My not so little sister

Not saying that she's large.

I'm not saying that at all.

I'm just saying that she's my little sister who's grown into an adult over the last few years. Well..It's been more then a few years I suppose, but it seems like just yesterday that we were building forts in the basement out of couch cushions and blankets. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were walking out to catch the bus for Amy's first day of kindergarden and Mom asked us to turn around in the yard for a photo.

Amy just got married. So long couch cushion forts and rainbow bright lunch boxes. My little sister is an adult and has been for a while now.

So ...

Let's start this post with my favorite photo of the whole wedding day...

Alright, now that we got that out of the way I just wanted to acknowledge that this is old news, Amy and Abraham were married this summer but I am a bad blogger. I blogged halloween before my sisters wedding. Oh well.

Here we go!

I have a guilt I carry around with me about growing up with Amy. Even after a full confession and request for forgiveness from her I still can't get the guilt off my shoulders.

Amy used to love the wheel of fortune board game. She..loved... the wheel of fortune board game. I did not enjoy it as much.

I still remember to this day, playing with my little toy men, soldiers, GI joes, legos. And then watching Amy walk into my bedroom holding the wheel of fortune board game in her arms.

Even though she pretty much knew the answer to her question, she'd still be holding the game, and she would even address me, "Hey Royden, do you you want to play wheel of fortune?"

"Not really."

"Okay," she would say and disapear from my bedroom door, disappointed.

In my memory it's cut up and edited like a movie. I see multiple cuts of different answers to the same question. Different questions but the same answer. She would always ask..I would never give her a minute of my time.

"wheel of fortune?"
"no.."

Sometimes I'd walk by the livingroom on my way to the kitchen for a glass of milk and see Amy trying to play the game on the floor by herself. You can't play wheel of fortune by yourself.

My final memory of this is seeing Amy appear in my bedroom doorway, sad and defeated, looking at the floor, mumbling the question for the last time, "..do you want to play wheel of fortune?.." waiting for the expected answer without even looking up at me. And she got it, and walked away.

I don't know why this blog just turned into a confessional. I'm totally off topic, everyone's looking at wedding photos and wondering what the heck this blog is about. Maybe I'm trying to get it off my shoulders for the last time. I'm sorry Amy. I haven't always been the best brother. Please forgive me. I need to find that dang game on ebay so I can sit down with you deal with this guilt.

We'll play wheel fortune all night.

Okay, back to photos...

Back on topic. After these pictures in the barn, we danced. At Lepp weddings there are lots of relatives, little cousins, food, and sometimes even a little two stepping.

It was a fun wedding. Abraham, welcome to the family! Congratulations and prayers for you both.

Boo!

I have so many things to blog.

I've realized that if I wait and create a list of all the things I'd like to blog in order of how they happened, I'll never blog again. And so... Halloween!



Welcome to my party! Rhonda is one of Ruth's (fabulous) coworkers. Her family threw a Halloween party like I've never seen before. It was incredible. That's the only way I can describe it.

The decorations were over the top.





And the costumes were priceless...




Our friend Gladys the housewife won the costume contest. She cracked us up all night long.



There's nothing quite like watching Neo and Trinity (aka Ruth's boss and her husband) kicking it on the dance floor. Great costumes! Ruth and I dressed up for the first time in years. I went as an escaped convict, while Ruth went as a Seattle police officer.



I guess those handcuffs don't really make me an 'escaped' convict. More like recaptured. We had a lot of fun. There was nothing to do but enjoy the snacks and refreshments...and DANCE!!





License and registration please!

It was a great party! Thanks to Rhonda and her family for inviting us!

Now how do I get out of these things?

BFF (Best Friends Forever)

Here we are, together again! Yikes!! My Loa (and her other half, Hanno) finally came to visit me last weekend. We painted the town red and I think we completely wore our husbands out. Good thing we chose well with them for they put up with us without complaint-with beer yes, but without complaint;) We went here, there and everywhere. We tried to convince Hanno that Seattle really is the place to be and the sun even cooperated and shone the whole time they were here. Unbelievable!



We showed them the ocean, the lakes, the locks, the glass, the market, the island. We toured Kirkland, Bellevue, Fremont and even checked out some open houses in Mercer Island and Queen Anne. How fun is that?! I LOVE checking out other people's homes. I lurk on Windermere just to dream sometimes. I highly recommend taking your friends from California on driving tours with you so that you have a good excuse to tour open houses in ritzy neighborhoods. The only problem we found with one of the houses is that you'd never have to go on vacation again.



Since Seattle is known for it's music we decided we must go to the Triple Door. Our favorite musical venue did not disappoint even with an unknown artist. We pigged out and drank cosmos. I decided Loa might be my favorite person to drink cosmos with. Probably because the first cosmo I ever drank was with her (and Michelle who convinced us that we'd get underage service at Boston Pizza in Vernon...and she was right!!).





Speaking of bars, we ended up at the Jarju's favorite hotspot a little later that night. Disregarding my usual paranoia I will even divulge to you where we went, Amber in Belltown. Why this sudden disregard for privacy you ask? Because the bouncer SCANNED OUR DRIVERS LICENCE when we entered the club. I was aghast. Royden thought it was a good idea. I thought it was 1984.



Deep in conversation reminiscing about our history with barbies, the book Forever, summer camp on Thetis Island, our first trip to Disneyland in grade 9, shopping for bar shirts, fighting over counter space in the bathroom of our first apartment, our careers as nurses, marriage and moving to America.



Unfortunately we never did get a picture of the four of us as Royden was in his rightful place behind the camera. As he said "I wasn't about to hand it off to someone just standing there!". So I guess we'll have to take the tripod next time.



So now instead of living together we live with our husbands. As much as Loa and I love each other I think we both agree that they are much easier to live with. It's much fun hanging out with your BF and the man who loves her just as much as you do. We love you guys and hope to crash at your place sometime soon!!

The Patriarch

I love the drive through the mountains whenever we go home.

There's always a period during the drive as you enter Hope, the hills begin to jut into the sky and disappear behind curtains of clouds. Shortly after that, you yourself begin ascending on the highway that takes you far from civilization, far from gas stations and rest stops, towards the toll at the summit.

And as the car climbs, your ears begin to plug and the air outside gets colder. The trees get skinnier with less oxygen and the clouds hang off of their tips like cobwebs being pulled from a dusty trophy.

It's breathtaking and it's all I can do to keep the car on the road. There's so much to look at.




Sometimes it's good to just pull over and take it in.

Eventually you start the slow descent into Merritt and Kamloops as your ears pop, your bladder nags, and the purpose of your trip comes back to you. Ruth and I have traveled this pass so many times.

There were two very important reasons to go home last weekend. They can really only be blogged separately so we'll start with this one...



Last Wednesday night George Henry Lepp fell asleep. When he woke up he was somewhere else, but he was no longer with us.




There are 80 family members that either call George Father, Grandfather, or great Grandfather. We got together to honour grandpa, and put his tired old body to rest. At 88 he lived to see things I can barely imagine.



He was born in Russia, present day Ukraine. His family left their home looking for peace and prosperity in Canada. They found it, but George lost two brothers on the journey here. One in Latvia, one in Canada soon after arriving. Farming was in the bloodlines. It carried on from my grandpa's Dad, to my Grandpa, to my own Dad.

Wheat was his favorite crop.



Soon after being married to Mary, George heard a radio program that changed his life. He turned to Christ and never looked back. He opened his Bible everyday. He lived to serve his family and his saviour.

He was an extremely hard worker, suffering from a heart attack at 36. He worked with his hands and made use of what he was given. He did the work that God put in front of him.

I know he wasn't perfect.






I don't open my Bible everyday.

Sometimes I have a hard time being a servant. I know he wasn't perfect. I know I'm not perfect either. But at times like these it's good to evaluate things.

Sometimes when I'm on the treadmill at the gym, I feel a tightness in my chest. I think about grandpa and I slow down.



At the end of the graveside service, a time for sharing was opened. There was silence for a minute. I'll never forget watching my Dad walk across the grass to the bundle of wheat next to the coffin. He used his hook to break open the twine as he announced, "It's time for harvest!" He began handing out wheat. I raised my camera to steal that scene forever but I decided instead to just remember it.

It is harvest time. Some extended family couldn't make it because harvest has started in Manitoba. And it was harvest for time for Grandpa. What God had been sowing in the soil of his life was ready to be collected.



I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one "like a son of man" with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, "Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe." So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.
Revelation 14: 14-16