Hi All!

Can you believe it's been 2 months since we all met? I just put pictures in an album, highlights of our trip. I love looking through it.

Tres, what kind of letter do you mean, from Markus' dad? I tried calling one day but no answer.

Well, as for us Winnipeggers, we have truly had the warmest winter on record! January and Feb have been about -4 to -7! (These are MY stats, I'm not sure exactly) Maybe a week of days where it was -20 or so, scattered throughout. Overall, it's been beautiful! Makes us all wonder what March will be like! Could be some blizzards, who knows?

Al and I just started as part of the teaching team for a 12 week course for "Marriage minded singles." It's at our church. The class began on Wednesday. Al & I are teaching 5 of the nights. We are following two books, the guys - "Four Pillars of a Man's Heart" and "Knight in Shining Armour" for the girls. So we teach from that material for 45 minutes, then we gather as a group and discuss. They did this course last year for the first time and found it very successful. There are a lot of reasons why people are single, so I feel a little underqualified, but we are really excited that the Lord is giving us this opportunity to share a message of hope! Pray for us. We have divorced people, some twice, wounded people, dysfunctional backgrounds, etc. Al has never taught in front of a group, so pray for him. There are more women than men. 21 registered and there may be more. When we were dating, Al said that maybe someday we'd be able to minister to singles, and here we are. Pastor Aubrey approached us about one month ago and asked us. We are excited to do this.

We are still curling. We watched a lot of the curling during the winter olympics! Yay! Canada's men's team, Brad Gushue, won the gold! and the ladies the bronze. Did you watch any of it? And Markus and Nik and Matt!!! How was the hockey game?!! Too bad they lost, eh? How exciting to be there! Tonight Danny and Irene are curling with us, as subs, since Liz and Leroy are on holidays. Next Sat. we're curling with them again, at a Grant Memorial - church funspiel.

Today is Al's mom's birthday. We are going out for lunch with her tomorrow. This morning I am recuperating from a crazy busy week of marking and doing report cards! Yes! I finished them yesterday. Yay! I always feel like I was hit by a train when it's over. I just veg for awhile. Not for long today though! We want to plant begonia bulbs today. 24! This is an experiment for us. Hope it works. Then we are going to a shower for David and Sylvia! We'll bring our pic's. They've already seen them, when they came to get their bags. We had them over for breakfast. It was great. They brought us an orchid plant as a thank-you gift. It was something I've always wanted! Pink. We have been enjoying it! Anyway, so it's at the North Kildonan MB church. Sounds like a lot of people will be there. Donato and Roneche dropped off the invite one day. We had told David and Sylvia we'd like to come. Tonite we curl.

How are you all? Love, Brenda