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The Adoration of the Christ Child See if you can spot why I like this image Everything in its Right Place 
There's SNOW place like home!

Aberdeen and most of Scotland have been blanketed by an early winter snowfall over the last few days. This early frosty weather has caused travel and school transport chaos big time, but also has created opportunities for winter snow play to make the long weekend enjoyable (the kids are off school Monday and Tuesday for inservice days). We all pulled out our snow boots, woolly socks, long underwear, and waterproof gear and headed outside to play. As you can see, Caleb also needed his Ben 10 goggles to keep the snow out of his eyes! Perfect for when a car drove past him and splashed dirty, salty water into his eyes, only he didn't have them on then! But now he won't take them off....
We had friends from Baytown visiting with us last week, Shawn and Sarah Aghajan, and they too got to experience first hand the trouble caused when a few inches of snow drop out of the sky. Caleb and I took them to see Dunottar castle about 13 miles south of Aberdeen, but the snow was so bad that getting there was dodgy, the path down to the castle not terribly safe, and the castle itself was closed! In the end we had a lovely lunch in Stonehaven and took pics from a safe distance... Yes, Shawn messed that one up! (just kidding Shawn!) It was an amazing time for pictures, as the sun shining down magnified the snow clouds over the North Sea in the background.
Yesterday was Sunday, and after church we had soup and then went outside with the requisite gear to do some sledding (well, three of us anyway). I'll try to add a video below of Adam and Brian sailing down the hill in front of our flat, with Caleb giving them the turbo boost push-off. The best part of the afternoon was Adam learning to throw snowballs--he loved the whole idea, even getting them thrown at him! His chuckles made frozen fingers and ice up the nose worth it all! And let me tell you, with the arm he's got, he'll soon be a force to reckon with!
That's all for now. Enjoy whatever weather you have...we're going outside! Posted by Stephanie Brock at 1:11 AM 2 comments: Labels: boys, friends, snow


Worthwhile struggles

I know it's been a long time since I last wrote anything, and as soon as I have a minute to remedy that situation I will. But, in the meantime, on this cold Friday morning I will leave you with the link to an article I wrote for Biola magazine, the Fall issue of which has just come out.
I receive the quarterly Biola magazine all the way over here in Scotland, and enjoy looking through it as a link to my history and the chance to see what and how Christians around the world are getting involved with life. However, I had started to become disillusioned that there was so little mention of the issue of disability within the pages, and wrote to the editor to express my opinion. After all, disability is the main priority of our life, and I know we are not the only ones.
He wrote me back straight away and asked if I would be interested in writing about our story and what I am doing with my life now, so I did. To be honest, I never actually thought it would come out, mostly for lack of my experience as a writer! But now that it has I'm glad to have shared and grateful for the place that the Lord has given me to be planted and bloom.
Worthwhile struggles indeed, and I don't take credit for writing that title. Enjoy!
Posted by Stephanie Brock at 11:47 PM 3 comments: Labels: article, Biola, disability

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