"To tell you the tooth..."

It has been two weeks since Andy left to go to Ontario, Canada along with Bob and Lisa Swartz and their teenage son David. Andy and Bob have completed the job they set out to do. They left Canada today and Andy will be back in Ohio on Tuesday sometime. During the last two rapid response trips Andy has been on, I was pregnant with Eilidh and I can happily say this was the easiest one of the lot! Eilidh is a very contented and easy going baby and a great distraction for Abi and Matthew who both love to play with her and give her cuddles and kisses. I am not so exausted and although being pregnant has it's perks, it's great to be able to sit that extra weight on the floor for a time:0)

Exploring the new playpark.

Fun at The Works with the magnetic coloured shapes.

Life has been very busy as you can imagine and I have enjoyed planning fun activities for the children to take their mind off missing daddy. We have explored Newark which is about fifty minutes drive from our house. There is a little science centre and museum there which also has a glass blowing workshop attached. Matthew has been particularly fascinated with this and enjoyed seeing the exact same demonstration twice so far. We found the ice skating rink in Newark and they were able to let Abi and Matthew and their friend Miriam join in for the last lesson of an eight week block today. This was Abi and Matthew's first time on the ice and I was amazed at how the instructer enabled them to have such confidence on the ice in thirty minutes! Abi's first words when she came off the ice was that she no longer needs any more lessons, she can skate just fine now. I wonder how many lesson's she will need before she thinks she has mastered the piano someday. Lol! We also found a fabulous play park near the skating rink and thankfully the weather today did not stopped us enjoying the outdoors.

Although Andy has only been gone a few weeks, things are a little different around here. Abi is looking a little weird with one big front tooth missing. It fell out over lunch and as we could not find it anywhere, she must have swallowed it. A little worried that the tooth fairy might not bring her some money as there was no tooth, she began looking into Plan B and asked if I would kindly give her a dollar should the tooth fairy decide not leave anything. Thankfully, she did not need Plan B as there was a dollar under her pillow by the morning. When she remarked the next morning, ( a little disappointed) that their was no letter with the dollar this time, I informed her the tooth fairy that likes to write letters in the middle of the night was currently on "vacation" in Canada! Secretly,the fact that I had suddenly remembered and dragged myself out of bed at 11pm when almost asleep to put the dollar there was enough - never mind a letter! ;0) My child-hood toothfairy was far to busy to write letters.

As fast as Abi's are disappearing, Eilidh has cut her first tooth and in a few weeks will be meeting her first toothbrush. She is pretty much weaning herself off milk and is loving real food far more. When Matthew was eight months old he decided he did not want milk anymore and I was really concerned. Eilidh is showing the same behaviour and I am not in the least bit phased this time. We arrived home late from our busy day in Newark today and I put a pizza in the oven to feed us all before bed. Eilidh had her first taste of pizza crust and she was clinging to it tightly. I took it off her once to take some of the crusty cheese away from the top fearing she might choke and she burst out in tears - definitely a true Swanson - "Don't mess with my food!"

Matthew never ceases to amaze me and although I have not deliberatly tried to teach him to read, He is able to read many books that we own and I love watching him sit on the couch reading through several books one after the other. He often takes books into the car so he can read to me as we travel. I am so thankful he is a quick learner as his first year of Kindergarten (P1) will involve three different schools, in three different countries - USA, Scotland and possibly Africa.
Matthew also has a great love of anything soft. When he was two, he got his first fleece dressing-gown and he would keep rubbing his face all over it. Eilidh has really fluffy hair that sticks straight up and he is forever kissing her head and trying to bury his face in her fluffy hair! It makes me laugh when he is kissing her head for the tenth time in a row just to feel her fluffy hair with his face! I see God's sense of humour when he gave Eilidh her wild hairstyle. Someone commented to me recently "aww, is she having a bad hair day today?", Little did they know this was what her hair was like every day : 0)

Last week at mother and toddler's, there were two new mother's (one with twins) there for the first time. As part of the Women's Ministries Team I have been organising events in the church for women to get together. We are having a movie and game night this Friday. Anita Refroe is a great Christian comedian and we plan to watch her dvd. She is on you tube if any ladies feel like they need a laugh! I am also enjoying teaching music to Kindergarten and First Grade at Abi's school every Friday morning. So far the children seem to understand my accent, and I am able to introduce them to a few scottish songs - the next one is going to be curtousy of the "Singing Kettle - Apples and Bananas".

Our Church are also putting on an Easter musical. I have been commisioned to write two songs. I am still working on the second as time allows! The musical is about six weeks so I really need to get it finished. Unfortunately we are going to miss the production as we are all heading to Florida on the 16th of March. We will be away for five weeks as Andy will be working with Missionary Flights International in Fort Pierce and then on to North Carolina to complete a training course. MMS like their apprentices to spend a chunk of time working at MFI to gain more experience on a different type of engine. We are really excited that we will be able to go with him this time. I am really looking forward to feeling the warm sun again. It has been a little weird sorting out all the kids summer clothes while there is snow on the ground here in Ohio. The next blog post will be when we are all reunited again, We made a paper chain for the number of days daddy will be gone. There are only three chains left!!! Some very excited little people (and one big one) longing for Tuesday to come! : 0)

Saying goodbye to Daddy two weeks ago.

Off to the frozen north!

In the grand scheme of things, Scotland is just a little place really. Pretty much as far as you can drive in Scotland is 6 ½ hrs from the very north of the mainland to the English border, and if you just want to go east to west, you can dip your toe in the Forth, then have that same toe in the Clyde with 1 ½ hrs. It took us a while to get used to driving for 8 hours to see our friends in North Carolina when we first moved over here, but you quickly adjust and now we don’t think too much of getting in the car to make that trip. The next few months are going to see a couple of journey’s that are definitely the longest road trips the Swanson clan has ever made!

Missionary Flights International, Florida

In mid March we will be travelling down to Florida to work with MFI for 3 weeks. That will help me get a few week’s worth of experience on the kind of routine “line maintenance” work that will be more in keeping with what I’ll be doing for MAF in a year’s time. We are planning on taking a bit of vacation time while we are in Florida, and then on the way back North I have a turbine engine course to attend in North Carolina, so we will have a stop-over there for a week or so on our way home. All that said, the trip to Ft Pierce, FL is over 1000 miles and will take us 15 or 16 hrs of driving each way.

Before we make the family trip south next month I have been asked to go on another Rapid Response trip to help with some repairs to the wings of a Cessna 206. This particular plane is used by Northern Youth Programs as part of their ministry reaching into the remotest parts of north western Ontario. 

To give you an idea of the size of Ontario, when we visited Niagara Falls in our first year here, we drove north-east-ish for 4 ½ hrs from Coshocton and spent a couple of days in the south east corner of the province. To get to Dryden (which is only a couple of hundred miles inside Canada, in the south western corner of the Ontario) we will have to drive for 20 hours from here! It is a big place! Aircraft are really a valuable tool where the distances travelled are so big, and so the little bit of help we can give to get the plane back in service as soon as possible is really appreciated. NYP have one full time mechanic working on their aircraft, so having volunteer’s helping out on major projects like this is a big help to them. The repairs have been made to one of the wings after a group of volunteer mechanics recently went up to spend some time there, so we are going to do the same work on the other wing. Hopefully we will be able to help them put the plane back in service in the next few weeks, so that NYP can continue to serve in the way God has called them to.

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Our route up to Canada...

Later today I will be setting off with Bob Schwartz (the training director and a qualified mechanic) and his family for probably the longest road trip of my time in America. We are planning on leaving Coshocton around 15:00 this afternoon, then drive as far as we can through Indiana before finding a motel. Then we’ll be carrying on to the north end of Minnesota on Monday and finally the last few hundred miles up to Dryden on Tuesday.

I will post another blog sometime with a bit more about what I’m up to, but right now I need to go and pack…