The Grisham Family

I'm Back with Big News!

2012-01-05T17:13:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I know it's been MONTHS since I've posted anything!!! That's just how busy life has been for us, and I haven't really prioritized my blog. So, sorry to be coming out of the woodwork, but we need prayers, and I thought this would be a great way to gather some prayer warriors!

We found out during our time home for Christmas that we will be having another baby!!! Yes, I'm pregnant......again. We are really excited about this third baby to complete our family, and we are on our faces seeking God's will for our lives once again. We know He is in control of all of this because the timing of this baby was not necessarily what we thought it would be since we are in Vancouver.
We are praying for God to show us VERY clearly His will for us whether that's to stay here or make a move! In the midst of all of our questions, we are praising God for this new life!!!

"Before the Parade Passes By!"

2011-07-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

Have any of you seen "Hello Dolly?" One of the best songs in the movie is "Before the Parade Passes By!" I just love that movie! If you've never seen it, you need to! It's a classic.:) Anyway, this was a picture of Max and Ellie Rose before the parade passed by. They were anxiously waiting and waving their little Canadian flags.:)

Ellie Rose on Canada Day

2011-07-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

Canada Day was July 1st, so we had much to do for celebrating with the city here in Vancouver. Ellie Rose was decked out in her pink and black. Not really Canadian colors, but she pulled it off ok I think.;) I wish I could have grabbed my camera fast enough when she saw herself for the first time in that mirror wearing this outfit. She really did think she was the cutest thing she'd ever seen. She smiled and smiled at herself with a few twirls in between. Hilarious!!!

Thank You, Nonna!

2011-07-03T19:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of Max and his Nonna! The quality isn't great because I used my camera on my phone, but the smiles still shine through of course!:)

Cars 2

2011-07-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

My mom ("Nonna") visited last week and took Max and me to see CARS 2! We were thrilled to get to go see it with her! I will say though that Max still likes the first one a whole lot better. Mama and I could barely keep up with it, much less a three year old!:)

The Real Vancouver

2011-06-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

After all of the rioting, there were some encouraging things that took place, so, of course, I wanted to share them. These pictures were emailed to me from a dear friend of ours, born and raised a Vancouverite. He says these pictures depict the real Vancouver. Many Vancouverites showed up to work hard in restoring their city and its good name. Scott and a friend of his went to help the following morning for clean up, and the work was almost complete! The city really came together to get everything cleaned up overnight. How encouraging to see some good come from such a terrible night. These people really do love their city.....and I do too!:)

Yes, We're Safe!

2011-06-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, last night, the Boston Bruins beat the Vancouver Canucks in the final hockey game of the season to win the Stanley Cup. This was game 7/7 and played here in Vancouver. The aftermath of the big loss was insane rioting on the streets of downtown Vancouver, just blocks away from where we live. Here are some pictures depicting only a portion of the destruction that occurred.

There were several cars overturned and set on fire, some included police cars.

The police tried to hold the people back from the fire scenes to try and stop them from adding new materials into the fire.

This shows some of the destruction done to the mall downtown. People were grabbing expensive merchandise and running out with hands full.

One thing that was so sad was to see people taking pictures and cheering on the insane behaviors, almost glorifying the hooligans.

And here the city sits with the repercussions from all the madness. It saddened us so much to see this happen. We've been hearing that a group of people had planned to riot whether the Canucks won or lost. "The ones who began the rioting weren't even true hockey fans." said one reporter. They were just people looking for a time and place to provoke trouble.

The one thing Scott and I have gained from all of this is realizing how desperately this city needs to encounter the one true God of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ. We are so thankful to be in a place where we can be used for His glory. May God use us to draw people to Himself! Please join us in prayer for this precious city.

A Trip to the Store

2011-05-02T02:17:00.000-07:00

So, I'm going to try to walk you through the steps just to get into a typical grocery store downtown. Get ready for this! First, I pull into the parking garage, because there is no such thing as free parking downtown. Then, I walk over to one of these machines and retrieve a parking slip.

This is a bigger picture of the garage and the pay booth.

Then, I walk inside the store and see one of these. Yes, they are escalators for buggies. Crazy! After I finish shopping, I ride back down.

I get my parking pass and slide it back into the machine that gave it to me. The machine will tell me how long it's been since I retrieved my ticket and will charge me for how long I've parked. I then pay my parking fee, and the machine spits my ticket back out. I walk to my van and drive toward the exit.

I then pull up to a booth that looks like this. I have to put my ticket into the machine so that it knows I have paid for parking. There you go! Not all parking garages work the same way, but they are serious about paying for parking.

Easter Fun!

2011-05-02T01:52:00.000-07:00

Max & Ellie Rose with the eggs they found after hard hunting. I could NOT get them to both look at the camera. Maybe one day...

Ellie Rose LOVES food! Even the boiled egg she found on the ground that had cracked open from dying Easter eggs. Ha! She's didn't seem to like it but that didn't stop her from eating it.

A Transformation

2011-04-24T22:56:00.000-07:00

After everything was hauled into studio 700, we all pitched in and got the place looking pretty good for a modern church if I do say so myself.:) Here is a walk thru of what the place looked like when we got it ready. Of course after the service was over, we got to take it ALL back down and back to storage or to our homes, but it was well worth it.:) We anxiously await the Lord to provide funds and a space for The Crossings to gather weekly outside of our homes, but for now we are thankful for what we do have.

Easter Morning Set Up!

2011-04-24T22:40:00.000-07:00

Here is a video clip of our team carrying EVERYTHING into CBC Studio for our Easter service. It was a lot of work, but we had happy hearts. It made us realize the things we used to take for granted. CBC studio is like the NBC studio of New York. We were so thankful for the opportunity to have our Easter service here. We had around 60 people attend including the Korean church we have partnered with, but there were some new faces too. We are still praising the Lord for all He provided this Easter for us all!

One Pretty Day!

2011-04-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

On a pretty day here in Vancouver, there isn't much better than this view from the front of our apartment! Most days are cloudy, so when we get days like this gorgeous one, I soak it up all I can! Thank you Lord for putting me in a place where I can see mountains AND water.......two of my most favorite things!:)

Sorry for the Confusion!

2011-04-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

If you've been wondering what has happened to my blog, I have actually been trying to reconstruct it. I got to a point where I felt like I had so much going on that I was having a hard time deciphering what to post and what not to. Do I post about family fun, or do I post about ministry events?
At first, I thought the best thing to do was to keep them separate, so I decided to have our newsletter be mostly about ministry and our blog mostly about family fun.
This sounded good, but I've found it super hard to do because the truth is that the two intertwine to the point where it's almost impossible to separate! So, I've decided to just try my best to organize it to where it makes sense having both ideas shared on our blog. Thanks for keeping up with us, and I hope to have this all figured out soon!:)

Anna Katherine's TV Debut

2011-02-22T21:44:00.000-08:00

I set out this morning with Max in the stroller (Ellie Rose was home sick with Daddy) to go to the Round House Community Center for playtime. I turned on Robson St. (a very popular street here in downtown) to head across the city. As I was walking, I noticed a female news reporter along with her camera man standing on a street corner. I saw them eyeing me from across the street, and I thought, "Oh my goodness, they are going to be so disappointed as soon as I start talking and they realize I'm not a Canadian!" :) That did not stop them. The news reporter asked me if I had a favorite Olympic moment. I told her that I had just moved to Vancouver from Mississippi, so I was not here for the Olympics but that I had watched a lot on TV. Ha! So she asked me again what my favorite Olympic moment was. I told her that I enjoyed watching Lindsey Vaughn make her ski runs........again......not a Canadian. Haha! Oh well! The news reporter was quite nice. She thanked me and hoped I enjoyed living in Vancouver.
God certainly has a sense of humor.
If this wasn't enough exposure for me for one day, on my way back from the Round House, I got stopped AGAIN by ANOTHER news reporter and camera man. This time the question wasn't so easy, and I really did try to get out of it. It was something about paying more for water. I managed to babble about something and apologized to the man for my ignorance on the issue. I don't know if I actually made the news or not, but it was quite an interesting day. :)

Mississippians meet Downtown Driving in Vancouver

2011-02-08T22:25:00.001-08:00

We've already had some funny moments here in Vancouver. We are adjusting to city life and doing fairly well, being from good ole Mississippi, though there are some things that are just really different . Driving being one of them. Tonight Scott was driving the kids and me back into downtown from Wal-mart (not like the one we're used to) when we turned onto a street behind a bus that looked almost like a trolly for lack of a better word. We heard a guy honking but thought he was honking for us to hurry up and turn. Then another bus pulled up behind us. It wasn't long before we realized we were on a street that wasn't for cars!!! HAHAHA!!! There we sat in the middle of a bunch of buses! We had to wait behind the bus at the bus stop to wait for the people to get on and off. I tried to duck from all the people staring. Of course we turned off at the nearest street that put us back on track. It's no wonder that talking on your cell phone while driving is illegal here.