First, I want to thank Nathan for that last post...he posted on behalf of me and did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself! I
was so excited that Marsha was coming down! I went to pick Marsha up last Thursday at the Winnipeg airport. I arrived in perfect timing and even made it to the right arrival gate. (This is pretty good because government anything confuses me!) I waited and waited and when it appeared that no one else was coming, I went and checked the arrival times. Sure enough, the flight from Saskatoon/Edmonton to Winnipeg was delayed an hour. Oh well, I happened to have a book with me, so by the time I was done that, her plane was in. It was great to see her again, since I hadn't seen her since my wedding (21 months). I haven't very many of my friends since my wedding, and that is really too bad. We'll all have to get together sometime. Maybe at Cheryl's wedding?! Anyway, so she finally arrived and then we still had four hours to kill before Alicia was off work, because we were going to hang out with her that night. We went and walked around the mall and then went out for supper and then headed over. We had a good visit with Alicia at her apartment and then headed home around 9:30 so that we could be home by 10:30/11:00pm. In the last 10 minutes of our drive, we passed a semi and a guy was hanging out the door, waving us over. Well, we stopped and it ended up that his diesel had all gummed up because of the cold and he had his "wife" in the sleeper and the heat wasn't working back there so she was all dressed up, preparing for a long wait. She came in our car and, after following this guy for a couple yards going only 30 km/hr down the highway, he called a tow truck to bring what he needed for his diesel and we took his "wife" to Winkler to the Tim Hortons. On the way there, we found out that she had loved this man 40 years ago and then he cheated on her once and they didnt' speak again, and recently they met again, after each had been married, and now they are engaged. Cool story, huh? Anyway, as we're driving to Winkler, she asks if we smoke and we say "no". She says, "Good. This is my souvenir for 30+ years of smoking." (She's on oxygen) She tells us about how she nearly died because of smoking and how she saw heaven and how she doesn't have words enough for God's love. And then she found out that I was a pastor's wife...wow! When we got to Tim Hortons she invited us inside and bought us coffee and we ended up talking there for two hours while she waited for her fiance to show up with the truck. It was an interesting time, good and thought-provoking at the same time. We ended up getting home after 1:00am instead of 10:30 like we hoped. But it was good. An interesting start to our weekend!
The next morning, we slept in and then spent the day baking buns and bread. Marsha got the job of mixing everything with her hands. It got pretty messy (in the picture, the mass of dough is Marsha's hand), but it turned out better than our cookies that we tried to bake! I've never tasted chocolate chip cookies so...weird! The next day we made cabbage soup (which we both love) while Nathan could barely breathe because of the smell of cabbage in the house. We had lots of fun. Lots of talking and playing canasta and looking at pictures. I'm so glad it finally worked out for her to come visit. It is always wonderful to get together with friends, especially friends with some history.
Now, Nathan and I are both tired from late nights this weekend. But it was worth it.
