Creation Still Worships
Ireland has a rich Christian history but the foundation is crumbling. Everywhere you go you can find ruins of churches, monastaries and abbys. But amongst the ruins you can see God in all His glory as nature has taken over the ground that humans have forgotten. Pray for this country that just as these trees have taken root, the message of Jesus will take root again and spread across Ireland in a fresh new way.

25 years!!!

It's an eternity, people get less for murder. These are the words my loving husband spoke to me on our 25Th wedding anniversary today. Of course he was just joking? Unofficially we have been living together for 28 years and in that time we have lived in 14 different houses with stays at many places in between. Hopefully this next move back to Kelowna (home) will be the last. I'm a grandma now and I'm getting to old for this. Well it has been a roller coaster ride but I wouldn't have done it with anyone else. We have been blessed to have made it this far, some of our trials have been difficult ones, but holding on to our faith and following Jesus on all these adventures is what has got us this far. I am looking forward to the next 25 years, hoping to have just as many adventures, only hoping for not as many valleys, as we spend it together seeing where God would have us serve.

Gary's Turn

Gary got to go on his adventure with Sharon, Jenny and Kevin, the 3 that took me on mine. Only this time there was a sleep over and that meant tents and sleeping bags had to be carried!

Gary became the mule horse and packed a good load on his back all the way up and down the mountain. This was Carrantwohill the tallest mountain in Ireland, the same one I climbed, minus the tent and sleeping bag. They spent the night in a hut that was constructed out of rock and plastered on the inside. Gary use to think it would be cool to live like and monk but as this was similar to what the monks slept in he has rethought this and no, he no longer has such desires. He gave up and slept outside as he was feeling a little claustophobic. He did have a wonderful time of reflection and a little physical challange and overall a great adventure.

Good Times and Bad

Good Times

Now that we are moving back to Canada there was a small problem, when we moved here one of the things I bribed the twins with was the fact that we were so close to all the European countries that we would be able to travel and see some of Europe. So when we told them that we were going home they said "what about seeing Europe". So I thought I would take them somewhere before we left and I decided on Spain because it is so cheap to get there, and there was sun!!! Spain was great. We were there for a week. We had lots of sun, we saw old buildings, shopped, took an old train to the other side of the island to Soller and just had some good mommy daughter time, oh and Shanaya did some bull riding. We went with my friend Dawn French and her daughter Lauren. We went to Spain, in the Balearic Islands, the Island of Majorca, City of Palma, tourist area of Palma Nova. This island seems to be wealthy and was very nice and clean. I'm not sure if it would be what the rest of Spain would be like.

Bad Times

We have had to say good-bye to Mungo. We signed an agreement that we gave up breeding rights to Mungo thinking it meant that we would just not breed him but to the breeder here that meant she would be phoning us non stop to take him to shows, sign him up for behaviour classes, come by to take pictures and when he was a year take him for a physical to see if he would make a good stud. She had him for 5 hours and when she brought him back she told us she had a solution, instead of us taking him to Canada and her giving up her breeding rights, she wanted to give us a new puppy. She said she thought Mungo would make a good stud and was not ready to give up her stud rights. We had a feeling this was coming so we gave him up and did not take a new puppy. We figured with the move and not knowing where we were going to live it would be easier without a pup. Soo, we are dogless. I am the only one who had tears over this but the girls were promised a new puppy of the same breed so they are OK for now. I will be OK too but it just seems to add to everything and I think I have had a full plate and it is starting to runeth over with tears. Don't the girls look sad though.

It's Confirmed
After 10 months of waiting the mail came today and I received a letter from the government saying that my application for a residency card was denied. This came as quite a shock. Before we left Canada Gary phoned and wrote to the Irish embassy in Canada and also to the the Irish government in Dublin to make sure that I was allowed to live here. We knew that Gary and the girls could live here because they have British passports. Gary even went into the immigration office when he was here the year before and all of the answers were the same. Yes your wife can live here just have her apply for her residency card right away. We even have it in writing.
What they are saying now is because Gary has not lived his last five years in a EU country I am not eligible. So this is news to us. If we had known this we never would have bought a house or maybe even moved here.
Sooo, this seems to confirm that we have done the right thing by deciding to go home. We may have been able to work around this but we are not going home because of this as you all know, Kirbey's well being and quality of live is the issue.
It is not exaggerating to say that very little has gone smoothly for us here and this is just another on a long list, we just laugh now because it is beyond annoying.