The Overduin's

This is me. And my baby sister. And my 3 babies. And yes, I do know that tomorrow two of them will turn two but for now they shall remain my babies. End of discussion.

Back to the subject on hand. This is us. We are in Gramma's van. We packed ourselves inside of it last Thursday at lunch and headed out for Alberta. One of our cousins was getting married there and Shelly wanted to be there for the wedding. So, us O's decided to go along as far as Calgary and surprise Opa and Nana.

It worked. Marvelously! They were not expecting strangers on their doorstep at 11:00 that night. :) :)

Some details. The kids were great! The weather and scenery stunning. The trip wonderful. Only one time in the dark we found Cody had snuck out of his car seat and was just playing on the back bench. I'm sorry to include such a nice picture of Shelly but she already told me I don't get the picture of us with the Kernels bag so I have to get her this way. :)
Friday morning Shelly and I went to a mall nearby and checked out some normal and some swanky stores. Somehow I felt extremely conspicious walking through some of these stores with my Sears bag. :) This is also where the Kernel part of the story comes in. I just about did the Heimlich on my sis on the shiny 2 day old floor of the mall in front of one of those swanky stores. Her advice? Never try to swallow a piece of double crunch popcorn whole. It hurts and it's embarassing. But once we were certain she was breathing and her eyes stopped watering we started to laugh and we laughed till her eyes were watering all over again.

In the meanwhile those 3 babies of mine were back at the ranch with Opa and Nana. (hey, it's was nicer to write ranch than zoo. Plus there IS lots of horseing around with my gang around)

Later on we went outside to play in the best leaves ever.

The leaves were dry and were so fun to pile up, jump into and throw around.

I'm gonna get you Mom!

Don't be surprised if one day you see us mowing our lawn with a reel similar to this one. Cam thought a quiet lawnmower was the best thing!

They were tired but not so tired that there wasn't some fooling around before finally collapsing in sleep. Cara started out with all her blankets in the white crib.

Thursday while driving Aunty Wilma called to make sure I knew I was very welcome to come for the wedding. I thought it over and knew I would enjoy it and asked Nana if she was willing to have the kids for the day. Little did she know, before agreeing, that I wouldn't be back until 10:00 that night.

I left at 8:30 for a gorgeous 2 hour drive south with some royal treatment via candies & gas from my special father in law.

Me and my poor photography skills (and the fact that I was just hanging the camera out the window while going 110km) don't do justice to the beauty of that morning.

I had to take a picture of this for my boys. Eight combines in a row, not actually roaring down the field at the moment but a really neat sight just the same.

I arrived in plenty of time to see this beautiful couple get married in a special ceremony. They were so in love and their foundation is God. What a blessed start! I was so thankful to have had the opportunity to be there. My sentimentality antennae were doing 360's. After all it was a wedding on an amazingly beautiful day, Ryan didn't see Alisa until he saw her come down the aisle (just like our wedding), Ryan's Dad was the pastor (just like our wedding) and I was together with my Alberta family. But really, it was still going to get better.

I didn't know Alisa's husband Ryan at all. In fact I even had to check the spelling of their last name when I wrote the card. That was about to change, we were going to end up with some common ground yet.

Alisa is a truly beautiful woman, inside and out.

And this is Ryan's dad, Pastor Vanderkooy. I have to keep things in order though.

After much hemming and hawing I phoned Mom and asked her if she minded if I stayed longer than planned. In essence I was asking her to add feeding supper, giving baths and tucking 3 kids into bed to the day's list of jobs. She lovingly told me to stay and I'm so glad she did. I did. All of it.

This is two of my aunties. They play a duet and have done so for many family functions over the years. Auntie Helen didn't get any warning. She was told about it approximately 15 minutes before she sat behind the piano. Rumor has it that it doesn't really matter. They say she's so good she can sit at the piano backwards and blindfolded and still perform masterfully. I don't know if the rumor's so true but we laughed pretty hard at the aunt and uncles table about the whole matter!

And you know what? Perfection didn't matter in this case. For me, it was so great to be part of it all.

At the same time there was rumor that my Alberta family was going to sing a hymn that has also been part of our family functions for years. I couldn't leave for the drive home yet. Sentimentality demanded I be a part of that. And then came the annoucement of the family power points. What better way to learn about this new cousin of mine I thought? I'm so glad I stayed. I saw pictures of Alisa and Ryan as babies and kids and a couple. Neat. But the icing on the cake? I found out more about Ryan's Dad.

You see, for as long as I've known Steve my sentimentality has dictated that I missed out a bit on not knowing Steve as a young person. Of not being a part of his first 17 years. I know that's the case for many and I know it's really not a huge deal but that's how I think. Blame it on that sentimentality. So, things Steve shared with me about his younger years, like his time in grade school were things I soaked in. They were important to me. Fast forward to Ryan & Alisa's wedding.

As Pastor Vanderkooy's power point flashed by a few hints jumped out. He sat on the toilet to play guitar while his kids sat in the bath (sorry to Pastor if he ever finds out I blogged this!), he was a teacher in grades 5 & 7, he taught in Chatham, Ontario and by now I was just itching to ask him a question. So I did.

"Pastor, which school did you teach at in Chatham?" I could hardly believe it. Here, at an Alberta wedding that I almost didn't come to and a reception I nearly didn't stay for, I met a Nova Scotian pastor who once had been my husband's grade 5 teacher in Ontario. And he wasn't just any old teacher. He was one of the teachers who had made enough impression on Steve that he had told me about his grade 5 teacher who took a guitar into class and taught the kids songs. Songs that Steve sang for me when they came to mind. Songs that Steve sang to his own kids when we came across a Bible verse that rang the song bell.

Awh, my sentimentality feelers were swooning! It just topped off my special day like the proverbial whipping cream with the cherry on top.

I drove home in the dark, under the most amazing starry sky and sang praises to the Almighty, all knowing God who has every detail under His control, at the top of my lungs.

Sunday one of the sermons Dad preached was about Jesus saying "I am the light...." it was a blessing to be reminded of what that says about Jesus, what it says to those who know Him as Savior and what it means for those who don't know Him. The second sermon was "I am the door...." Mind boggling simple truths.

We were able to have a cozy fire outside.

Then before we left in the morning the kids beseiged Dad in his study.

They got a good look at the shepherd carrying a sheep across his shoulders.

Shelly got a picture of us all and we all hopped back in the van.

Shelly was driving when all of a sudden she yelled, "where's.. Cody?!" He had disappeared from her rear view mirror range. It was much easier to observe all the construction slowing traffic down from his new vantage point.

We had to stop for the typical road trip business.

Books helped pass the time. Once upside up, next time through upside down!

The patches of "fire" were actually spots of deciduous trees. Again my poor photography skills didn't do justice.

I'm glad Cody was well versed and even more glad we didn't need to test his newly aquired knowledge. We almost did. One lady unfortunately hit a huge rock that sent her directly to riding on her rim. We had almost pulled in front of her. And actually all morning I've been wrestling with the, "why her and not us?" Really, she took that rock for us. I've decided for now that I can only be very thankful God spared us from that near disaster.

So, in a nutshell, a huge dinasour sized nut shell, that was the road trip I made with my sister and my 3 babies. Thanks for sticking with me to the end. For enduring all that estrogen. :)