Now we have been in Canada for over 2 years very little is new anymore. We are pretty much used to the weather, which we have to say we love the hot summers and the cold snowy winters. The bugs are eating us less so we can live with that too. We have been in our little old farmhouse for over a year now so we pretty much know its idiosyncrasies and limitations and have made wonderful plans to improve our home when we have the time and spare money! We are constantly meeting new people from our village and with being part of a much larger church than we've ever been to before still meeting new people there too.
Isaac turned 16 in January and has spent some time this year getting his hunting licence, drivers ed and beginners licence. After next April he can sit his practical test and drive by himself. He is always to be found outside whether it is with the animals, doing DIY, tapping the maple trees to make maple syrup, tipping and selling the tips for Christmas wreaths, hunting, playing on the school soccer team or snow shoeing. He is also part of the youth band, youth group and youth lifegroup at our church.
Josh turned 15 in April, he is more the indoors type and is usually found at his computer. He is part of Harvey Junior Firefighters, the school soccer team and youth group and youth lifegroup at church.
Harriet turned 12 in February and never seems to be home. She got her babysitting licence earlier in the year and regularly babysits for a family up the road with 4 kids and her 2 cousins as well as kids at church. She also loves animals and breeds guinea pigs and has put her own pet puppy the top of her Christmas list (she is not getting one!). She does kids church with the babies and toddlers and also goes to youth group at church. She has just joined 4H for the first time and is going to do the dog obedience unit with Max!
We are part of Christ Central Church in Frederiction which is a great community of believers to be part of. We all keep fairly busy David, Josh and Isaac drive, fill and empty the truck we use for set up as we have to rent a bigger building to all fit in on a Sunday. David and Isaac do the sound system. Harriet and I are part of kids church, I lead the 0-2 year old group so I can get my fix of cuddling little ones! I also cook a very large turkey once a month for our sandwich run where we deliver over 300 sandwiches to people we have contact with through our drop in facility and to others in low income housing and rooming houses. We also attend a lifegroup in town once a week.
We live in a little old wooden farm house which is similar to the one in Anne of Green Gables if you've ever seen it. We are on a main road about half an hours drive from Fredericton and 1 hour from our nearest seaside at St Andrews. We are just outside the little village of Harvey which has a gas station, health centre (where our doctor is), a number of stores, a pub, a fish and chip shop, bank, hair dressers, curling club, loads of tiny little churches of various denominations,schools, an ice rink and candle pin bowling club to name but a few things. It looks a bit like an old wild western town and has a railroad running straight through the middle of it. It is also well known for the public lakes we can all enjoy.
This was the original farmhouse but over the years the land has been split up so we now only have 2+ acres to work with and a small barn/shed. We have meat rabbits (approx 50), ducks (10), geese (6), turkeys (12), chickens (22), 5 breeding pigs and 26 piglets, Harriet's guinea pigs and one crazy dog! Most of the birds will be sold or in the freezer within the next 4 weeks, we will be replacing our current laying hens at Christmas and next week we have our first pig at the butchers. I tried tanning the rabbit pelts and have a box full done but as yet I haven't made anything with the fur. I've just worked out our chickens will have laid approximately 4000 eggs between them this year and we have probably sold 3/4 of them, in fact some weeks we can't keep up with demand.
The extension to the little pig shed
David works for Salesforce Marketing Cloud, where he is a supervisor in the support department. His job comes with good benefits so we have all been able to visit the dentist this year. I work for Partners for Youth a not for profit organisation who work with youth at risk. Rich, my brother also works with me so they put us in the same office and call it Coronation St! Now we are both working full time our hours are similar so we can car share most days into Fredericton.
We enjoyed having 2 groups of visitors this summer. My Mum, Dad and Auntie Brenda came in June/ July and we got to visit some of the local area with them. David's parents came in August, we did some sightseeing but a lot of the time was spent on building our big deluxe pig shed in time for our first piglets to be born.
I stopped doing the market last Christmas and I have to say I don't miss the early mornings and long days baking and selling. I still take orders occasionally, which I quite enjoy as I get to bake again.
We have a number of British friends over here so we have got together to celebrate bonfire night and we had a British garden party for the jubilee.
We got our first Christmas card from England yesterday, we had to laugh as it wasn't signed and didn't have a postmark on to give us a clue who it was from. So if it was from you thank you!
Canadians like to have lights and decorations up for each special occasion very early, so now Remembrance day is over Christmas lights are already up. When we got home the other night Isaac had already put lights outside the house and the next day he put some on the chicken shed. It reminded us of chicken run!
I think I've covered pretty much covered all of 2012 in the Laver household so all that remains is to wish you all a Happy Christmas and many blessings for 2013. Please come and visit, we love having guests.
