The Talens' Tales

Since it is one week from our departure, I thought it would be only fitting to mention some of the unique things about this little community that I have grown to love. So, only in Edgerton (and the nearby surrounding area) do you: have a man pass you on his motorcycle blaring the piano and organ church music on his radio. play mini-golf for free that tell you about the history of the community. Not a lot of history. It was only seven holes long and the las two didn't even have sign designating what part of the history the hole represents. does the news that you are leaving spread faster than you find humanly possible. have your groceries delivered to your car while you are still paying, without them even asking which car is yours. get your favorite pizza put on the buffet every time you got in for a meal. have more offers to help load up your trailer when you move than stuff you actually have to move. There are lots more things, but I don't want to bore you. I will miss this l...

My visa came! Let the packing madness begin. Our plan is to leave next week for Michigan and spend Labor Day Weekend with family and then head to PEI the following week. We sold the humidifier today. Now we have just a piano and house left to sell.

In our continued quest for names for our baby, we took a look at my husband's genealogy that an uncle of his has been putting together. As we were looking at it, we stumbled across a reference to "North Holland, MI(USA)." With some further investigation, we discovered that my husband's great-great-great-grandfather immigrated to Holland, MI and is buried not 30 minutes from where I grew up. There are a lot of questions about this story, but here is what we could gather. This ancestor was married and they had one child (my husband's great-great grandfather) before his wife passed away. Then 12 years later, this ancestor married again. At some point in time after they were married, they decided to immigrate to Michigan. But, for some reason this child from the first marriage stayed behind in the Netherlands, married a local girl and continued my husband's family's line in the Netherlands. We found this all pretty crazy and we are hoping to find this gravest...

This picture I took last week Thursday when this huge storm blew through. I have never seen anything quite like it and I thought this picture was pretty impressive as it shows the wall cloud moving in. And it moved fast. Thankfully we did not have too much damage, just a few branches down. The bowling alley's roof blew off and a few other things came down around town. We have had a lot of crazy weather this summer. We praise God for his protection through all of the storms.

A little up date on the little one and pregnancy. Here I am at 28 weeks, getting bigger by the day. I had my 28 week check up (hopefully my last on in the States) and everything look great. I am measuring at 28 weeks perfectly, my glucose test came back normal, the baby's heart beat is right at 150 and the baby is kicking and moving a lot. All is well as we continue to prepare for our move. The biggest thing on our minds right now is our house. It still has not sold and some possibilities that we had sort of fell through. We trust that God has a plan and his timing is perfect. We would really like to not have to worry about our house though once we get to the Island. I also made the plunge and bought some cloth diapers. I went with a sample pack, so I got four different diapers for a package deal. The plan is to try these diapers out once our baby is born and fits in them and see which ones we like best and then complete our set with about 12 more of the winning diaper.

Last night I got to baby-sit for my favorite four year-old (almost five year-old). Since his little sister went to bed really early, we got to spend a little bit of time together and he had a lot to say. " I know how to do a magic trick. I have this coin. Now don't watch the penny, watch my face." He then proceeds to wiggle the coin between his hands and moves his hands and arms all around like he is dancing with the upper part of his body only. Then, THUNK, he throws the coin on the ground and holds his two fists in front of me. "Which hand?" I pick one empty fist and then the other. "Now look at the ceiling." I do as he stops down to grab the coin and then jumps up in the air with arm out stretched and then holding his open hand in front of me to show me the coin he pulled out of the air. Later on while we were setting up a zoo, he noticed that my stomach stuck out a bit. "Why is this bigger?" he asked. "There is a baby in there."...

I just received the request for my passport from the Canadian Government, which means that they are ready to issue my visa! So, I still have to send it in and wait for it to come back, but things are moving along and we will hopefully be on our way soon! Hurray!

So there are few things we needed to do before our move. 1) Get Denise's paper work 2) Get the title for our trailer 3) Get the air conditioning in the truck fixed 4) Sell our house As soon as number one comes, we are moving, but today, nicely, we received the letter from the previous owner that we needed to get the title for our trailer. So hurray! And since the office that we need to go to is open tomorrow, we will hopefully have number 2 on the list taken care of very soon. God is good. So good.

I feel like I am living in a bubble right now. All of our summer plans are finished. My Canadian paper work is not here yet. So, we cannot move on the next step in our life yet...moving to PEI. My paper work is not late. It takes 5-7 months and in mid August it will be 6 months. But I am getting a bit impatient. But, I know I should not be. God's plan and timing is perfect, I believe that. Really, it is all that is keeping me from going crazy. There are still things we need to finish before we move. Getting the title for the trailer, selling our house, etc. So, I am thankful for time to do this. I am thankful that Wilbert can work for the farmer he is working for as long as we are here. We covet your prayer right now. Prayers for our patience as the last few things fall into place. Prayers that the paper work makes its way through the pipeline of government quickly. Prayers that when we do finally move, the travels will go okay for me as our baby continues to grow. "Now faith ...

We have now returned from vacation part 2 - California! We did a lot of fun things like: Seeing the Golden Gate Bridge. Unfortunately the batteries on our camera died, so we didn't get any pictures of anythings else we saw in San Fransisco. Going to Yosemite National Park and seeing some nice waterfalls. The view from Tunnel View. The view from Glacier Point. The General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park. The General Grant Tree. A view of Kings Canyon National Park. The Jelly Belly Factory. We came home with some "Belly Flops" the rejected beans that are to small or big to be shipped out to sell. They are a great and tasty deal. We also saw Wicked in San Fransisco. An most importantly, spent time with my sister and her husband. It was a great trip and hopefully it won't be too long before we are able to return.