Fifteen Candles

The baby that made us parents for the first time turned 15 on February 26. Diedre is a sweet daughter, a loyal friend, a voice of reason with an obvious gift of godly wisdom, a counsellor to her friends, she is gentle and serves others in childrens ministry, singing, and is a joy to be around. She loves athletics (basketball, track, fitness) and is a positive teammate. I love spending time with her and she is a friend to me. I pray that she will continue to seek God’s will for her life and allow Him to work in her and lead her in the path He has planned for her.

Ezekiel had the idea to buy her a ukulele and wanted to pay for half of it. She was so excited to open it! He planned such a sweet and thoughtful surprise for her.

This grade 9 year has been a year of growing up with her first loss of a grandparent, adjusting to a new school and social groups, losing some friends and having her eyes opened to some pretty serious problems among her classmates.

As a family we always do a birthday activity of the child’s choice but this time we tried to make her birthday special and I had planned a concert for our whole family to go to on February 27 (but Derek was still sick from Vegas—hopefully Coronavirus—and didn’t feel up to it so we took a friend).

The concert was full of many musicians that we all liked. Some of Diedre’s favourites and really someone for everyone. It was a crazy long concert—like 4 hours or more!! So many families from school were there too. Toby Mac, Jordan Feliz, Aaron Cole, We are Messengers, Tauren Wells and more! It was crazy. Unfortunately Ezekiel got a crazy headache (not a good combo for a super loud concert) and kept having to leave the arena. I had earplugs in which were super helpful and so I finally gave them to him but he was too far gone. It was so loud! Anyway, if we do that again, I’ll make sure to stock up on earplugs for everyone. The birthday girl seemed to like it a lot