Doug’s Grandpa, George Rieger passed away last Wednesday. His funeral is on Tuesday. Just want to honour and remember him. Here’s a picture of the last time we saw him before we left Canada.
Lauren is officially a toddler now! She walks everywhere! She loves it and we have a hard time getting her to hold our hands now. Sometimes it still surprises us when we see her pop up and walk to us, she’s becoming such a little person.We went on a short break this past weekend to the Yorkshire Dales. I had no idea what to expect, which is the best way really. It blew me away how beautiful it was. The first day we were there the sun was completely hidden, but it seemed to suit the area, all misty and grey. Anyway, the Yorkshire Dales is a national park, but it has a unique look of green rocky hills. Here are a few pictures.
We saw new lambs frolicking everywhere, they were so cute! 
This is the Malham Cove, a large sandstone fault.
Dry stone walls as far as the eye can see.
This is by far the cutest thing we saw in the dales.
We stayed at a fabulous old manor house that has been converted, we felt so at home and comfortable there, it really made the weekend. Saturday was spent at a little village and we did a lovely walk along the river and looking at an old ruined Abbey. A friendly passerby kindly took this picture for us!
I (Kara) am off to London tomorrow to attend a womens conference called Colour, connected to the Hillsongs churches worldwide. I’m going with Judith Linnell, Doug’s coworker, and we are looking forward to the time away and looking forward to hearing from God. I will be sure to share more about it when I return!
The much anticipated walking video. She started walking on Easter monday. Like a proud daddy I stood her up on the floor to demonstrate to the Green family how wonderful she was standing all alone. She fumbled with her soother for a bit, got it in her mouth and then took six full steps before launching toward a couch.
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Since Christmas I have busy working on an Easter Production with the drama team at church. It was a huge cast and undertaking for just three months, but we had amazing feedback - wish I could have seen it for myself!
This is the first scene. The play has several different stories that intertwine. The guy on the right is the tour guide through the museum where we are looking at the “live” Last Supper painting.
After we leave the stage, the scene comes alive. From that scene on you see the whole of the last days leading up to the crucifixion.
These two shots are my scene with Anna Karin, she is the director of the drama. The first shot shows that she has only one shoe on. In this scene she went to kick a balled up piece of paper and she kicked her shoe off into the audience, so when she is supposed to be angry, she can’t stop laughing and neither can the audience. Backstage, we couldn’t see what had happened, we couldn’t figure out why everyone was laughing. So I came on the scene and I supposed to ask what has made her so angry. (She’s actually upset cause she won the lottery, but everyone keeps coming and asking her for money). Trying hard not to laugh, she told me she “lost” her shoe. Since that wasn’t an actual line, I had to think quick and asked her “where did you last put it”? This made the audience just roar with laughter.
This is the scene where the angry crowd shouts “crucify Him” and “give us Barabas”! That’s me in the background in pink, trying to “blend” in. Rich, the guy who plays Jesus is our life group leader (along with his wife) and they are good friends. He did a fantastic job of his role, he took it very seriously and worked very hard to accurately portray the emotions.
We did two performances on Easter Weekend and we had a lot of new people come. Our drama team became very close, it was a fantastic experience! In other news…. Lauren took her first steps this past Monday. We don’t think she knew what she was doing, but it won’t be long now before she’s running and we can’t catch her!
I realized that I hadn’t posted any photos of Lauren in quite a while. Here are a couple I snapped yesterday. I’m desperate to catch one of her beautiful toothy smile. These aren’t exactly what I was looking for but I’ll keep trying!
Calgary has been really nice. The jet lag hasn’t been too bad and I’ve had so many hugs and smiles and people saying it’s nice to see me. Shawn and Nadine have kindly put me up and I’ve so enjoying visiting with their four little girls.
Shawn also lent me his beautiful beat up car. I had to drive it last night in a small snow storm up the deerfoot trail last night. I did it white knuckled and praying the whole way. God protected me and kept me safe!
I visited Church in the Hills this morning and shared a bit about NLI and our journey this last while with Lauren’s health. It was a blessing to see our church family and I just felt at home with everyone. And what is church without a potluck afterward? Jesse Mitchell can cook up a good stew!!!!
Tomorrow evening I get on a plane for home, and none too soon. I am anxious to see my husband and daughter!
It was terrific! Thank you everyone for making me feel so welcome!
I arrived in Calgary yesterday for a quick six day visit. I missed Doug and Lauren the second I stepped on the bus bound for Heathrow. I had a wonderful welcoming party waiting for me at the airport though! Thanks Wendy, Patrick, Mel, Byron and Caroline, that really put a smile on my face (and I needed to smile after 15 hours of travel).
Today I’ve been visiting with so many good friends… and new babies! So far I’ve met three new babies, Jack, Nathan and Katria. Getting cuddles from them has been so therapeutic since I miss Lauren so much.
As I drove past the Superstore (the one I used to frequent several times a week), I just had to go in and have a look around. Of course I had a few things to get anyway - things we can’t get in England, you know like dill pickle chips and aunt jemima pancake syrup. But as I walked through the doors, it felt like homecoming. I can’t explain it and I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but it made me happy to step foot into Superstore. Perhaps it was just safe and familiar (although they did move a couple of isles around on me).
Anyway, I’m very tired and heading for bed, but I just thought I’d let those of you who didn’t know that I’m in Calgary for a few days. I’ll be sharing a bit on Sunday at Church in the Hills and if you want to get a hold of me, send me an email!
Kara
Yes, that’s right. England had an earthquake last night. 5.3 magnitude apparently!
I didn’t notice anything, but here’s the funny story:
A friend of ours from Calgary is here for a visit. Shawn Karlson is the worship leader at our church in Calgary, he is here in England for a few days. Doug and Shawn left this morning for a training trip to Romania. (more on that later) Before they left Shawn was talking about being woken up about 1 am by the flushing of the toilet and then he said, “I was sure someone was standing at the end of the bed shaking it”. We were teasing Shawn that it was the Holy Spirit and kept asking him what the HS had to say to him. He seemed really convinced, but I was sure he was just extra tired.But this morning on the news I heard about the earthquake, the epicentre of which was just 2 hours NE of us. Here’s a link to the article on the BBC website.
About Romania: This is a new church planting project and Doug is going over to train all the new pastors on how to accept a short term missions team that comes to them. They learn about budgeting and helping the people with the new culture they are in and various other things. Doug has spent a lot of time over the last two months preparing for this and he confessed that he doesn’t feel that this is his forte, but with so much preparation, it has to go smoothly. I’m sure Doug will write a good post when he returns about his experience.
As the title suggests, it has been a crazy month for little Lauren. Our doctor has started her on an additional medicine to stop the focal seizures she still has 2 or 3 times a day. This medicine starts low and gradually increases each week. It has played havoc on her sleep routine and therefore on life in general. It causes her to be a bit hyper (more than usual). On top of that she has been learning to pull herself to a stand and cruise along furniture. On top of all that she has popped out her first six teeth all within the last four weeks! So when she is fussy and miserable we don’t know if she’s tired or in pain.
We are in the midst of a prayer and fasting time at our church here in Bedworth. Doug and I are taking this time to really push in with God and are hoping to see some improvements with Lauren. Thank you to all of you who are joining with us for this time. We know that you are all keeping us in your prayers anyway, but many of you have emailed us to say that you are agreeing with us for this period of time.
I promised to share more about the STEPS course I took several weeks back. It was a great three days of getting to know some of the NLI folks a bit and a nice break from being mommy all day. I learned how our mind can work against us instead of helping us. Basically if we have an image or belief about ourselves in our sub conscience, it is extremely difficult to become something different. For example, if you tell a child that they are messy, well that’s what they believe about themselves and therefore they will always be messy. You can probably think of some things in your own life that you can’t break out of. At first it all sounded very hokey, but at the end I was a believer! Telling yourself what you want to be and letting it sink in is very powerful. Saying things like, I want to be a great mother, not I have to be a mother. Anyway, if you want to know more about this, just email me and I can share more! kara@dkwatson.com
We visited a new Castle this past weekend… I know you were probably thinking that there isn’t a castle that we haven’t seen yet…. haha. This Castle is Bolsover Castle and was quite interesting to look around. We went with the Santostefano family and being with kids always makes it more fun. Although Lauren didn’t seem to have the same appreciation. Hopefully she’ll be walking in the next month and she can join in the adventures!
This weekend we are having a guest from Canada, Shawn Karlson is coming over to visit us - well mostly to visit Doug. The guys are going to see a bit of London and go to the London Hillsong church. Then they will be heading over to Romania for an STM training trip. There are a bunch of new pastors who have just begun church plants there. As they will be receiving some short term missions teams this coming spring and summer, Doug will be teaching them how to prepare for and make the trip fantastic, not only for the team, but for the church plant as well. Doug shared with me last night that he may end up having to preach some time during that trip as well! I know he’ll do fantastic!
I was hoping to get a photo of Lauren up here to show you her new toothies, but she wasn’t cooperative. So I will post one soon! But here is one from Bolsover Castle which is near the city of Chesterfield!View from Bolsover Castle
Need a smile or just need to chat? Here it is . . .
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