Okay, that’s not really Canada. It’s just fun to say. (Plus I can sound almost famous!)

But Canada is pretty close. I think you can almost see it from the top of the hill on my walk to work. So when you come to visit bring your passports! We can day trip it across the border.

Consequently, the decision to move 2000 miles away from family and friends has been a huge leap of faith and trust that the Lord is in control.  During the last 3 years living apart, Austin and I prayed and worked for a change that would bring us back together.  However, we never really gave up the entire situation to God’s hands.  There were always stipulations and boundaries…only this distance from our home, such-and-such industries for my work, at least this population, etc, etc, etc.  None of these were necessarily bad, and most would say we were being responsible.  However, we never fully surrendered our situation to the Lord, and felt a need to control every aspect of the process.

It wasn’t until about 6 months ago, after a shoe-in (or so we thought) new job for Austin and subsequent disappointment, that God finally got through to us.  I felt Him saying, ‘Do you trust me enough to go where ever I lead you?’  After that, we had to make a conscious decision not to give Him a list of requirements.  That whichever doors he opened, we would go and trust He was in control.

When the opportunity came to move to our current location, we both were confident that it was the path God was leading us on.  After accepting the position, each and every step of the process was another way in which we had to surrender our desire to control the situation and say ‘Lord, we trust that you have everything in control.’  There were so many unknowns, and as is our nature we tried to do everything the way we thought was best.  But time and time again, we felt the Lord saying ‘I’ve brought you this far.  Will you continue to trust me?’

I’ve found myself struggling with this question again this week.  Over lunch Austin and I were talking about the unknowns that we are currently facing (my job search, the house closing, our finances), and I realized once more how I want to control the things that are out of my hands.  It was another reminder that trusting God’s sovereignty in every aspect of our lives has to be a daily choice for me.

And so my prayer today is that whenever I start to feel anxious or worry about anything, that the Lord would give me a reminder that he has been, is now and will always be sovereign over all.

Jeremiah 17:7 “…blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.”

I’m sure you all think “Why would he be thinking that?” or maybe you’re thinking I’m just mean. But you have to look at things from my point of view! So I hang out here for 3 weeks with pretty much enough stuff to fill one cupboard. I kind of know where everything is that whole time. Well when we get all of our stuff here Beth puts it all away. (Thanks for doing that hun! You’re the best!) So it takes a day or two to get used to where all of our stuff is.

Which drawer are we keeping the silverware in? Where’s the wooden spoon? Why can’t I find the measuring cups?  Those were common questions to hear for a few days. But eventually I figure out where everything is. So by about the second day of me learning where everything is I come home from work and all the cupboards have been changed around! The pots are now to the left of the stove. The pans are are on the right side. I’m still not sure I know where the cutting board is supposed to go. (But at least I know where I put it when Beth asks me about it!)

So today I come home for lunch and I’m going to be helpful and set the table. I go to the drawer where the silverware has been for the last two weeks and I’m greeted by boxes of ziplock bags, tinfoil rolls, and saran wrap looking back at me. To which I say “Where’d the  silverware go?” Beth states “Oh, I moved that over here.” So I reply “I think you have too much free time if you’re moving everything around just for fun.”

But I’m not going to lie, it’s nice to have her around!

We are both so grateful that God has brought us back together.  Even though we don’t yet know the reason for taking us so far away from family and friends, we are trusting that He has a plan for us in our new community.  We pray now that we continue to lean on Him through this transition, and that He is glorified through whatever purpose He has for our lives.

Jeremiah 29:11  ”For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future”

-Babs

It was my first time at the falls, and Austin’s 2nd.  His family road-tripped it in an RV around the states when he was a kid, so these stops always gets him reminiscing about those experiences.  Like when the brakes went out in Connecticut.  Ah, good times with the Bleess family!

Sadly everything was closed for the season, so we weren’t able to do a boat tour.  However, I’m not sure I could have handled getting all wet seeing as I was deathly ill at that point (Ok, that may be slightly exaggerated.  Still, bronchitis stinks!)

My hair had a mind of it’s own during this trip.

After doing some exploring for a couple hours, we crossed back into the good ol’ USA, and continued onto Maine through New York.

I’d recommend visiting the Falls in the fall (ha! didn’t even try to do that).  It was absolutely gorgeous!

-Babs

You can’t quite tell from this photo, but the house has no garage, which will be interesting if we get an average amount of snow this winter.  If you hadn’t heard, this part of the country gets around 110″ of snow every year…yes, that’s close to 10 FEET!  Austin and I were discussing how we’ve gotten soft the last few years with how little snow Minnesota has gotten, so this will likely be a huge shock.

Pay no attention to the open toilet seat!

We’re not quite sure, but suspect there just may have been children living here previously.

These pics are from October when we drove Austin’s car out, hence the emptiness.  We were also focused more on recording any damage/defects, since we’re renting, so I’ll work on getting some current pictures up soon.  I keep forgetting that that the sun sets at 4pm (no joke!), and need natural light to get anything good with my iPhone.

-Babs (I think I may start using that as my blogger sign-off…we’ll see how it works out).

So for those of you wondering why I have posted pictures of our place yet, or pictures of Caribou in general it’s because I don’t have a computer here. And I don’t really have many pictures I guess. And the house is pretty lame without furniture. Although I really should a few photos of the simply life. So here you go!

And with that my friends I’ll leave you to be jealous of me and the bachelor life I’m leading for another 60 hours or so.

This morning I spent some time at Tm Hortons’s hanging out and doing some work. (For those of you that don’t know what Tim Hortons’s is it is a coffee shop. We don’t have Starbucks or Cribou Coffee here. No Caribou Coffee in Caribou, as it seems everyone from MN has asked.) They have some good coffee and great doughnuts. It was nice to hang out there, would have been nicer if their wifi would have been working.

Last night there as a pretty fun be tasting event that I attended. It was at a fun little shop, Merchants on the Corner, in Presque Isle. They have a very impressive selection of craft brews there, as well as wine, and yarn and craft items. Like I said it is a fun store. Looking forward to going to their wine tasting event next month.

That’s all the recap for now. I’m heading to a great dinner at one of the local churches!

Work is great. It’s been a little crazy the last few days. But it is still a lot of fun, and I can still honestly say I love my job. There’s always new things that come up. New challenges come up and they are met. The process getting there is always interesting.

I’ve been putting a lot of time into the job. It’s been really rewarding. I’ve got a lot of fun things that I’m working on.  It’s a lot of behind the scenes type things it seems. Who knows how many things will actually come to fruition, but they’re all great projects and it’s good experiences.

And so as to not over do it all in one blog post, I think I’ll just end there.

That is all.

It’s kind of fun to see these updates, and you might even comment or “like” a few of them.  But, if you’re like me, the majority of these updates you just glance at and move on.  You might do that for several months and think nothing of it. I know I have.

So, my question is, at what point do these people, whom at one point you considered yourself a “friend” with, stop being a friend but more of just someone you observe in the virtual world from time to time?  It’s similar to those of us that read blog posts from our friends (which seem to happen with great irregularity these days) and never comment.  You just observe them and keep moving on with your life like nothing really happened.

At what point do these “friends” become “just some guy I know” or “some person I had a class with” and not really a friend?  And, when it reaches that point, is it really fair to have them counted as your “friend” on facebook?  To those that have several hundred, or even thousands, friends I say are you really “friends” with them all? (I’m included in that.)  Or does the term “friend” mean something in the facebook (and virtual) world that is different from that of the real world?

So get out and go golfing! And if you’re around Wells let me know! We can go golfing together.

Enjoy your favorite green beverage today!  (And might I suggest that if you’re at work it be Green Tea.)

I’m very exited that the snow is pretty much gone. There is just a small pile of it left in the yard. The weather has been nice and I’ve gotten the the grill out. I bought it last year on a great clearance price, and was finally able to use it this spring. It’s really nice to have some burgers done on the grill. It makes me wonder how I went so long without one!

The back yard is pretty much snow free, except for the giant ice pond that is the pool.  Although I think that’ll be ice free before long.  So then we’ll have the grilling and the pool up and running. I’m super excited for that.

Otherwise life is good. Work is fun, and it has slowed down just a bit.  The big project is over and I’m looking over some other projects and deciding which one to pursue next. It’ll be kind of interesting to see what will happen.  I love the freedom I have in this job to really choose some of fun projects that I want to go after and see it through from start to finish. It’s a lot of fun.

I’ve got some meetings in the cities this week, which means I’ll be back in Blaine for a while. We’re going to do a house project or two, which will keep us out of trouble. We’re going to be tiling the Master Bathroom, thanks to the tile we bought from my brother and sister-in-law who bought too much when they redid their bathroom. So that’ll be a fun project. It won’t be too bad, as the bathroom really isn’t that big of a space.  But it’ll be nice to get it done.

For now that’s about all. Keep on a rocking blog readers!