A Trip to the Zoo

On July 1st (a while ago, I know), we (the Ontario Clifford & Henriette Van Dyken clan) made a trip to the zoo ( http://www.zooz.ca/ ) on the way to Fort Erie. It was a beautiful day for it, and we had a good time. We saw monkeys swinging, lions roaring, storks squawking angrily (we got too close to the nest), hippopotami sneezing, friendly macaws, and we even got some fishing in there. The park was very nice for a day trip... not too big, not too small. Here are some of the pictures I took (I don't know where Mom's are, sorry).

And some more fishing...

Dad, Curt, and I went to Mountsberg on Saturday morning. The fishing was excellent, probably because it was just after a long cold week (both of the fish I cleaned had empty stomachs). We caught about 8 pike, some small perch and sunfish, and two crappie. Curt's pike was his biggest ever, (I think), 26.5 inches, 3lbs 7oz. My second crappie (picture below) was 11.5oz. Some good fishing!

Fishing again...

I went out for about an hour on Friday just before a storm. The fishing was incredible! I spent most of my time fighting with the fish. I had a nice one on at first, but it got so tangled up in the lilypads that it finally got off. Then I caught this one, an 8 lb catfish. I was in my rubber dinghy, and went on a nice ride for both of them.

(Sorry, the pictures aren't that great.)

For bait, I tried something new... cheese & raisins! I plan on trying to make some kind of a mesh around the cheese in the future to keep it on. Usually, it would fall off on the first strike.

Another cat...

Dad caught this one tonight... 5.3 lbs.

Catfish Season

Catfish season is just starting in Jordan Harbour, as the weather is finally starting to warm up. I went fishing for a bit today with Derek and Elliot (two neighbour guys from Trinity). I didn't catch any big ones (the two biggest are shown here), but Derek caught a five-pound one before I got there.



I think this one was about a pound or so.


And one last picture of a beautiful sunrise I saw a couple of days ago from out of my bedroom window!

And Some Pics....

Here's a couple of pictures... maybe you've seen some of them already, and maybe you haven't.

Tepic in the early morning.


Jim Vannette vs. Paco.... can you guess who won?


Paco, Carlos, Marcos, and myself.


Angie at the beach.


On top of Cera de la Cruz.


Sophia, Edmundo & Elouisa's little girl. :)

Mexico!!!

As some of you (whoever is reading this, which I doubt is many :) ) may know, I just got back from the ELM mission trip. A team of about 10 of us (3 from Ontario, 7 from Holland, MI) went down to Tepic, Mexico for the annual mission trip. We kept a blog of the trip on the ELM website (go to Team Blog 2008 on the site). It was an excellent trip! Highlights from the trip for me were:

1. The devotions. The theme was how we can, how we should be, and how we are already equipped to be doing missions right here in Canada. Of course, there is a difference between ordained mission work and our own 'mission' work. But the emphasis for us (which is challenging in our Dutch Reformed mindsets) is that we need to be to be actively looking, thinking, and praying about ways we can reach out to those around us who we know and who we don't know. Going on a mission trip is a great opportunity, but really, as individuals and as a church, we can be doing much the same things here!


2. The church there. It was a blessing to see how the church has been growing in Tepic. Not so much numerically (though that too), but spiritually, as God works in their lives slowly but surely.

3. Practicing my Spanish! This was a lot of fun.

There are a good number of pictures on the Team Blog, as well as on Richard & Angela's blog. I hope to put a couple up here too.