Yearly Archives: 2016

How time flies!

The Frazer Family blog has been silent a long time. Life is so busy, it’s hard to keep up with everything!

Since recounting all our activities from September until present would take far too long, I’ll just blitz through a few highlights, hope I don’t miss anything important, and let the pictures do the rest of the telling.

As usual, Daddy took Mommy hiking for her birthday. They had beautiful weather and scenery. And they actually finished hiking all the 4,000’ers in the White Moutains!

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A baptism took place this fall, too. It is wonderful to see a young man publicly professing his faith in his Lord. Since we have no pool, pond, or other body of water, an old syrup pan from a sugar shack was brought over for the event. They kids enjoyed playing with it afterwards!

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With more little ones added to our family this past year, a new family photo was in order. It can be a challenge to get so many people posing together, but with some planning beforehand and a little help from GIMP afterwards, a beautiful photo resulted from our efforts.

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Though late in coming, the fall colours were spectacular this year. We had several opportunities to go out to photograph.

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And of course, with the fall, comes raking leaves and harvesting. Evelyn’s pumpkins did remarkably well this year, with her largest weighing 145 lbs!

The poultry are in the freezer now, but the rest of the farm animals continue on through the winter. Our rabbit doe had a litter of kits in September, eight of which survived. These have grown up and she now has another litter of which 10 have survived so far.

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And there is the wildlife… and the wildlife hunter!20161024_elf_2291 20161025_elf_2297 OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The Virginia FEW conference took place mid-November. It was a good time of fellowship with other Christians.

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The kids are growing up quickly. Brayden is beginning to “talk” and eat cereal; Keziah can now walk (if she doesn’t think about it!), and the Elizabeth and Caleb are rapidly becoming invaluable helpers!

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An early Christmas gift for the whole family arrived in a big truck. It is a vast improvement over the electric that was functioning less and less well! Certainly it is a terrific enhancement for practising Christmas music.

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Oh, and speaking of Christmas, we also prepared a new chalk talk for the occasion. Actually, it was an old one that was reworked, however it changed so dramatically, that it could be considered new. We have already presented it twice and will go to another nursing home with it this coming Saturday.

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And in case I don’t post again before Christmas, I’ll say, “Merry Christmas!” right away! 🙂

Fun with Sausage

As usual with one-day-old calves, we took Sausage out on the lawn on Wednesday. She is much less energetic than some of our calves and stood still beautifully to pose for the camera!

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She does have some energy, and like all calves, enjoys running. Her “high speed” is more of a lope than an out-and-out run, making her the easiest calf yet to get in focus even when in motion. Well… the photographer has learned a few things too… 🙂

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Oh, and of course, the inspector had to come by again! What is farm life without cats around? 🙂

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And one final photo:

Sausage making!

Actually Sausage was already made, but she was just born today! At 6:00 this morning, I thought Mocha might calve that evening, but she was still looking pretty much like her normal self. So I was taken quite by surprise to find that at 10:00 she had her calf!

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And of course, the inspector had to drop by to check out the situation!:)

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Sausage is the first calf we’ve had that is such a light colour. And she is even lighter now that she’s dried off! We’ll try to post more pictures later.

West Virginia FEW

This past weekend, a few of us drove down to West Virginia to attend a Family Encouragement Weekend Conference there. The weather was gorgeous for travelling down and the scenery was beautiful, especially as we got further south.

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We’ve often commented that American freeways are much better than Canadian ones. However, when we arrived in WV, we discovered West Virginian country roads differ from Quebec ones in a very different way! These roads are very narrow (so narrow in places that if two cars meet, one needs to back up to the nearest driveway!) and twist back and forth along the mountain sides. It was very picturesque, but also nerve wracking for some (not me 🙂 ). Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of the WV countryside, though.

The conference was very encouraging. The theme this year was that of staying the course with joy. Many of the sessions were exactly along the lines of what the Lord has been teaching me over the past year or two. Walking in the joy of the Lord at all times stems from truly trusting God – being fully confident that all He is allowing and doing in our lives is for His glory. And when we believe that, we can go forth with joy! Or as Mr. Neely put it: “What are we going to do when the events in our lives aren’t going the way we want? We”re going to love God; we going to trust God; we’re going to obey God; we’re going to serve God; no matter what.” And in this we find the depth of joy that the world does not know or understand.

And now for a few pictures… It may be observed that the place was well decorated!

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Leading the singing

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The orchestra playing

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Watching the musicians

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During the children’s hour, there was a skit illustrating the need for keeping our eyes in the right place in order to be able to “sail on” with joy and not be “shipwrecked.”

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And then the young people went outdoors for some games…

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At the end of the day on Saturday, there were some specials.

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Dressed for the 4th!

20160702_ELF_0497 20160702_ELF_0497 20160702_ELF_0508And a few other shots…

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A couple getting married in two weeks!

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Fireworks we saw Friday evening

“The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” (Psalm 16:5-11)

Announcing…

Brayden Michael Frazer

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Born: Monday, July 4, 2016, 8:21 a.m.

Weight: 7 lbs 11 oz

Length: 20 1/4 in

Yesterday evening, Jonathan and I took Caleb up to the hospital to meet his little brother. It was so sweet to see him wanting to give Brayden a toy!

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Then he got fascinated by all the buttons on the hospital bed!

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And of course, we had to get a family photo!

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Nathanael and Samantha, may God bless you abundantly as you raise up these two boys to be faithful soldiers of Christ!

Summer rain

It has been feeling more and more like summer. Even the Sunday dessert a week ago looked like it!

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But though the BBQ Saturday was a beautiful day, Sunday arrived with rain showers. Notwithstanding, we had a nice afternoon of playing game indoors… Apparently chess playing can begin quite young!

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And a few extra photos… 🙂

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Mommy, may I have some please?

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BBQ with friends

Summer is certainly coming and the warm days draw us outdoors for summer activities. Recently we had the privilege of joining some friends for a BBQ at their farm.

I couldn’t resist seizing the opportunity to get some photos of cows, calves, and horses.

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The young ones enjoyed all the space to run around.

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And the not so young ones enjoyed themselves thoroughly too, doing things like photographing, horseback riding, and of course, barbecuing! 20160604_ELF_9681 20160604_ELF_9704 20160604_ELF_9666 20160604_ELF_9825 20160604_ELF_9852

I got a lessons on how to drive a tractor, something I’ve wanted to do for years. Happily, Evelyn grabbed my camera and succeeded in photographing the event!

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Meanwhile, William was learning to drive another vehicle.

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Many thanks to the R family for their wonderful hospitality! We had a delightful time fellowshipping with you all!