothered in maple syrup, a Canadian dietary staple. For dessert you make your own popsicle of sorts out of hot maple syrup and fresh snow. The picture below shows Roger's daughter, Lydia, about to fashion her popsicle.


We have done a lot of driving around. Here's a picture of a gas station near our hotel. I call this "So you thought you had it bad". This is the price per liter. It equates to about $5.40 per gallon. Yeah, OUCH!


Tonight Roger drove us up to the oldest and biggest Catholic church in Montreal, St. Joseph's. It sits high above the city, sort of a reminder to everyone of their roots in the Catholic church. The majority of people here are Catholic, although very few go to church. Roger's brother told him once he was a non-practicing Catholic to which Roger replied that he was a non-practicing vegetarian! Despite it's lack of influence in people's daily lives, it makes it very difficult to reach people with the true, unedited gospel of Christ.


The following is located inside St. Joseph's Catholic church. It is a rack containing many old wooden canes and crutches that people don't need anymore because Brother Andre (pronounced Andrew) healed them years ago. I don't know if this is true or not but Roger said a friend told him that their uncle worked at the church and his job was to polish the canes with black shoe polish to make them appear old. Whether or not it's true, the story speaks to the skepticism of people towards the Catholic church and religion in general.


Below is the Olympic Stadium from the top of Mont Royal. The Summer Olympics were held in Montreal in 1976. Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday. As we looked over the city Roger commented that each light represents a family that needs to hear the gospel. It is inspiring to be around people whose sole focus is bringing people to Christ.

N - Mavs & BBQ

I recently returned from Mavs & BBQ VII. Each April, several friends and I eat our way to Dallas and back. The gluttony is only interrupted briefly to attend a Dallas Mavericks basketball game. What's on the menu you ask: fried pies in Davis, OK, BBQ/steaks in Lewisville, TX, the occasional hot dog at the American Airlines Center, and tacos at Jack In The Box somewhere on the north side of the metroplex. In recent years, several have added Tums to the menu also (why, I'm not sure).

We usually drive back after the basketball game but it is a struggle. The only thing typically keeping the driver awake is the havoc that 5,000 empty calories can wreak on one's intestines. This year we decided to stay the night in Dallas and play golf the next day. Brilliant! I don't know why we didn't think of this before.

Quick summary: 1) company was great, 2) food was great, 3) Dirk hit a 3 at the buzzer for a Mavs win and playoff clinch, 4) golf was fun and free (always a plus in my book). All in all we had a great time. I guess we'll have to do it again next year!

M-Scary Lullaby Lyrics

Hush Little Baby

Don't say a word

Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird...

The first three lines of this song are enough to scare me.  A couple of years ago there was a mockingbird that built a nest in my yard.  I saw it one day and was pointing it out to my sister when the mama mockingbird saw me.  From that point on I could not go into my backyard without that crazy bird coming at me.  It was insane!  Neil could mow the yard and other people could go back there, but I couldn't even raise the blinds in my living room to look at my backyard without that crazy bird trying to peck my eyes out.  

It's because of this I decided to look up the lyrics to this lullaby.  I knew nothing good could start with mockingbirds (except for one of my all time favorite books To Kill A Mockingbird.) As it turns out, the rest of the lyrics are equally horrible.  Diamond rings that turn to brass, looking glasses that break, carts and bulls that turn over... wait, did I just say 'carts and bulls?' That's right, it's in there.  Why do we sing this song?  I think from now on I'll stick to the one about the baby falling out of the treetop.  

N - Mmmm Food!

Joel had his 4 month appointment a couple of weeks ago.  His doctor said it was OK to start feeding him other foods.  We gave him the choice of lobster, filet mignon and rice cereal.  Who would've thought it but the kid picked rice cereal!

Initial reviews were mixed . . .

He warmed up to the rice cereal after a few times and has actually come to like it.  Evidently nothing can compare to pureed squash though . . .

In totally unrelated news, Mary and I have never warmed up to the American Idol craze.  I'm not sure why, maybe because so much of it seems manufactured.  At any rate, we were watching Nightline one Friday night (yeah I know, we don't watch American Idol but we watch Nightline . . . pretty cool huh); anyway they did a story about this guy named Paul Potts on Britain's Got Talent which is basically the British version of American Idol.  If you haven't seen it, you just need to.  Click HERE or if the link doesn't work, go to www.youtube.com and search for Paul Potts.