YES!

Steven Gerrard

Great Player

David Beckham - Team Captain

Awesome Goal today!

Joe Cole - Great Player

YES! England are through to the quarter finals! What a relief!

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YES! My England shirt arrived on Thursday (thanks Faye)

and I wore it today when I watched the England game!

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YES! I am feeling much better again now - thanks for all your prayers!

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YES! I am insured to drive the car now for 3 months

and went out for my first drive on Thursday!

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YES! It's my birthday in a couple of weeks!

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YES! God is sooooooooo encouraging!

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YES! I went to a really cool party last week and was invited out for lunch today after church!

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YES! I got given two unexpected gifts today!

The first was two really cute candles of Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger.

The second was a pair of black trousers.

I loved both gifts and was really blessed by the kind gesture of those people.

World Cup Fever

Hi everyone,

This is just a short blog to say that I am watching the World Cup these days and I'm so happy that England won today. Excellent goal by Gerrard.


My sore throat got worse and turned into a bit of a fever and I was in bed for a few days, but I am recovering now and hope to join the land of the living once again. I love the new England top - I think it's really cool and I asked my sister to send me one. She managed to get one today so I can't wait to get that.
Canadians round here don't seem to be that excited about the World Cup, but there sure is enough excitement in our household to make up for Nova Scotia's lack of excitement.

So enjoy the games everyone and all I can say is

n

COME ON ENGLAND!

Hip Hop Dance

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Last night, I attended a Kids Hip Hop Dance performance in our local area and it was really cool. There must've been more than a hundred kids taking part, most were girls but there was a group of boys too who did break dancing.
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It was a really fun night. This morning at chruch we had a family service (kids and adults together) and I talked about 'prophesy' (hearing God's voice for someone else) and got everyone there to write a prophetic letter from God to someone else. Everyone shared their letter at the end, and all were encouraged by what God said to them so that was cool.

You couldn't tell which letters had been written by the kids and which were written by the adults which was brilliant as it just goes to show that it doesn't matter how old you are, we can all (as Christians) hear God's voice.

Deer & Lobster

I'm so excited! This morning as Rachel and I were in the car driving to see someone from church, we had just got to the bottom of our road, and just there infront of us was the most gorgeous deer I have ever seen. I wish I had my camera with me but I didn't. I've tried to find a photo from the internet of one that looks like it, and none of the photos I looked at at were as nice as the deer we saw this morning. This photo below is the closest I could find. We stopped the car and the deer stopped too and just stared at us as we stared at it. It was as if it was saying 'hello' to us. It was wonderful to have such a close and clear view (it was only about 25 metres away from us) of such a gorgeous deer. I'm sure it was such a blessing from God for us to see that this morning. It was really cool!


I know I have covered the lobster fishing day already, but I just want to add a P.S. here:

My highlights of the trip were getting the opportunity to go lobster fishing; seeing the sunrise out at sea; seeing the beautiful seagulls fly so close; catching the cod fish; learning how to measure and band a lobster!

The things that I learned about lobsters that I didn't know before are that:

1- They are a different colour when you catch them as in the photo below

from when they have been cooked like in this photo below.

2 - You have to cook lobsters alive (by putting them in a pan of boiling water)

as a dead lobster can be poisonous.

And 3 - Dead lobsters smell awful - they really stink!

Lobster Fishing/Part 4 - The Final

Lobster Fishing/Part 4

Welcome back to the final part of this story. First here are a few more photos:

Jeremy measuring the lobster

A nice seagull very determined to follow our boat.

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An eel that was caught in the lobster trap. Doesn't it look horrible?

We threw it back in the water.

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Empty lobster traps stacked up behind Gary ready to come back to harbour.

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Gary carrying a 'jumbo' lobster.

Jumbo lobsters are really large lobsters that measure larger than a certain size. They don't sell for as much money as regular lobsters. We caught a few of those. Gary became so good at measuring and banding the lobster that he has been invited to go back lobster fishing next season to help with measuring and banding the lobster.

As for me, although I really enjoyed that day and am really glad that I had that opportunity, I don't think I'll be going back next season. I have discovered that I wasn't made for sea-faring. I was ok for the first 8 hours out at sea, but the last 4 hours I was sea-sick and I can tell you, it really wasn't a nice experience, and it has pretty much taken me a whole week to get over it. I still have a sore throat. The night before I went, I realised that there was no toilet on the boat and that if I needed a toilet, I would pretty much have to use a bucket. I was so determined to still go fishing, that I decided that I just won't have anything to drink and I'll just not use a toilet for 12 hours.

Well, I did manage to not use the bucket and not need the toilet for more than 12 hours. However, I did use the bucket to throw up in twice. And I had to have a lie down the last couple of hours. So as much as I enjoyed going on the boat, being out at sea for more than 8 hours is just a bit too much for me. The fishermen were really nice to me and they said that I did really well. They said they were seasick everyday for months (the captian for two years) when they first became fishermen.

The bucket that I threw up in.

Feeling sea sick, cold and needing to lie down.

The Crew:

Gary wearing the sunglasses; Chad in the middle who invited Gary and I to go fishing; Jeremy wearing the red cap and he looks the spitting image of ex-Nirvana singer Kirk Cobain

And finally Daniel, Chad's brother and captain of the boat, back at harbour on the actual boat.

THE END

Lobster Fishing/Part 3

Lobster Fishing/Part 3

Welcome back to the Lobster Fishing story. Here is a picture of Chad hauling up a lobster trap onto the boat, followed by a picture of Chad and Jeremy sorting out the lobsters caught..



Out of all the lobsters caught in the first bunch of traps, only one was big enough to keep, you can see it nicely banded in the photo below. All the other lobsters had to be thrown back out in the water.

A few hours later they managed to catch a few more lobsters to keep ...

Along the way, there were other sea creatures that had been caught in the lobster traps:

Hmm... Cod... Nice Fish

Little Crab :)

Have no idea what that is?

As we went lobster fishing only two days before the last day of lobster fishing season, the fishermen wanted to bring half of their lobster traps back with them to harbour so that on the last day they wouldn't have as many lobster traps to bring back. So half way during the day, they started to pile up the lobster traps that were hauled up onto the boat instead of putting them back into the water with new bait. Most of those traps still had remains of the old bait inside them so the fishermen would throw the remains of the old bait back out into the water. This would attract the seagulls. That was so wonderful to see the seagulls fly so close to us. That really was amazing.

As it was pitch black when we had left the harbour really early that morning, we took photos of the harbour when we got back 12 hours later at 5pm.

I have one more group of photos to show you from this trip but again I can't seem to upload any more on this post, so I'll have to post the final lot soon and tell you about one embarrasing incident that happened to me on that boat.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Lobster Fishing/Part 2

Lobster Fishing...(Cont'd)

As soon as the fishermen see the lobster trap appearing out of the water (it's being pulled up by the rope) they haul it up and quickly start to sort it out. First they take out the lobsters caught and put them in a basket. Then they put new bait in the lobster trap. They used Herring fish with the odd Mackeral for bait. Then they put the trap down on the boat ready to go back in the water and they quickly move on to the next trap tied to the rope. When they finish doing this for all the traps, they let the rope go back in the water and it pulls the now empty traps with new bait back in the water one by one.

Chad and Jeremy haul up a lobster trap

Chad and Jeremy open the trap to see what lobster they've caught

Herring Fish used for bait

One bag of new bait ready to go in an empty lobster trap

Empty lobster traps (with new bait inside) being pulled back into the water

Lobsters caught from the first bunch of traps

In the meantime, the captian of the boat Daniel, moves the boat to the next location where a bunch of lobster traps are. As the boat is moving, Chad and Jeremy measure the lobsters caught one by one. It is illegal here to catch lobster that is smaller than a certain measure. These small lobsters are called 'tinkers' and have to be thrown back into the water to ensure conservation of future lobster in the sea. Jeremy measures the lobster to see if they're large enough to keep. Out of every catch that day, about 98% of the lobster caught were infact 'tinkers' and had to be thrown back in the water.

Daniel moving the boat to the next location of lobster traps

Gary measuring a lobster under Jeremy's supervision

The red 'Product Of Canada' bands

When eventually, there was one large enough to keep, we had to put these special bands round their claws to identify them as Nova Scotian Lobster. Gary really enjoyed learning how to measure the lobster and band them. I had a go at banding a lobster too.

I am having problems uploading any more photos on this post so will continue in my next post.

TO BE CONTINUED...