2 years in the USA : Time flies when you are having fun!

Today is a special day for our family. It marks our two year anniversary of living in the USA! It has been an incredible two years - where we have seen God's hand in every area of our new northern hemisphere-based lives. We are truly blessed! Here are some our milestones in the past two years - which is a testament to God's providence!
1. Landed in Detroit on March 30, 2006.
2. Bought Liesel's car (which is still going strong) within 5 days of landing.
3. Got a job in Cleveland within 30 days of landing in the USA.
4. Moved into our apartment in Westlake, Ohio on May 15, 2006.
5. Got our Ohio Drivers licenses in May/June 2006 (first time :P).
6. Got my car in May 2006.
7. Hired full time by my company on November 20, 2006.
8. Found our church, Providence Evangelical Free Church around July 2006.
9. Spent Thanksgiving 2006 with Liesel's Aunt Max and Uncle Terence in Green Bay, WI.
10. My mother came to visit for Christmas 2006/New Year 2007.
11. Liesel's parents came to visit for Easter 2007.
12. The offer we put on our dream house was accepted in April 2007.
13. Joined the Providence worship team in June 2007.
14. Had a mini-summer vacation in north-western Michigan with the Lippert's over the 4th of July holiday, and we look forward to spending a week with them again this year!
15. In August 2007, we moved into our new house!!!
16. Liesel's sister came and spent 10 days with us in September 2007.
17. Liesel becomes part of the MOPS (Mother's of Pre-Schoolers) leadership at our church in September.
18. Liesel and Nathan left for Botswana in November 2007.
19. Became members of Providence Church also in November.
20. I joined Liesel and Nathan in South Africa for our Christmas 2007 vacation early in December.
21. I was one of 12 people selected in my company to be a part of a 3.5 month intensive Java training program, commencing in January 2008.
22. Liesel's parents visit us for a second time (this time in our new house) in February 2008.
23. Spent a wonderful weekend with Liesel's uncle and aunt in Detroit to celebrate Easter 2008.

As you can see, the past two years have been awesome, and we can only look forward and wait expectantly, to see what else God has in store for us!

Below is a photo of Nathan taken when we first landed in the USA, and another one taken today!

I'm dreaming of a white... Easter again!!

Cleveland's weather is unique. In the 22 months that we have been here, our dreams of a white Christmas were never realized :-( However, that has not been the case for our Easters. Both Easters so far have given us a good dosing of snow! Here is a link to my Easter 2007's blog. As you can see, there is a recurring theme :P

On Friday, we climbed into the Rendezvous and drove up to Detroit, to spend Easter with Liesel's uncle and aunt there. Almost as soon as we arrived, Nathan developed a strong bond with his "cousins" and also became a "big brother" to baby Gabi, who is only 18 months old. It was so interesting watching them all play together, sharing and imitating, as if they had known each other for years! That afternoon, Jacqui and Liesel went to a church service, while Andreas and myself held down the fort at home. As the snow started falling that evening, it seemed the perfect time to light a fire in the fireplace.

It was time for the children to visit a local Science Museum on Saturday morning. Liesel and Jacqui took the four children on the excursion, which allowed Andreas and myself to do some work related stuff. Early in the evening, we left to go to the main Easter service at Kensington Church. Each year, they put on a spectacular show, and this year was no different. It is almost like going to Broadway for church ;-)

Afterwards, we returned home and had a delicious home-cooked Mexican dish! Once the children were put to bed, we all relaxed by watching one of the funniest comedians I have ever seen, Brian Regan! He is a Christian comedian, and had my sides aching with tears streaming down my face!!! And of course, we could not retire to bed before getting in a quick game of Pictionary!

Sunday morning set the stage for the annual Easter Egg hunt. Donned with snow boots, jackets, gloves and hats, the four children headed outside to look for the pastel colored eggs! They all seemed to love the hunt, despite the snow and cool weather!

Soon afterwards we had to bid farewell to the Lippert's as we started our trek South-East. However, we had to make a detour at the IKEA (an amazing furniture store and more!) We needed a number of items for the house, and IKEA is the best one stop store for it. Unfortunately, living in Ohio, our closest IKEAs are more than 2 hours drive away, so when you are in the vicinity, it is highly recommended that you make the effort to visit one! I was proud of my wife as she managed to contain her excitement and appeared in control as well walked through the showroom. We found ourselves a lovely sideboard and some beautiful light fixtures for our lounge, and whiteboard/blackboard for Nathan!

So all in all, we had a great time in Michigan and I know that Nathan is missing his "cousins" already! I have assembled the sideboard and fitted the lights from IKEA, so our home has also benefited from our weekend away!

Signs of new life!

Isn't it amazing, that after being buried in the ground for months, having many of feet of snow piled on top of it at various times as well as enduring an ice storm, a tiny bulb can unravel its shoots, break through the soil and reach for the sun!

In a way, it's a miracle that there is still life, after all the little bulb has been through. It's no co-incidence that Easter is just around the corner, where we as Christians, celebrate the miracle of life, as Jesus overcame incredible odds, even death and rose again, so we could all experience new life too! It also makes me grateful that I can now celebrate Easter in the Northern Hemisphere, where it coincides with Spring!
As you can tell, the blizzard is history and the weather has been above freezing everyday this week, giving the man-made mountains of snow a chance to melt into man-made hills. Our garden has new shoots sprouting up all over the place as a result of the bulbs that Liesel planted in the fall last year. We still have 3 feet of snow at the bottom of our driveway. But with the weather clearing up, it gave me an opportunity to go and pick up my new TV! I finally found the TV of my dreams at a reasonable price, and brought it home on Thursday. To Liesel, it's just another TV, but to Nathan it's a BIG TV! Appreciation of this awesome piece of technology is obviously a guy thing :P Nathan spent a number of hours absorbing his favorite DVD's. I nearly cried after Liesel and I watched a DVD and I could finally see all the detail that I was meant to see! It was as if the scales had fallen from my eyes, because now I can see the details like the actor's lips moving as they speak. Watching a DVD on the old TV was a very frustrating experience because the letterbox effect of DVD's literally halved the viewing area of the screen. So even though we had a 22" TV, the viewable area was about the size of a letter/A4 piece of paper. So not too much detail could be seen when sitting 2 - 3 meters (6 = 10ft) away, unless you had a telescope handy! But now, I can pack the telescope away as I watch television and DVD's the way we were meant to on our 40" LCD screen :-)

On Saturday, Liesel and Nathan went for a haircut in the morning. That evening, we arranged a babysitter for Nath, so that Liesel and I could go on a long overdue date! We went to a good Italian restaurant where we could enjoy a good meal and some good conversation together! I devoured a succulent pork chop, and Liesel savored a chicken pasta type dish. Finally, on Sunday, I made my early morning trip to church just after 7:30am for our pre-service practice! It only took 1 cup of coffee and I was ready for duty! I really enjoy it and always have a good time playing on the worship team.

This Friday, we are heading up to Liesel's uncle and aunt in Michigan and will be celebrating Easter with them. So until next week, have a great Easter!

Ice Storms and Blizzards : Great Winter workouts

What a week! This is why we love Cleveland - because the weather can dramatically change overnight.... Fortunately the meteorologists get it right most of the time (great job Brian!) so nothing catches us by surprise.

On Monday, we were basking in 60F (16C) temperatures. The taste of Spring was short lived as 24 hours later, an ice storm was descending upon us. Everything in its path was subject to the 1cm thick glazing of solid ice. The freezing rain continued to fall overnight and turned my driveway into an ice rink. A layer of ice 2 inches deep (5cm) bonded to the concrete, and proved very challenging to get rid of! However, the hard labor of chipping away at the ice slab were rewarded with some beautiful sights!


The 'best' was yet to come! A huge winter storm, the biggest of the season, was rapidly making it's way up the Ohio Valley and began dumping snow and wind on us before midday on Friday. The storm continued pounding upon us for the following 36 hours! Liesel and I started the shoveling process sometime on Saturday morning. It is never encouraging to open the garage door and be greeted with a foot (30cm) of snow stacked up against it! It took us, 1.5 hours to shovel the driveway together! Liesel was a work horse and was tossing snow around like a professional. That afternoon, we went out a second time and it was as if we never shoveled, as again there was another 8 to 12 inches of snow waiting for us! The storm finally passed later that night! On Sunday morning Liesel and I went out again to shovel the drive before church. It was like the movie Groundhog Day, as it seemed as if we had done this over and over again. Yet again we had another 4 - 6 inches (some places it was up to my knees)! The sides of the driveway were piled high with excavated snow, and in fact it was chest high in some places. The one mound of snow was higher than our mailbox!

The walls of snow on the side of the driveway was a testament to the sheer effort and sweat that was put in by Liesel and myself, and our muscles in our backs are complaining about the excessive workload!

It is a good thing that our church has 2 Sunday Services, because there was no way we would have the driveway cleared before the first one! After Church we ate out our one of our favorite spots, Moe's Mexican food and then headed home for a lazy afternoon. This evening we were invited to our Bible Study leader's place for a lovely dinner. After dinner, Tom introduced me to the Wii (Nintendo's latest game system). We played a little bit of golf, and that was enough for me to get addicted! I've got to get myself one now, and then link it up to the internet so I can play a virtual game of golf against Brian and Tom, in the comfort of our own living rooms!

So it's off to bed for me as my back needs its rehab time!

On a brighter note - they say we can expect some Spring-like weather this week!

My first ever basketball game....

This week, we had a lot more snow fall in and around the Cleveland area. On Tuesday, the first snow fall hit, and since I was at home that day, I was the nominated driveway shoveler. I got outside and saw about 6 inches of snow burying the driveway, and reluctantly started shoveling. My gracious neighbor saw me struggling with the wet snow, and walked across to my drive with his gas powered snow-thrower! He offered to help me and with a few quick walks up and down the driveway, he had banished all the snow from it! I was eternally grateful for the assistance, because that would have taken me at least 2 hours to with my trusty shovel! As you can see, the snow came to above my snow boot in the picture below!

Imagine my frustrations when I woke up early the next morning to head to work, to find out that another 4 inches of snow fell overnight! This is why I am thankful that Liesel and myself both drive SUV's as I could just reverse out of the drive over all the snow and head to work! When I got home from work, I did have some time to make my 2nd ever snowman in the USA!

A good friend of mine from church invited me to accompany him to a Cleveland Cavaliers basketball game on Friday night! Now the Cavaliers are one of the better teams in the NBA, and are the Eastern Conference champions last year, so they have a good reputation to defend. Now I have seen a number of basketball games on TV and they rated right up there with watching paint dry. It never seems to flow with all the stoppages and advert breaks...... however watching it LIVE is a whole new ball game! (excuse the weak pun). From the moment we walked into the arena, there was a incredible buzz in the air. There were places for you to design your own posters (free poster paper included) and also kids could get their hair painted in the team colors for free! There were other sporting celebrities on hand to sign autographs, not to mention the Cav's cheerleaders! The magic continued after we took our seats. Soon the team introductions began, and in true American showbiz-like style, it was quite a show - complete with pyrotechnics! Be sure to watch the video clip below this blog of the introductions! The game followed, and all the boring breaks that I saw on TV was filled with various pieces of entertainment in the area. From people in the crowd shooting hoops for prizes, to dancers and even a high school marching band! For the half-time show we had a Russian gymnast who performed aerial manoeuvres whilst landing on a narrow bar that two male counterparts held on their shoulders! So all in all, it was an extravaganza of high energy sport and entertainment, that kept my attention for the entire 150 minutes of the game! Thanks Ron for the awesome introduction to live basketball!



As a final note: another reason to love the USA.....
in the adverts that come with the Sunday papers, one in particular caught my eye. It was from the Target pharmacy and this is what it read:
FREE flavoring. Add one of many flavors such as cherry, watermelon or even chocolate-banana pie to any liquid medicine at no additional charge. Just ask. We can even add flavor to your over-the-counter medicines, too.

God bless America! Until next week - don't forget to watch the video clip below!

Cleveland Cavaliers Introduction