Change and Same

Three more books, a continental role and a big snowman. Read on to find out more!

As always, we begin with the weather. Warm weather is upon us after another long and snowy winter. What made this year different was the cold. Over the three months of winter, only 13 days were above freezing, with 45% of the days having a high of -10°C or less and a couple of days where it didn’t even reach -20°C. When it was warm enough to get outside, we built Gabriel the snowman, enjoyed sledding to church on multiple occasions, dug a snow cave, made angels and played at the playground in waist-deep snow.

Craig has increased his involvement with the Grow Movement, a UK based charity that uses the business consultancy skills of a global volunteer team to transform the lives of entrepreneurs in Uganda, Rwanda and Malawi. He has taken on the role of Community Manager for the Americas region which involves providing support to the consultants and encouraging a stronger connection and sense of community among the volunteers.

Edelweiss has just received a copy of her second book, for which she wrote a chapter on Latin American women in international management. It’s the first project she’s completed as a solo author as well as the first time she’s researched Latin America. She’s beginning a new writing project contributing a chapter on expatriate management for a textbook on international HR in the Middle East. At the end of March she finished up her work with Capstone to focus on RPHealth. There were definitely mixed emotions as she really enjoyed being part of that team, but she has a new challenge with starting an intensive 12-week ‘boot-camp for startups’ and will be working more closer with her Mom this year on her business.

Ethan is growing taller every day. The most noticeable change recently is in his reading ability. He is reading very well and is now at the point of trying new words which we’ve never taught him but that he’s read in books. His favourite story is Black Beauty, and we’ve also read together The Black Stallion and The Swiss Family Robinson. We have regular learning times with him on a variety of subjects. He particularly enjoys the science experiments with Dad. On one of the cold days when it was -25°C outside, we mixed up bowls of different liquids to conduct a freezing experiment. With the bowls of water, salt water, orange juice etc. sitting on the outside patio, we were able to watch as they froze before our eyes.

Jesse is going through a snuggling phase which we will enjoy while it lasts. He is becoming quite articulate. Recently he warned his aunt to be careful when sitting on the bar stool because it was “fraught with danger.” He is very active and though he enjoys the snow and coped well with being inside so much over the winter, it’s nice to be able to go outside now without needing half an hour to put on snow gear.

The third book (in addition to Edelweiss’s two) is “Forty Years,” written by Craig’s Dad about his life at Christian Youth Camps. We were very pleased that he finished this project and excited to get our copies recently. There are lots of photos and videos from those days at CYC on the project’s website, along with information about buying the book.

We enjoyed having Craig’s Dad with us for Thanksgiving in 2013 and had a lovely visit from Heather and Rachel Major recently, so it’s been nice to catch up on news of some of our friends in the Waikato.

There are new photos on our website.

Love from us all.

Craig & Edelweiss, Ethan + Jesse