First Day of School!

 Wow! Summer vacation 2017 is history. The kids started at their new schools today. While the last few weeks have been a flurry of transition activity, I thought I'd share a few highlights:

 The younger three successfully completed the Pickens Turtle Search while Andrew was at football practice one day. Lots of fun!

This guy turned 14 years old! He wanted to bake his own cake. He is such a one-of-a-kind character! We love him like crazy!!

 

Andrew is headed to high school! He is starting 9th grade and D.W. Daniel High. Ethan and Abby are starting out at R.C. Edwards Middle School. Jadon is going to 5th grade at Six Mile Elementary. I am so excited to see how they learn and grow this year. Love this crew!!!

Halloween Fun

Time for the Tapper Jack-o-lantern Guessing Game! Feel free to guess who created the masterpieces below:

 

1) Scared Cat

2) Scorpion

3) Toronto Raptors

4) Classic Jack

 

Which Tapper kid do you supposed was behind each one of these?

Then, there were the costumes! Jadon was a turkey dinner...

Ethan was a hashtag...

...and Abby was an old lady!

 (If you are wondering, Andrew chose to stay home and hand out candy this year.) Lots of fun was had by all!

New School Year 2016-2017

Holy, triune God, go with us today. May Your strength, Father, keep us secure. May Christ, our true Wisdom, guide our learning. May the Holy Spirit make us glad and good. We pray that you would hold us and bring us, at day’s end, safely home.  Amen.

 

 

Another Teenager in the House!!!

 

We celebrated Ethan's thirteenth birthday on Sunday before sending him off to Caton's Island for the week. We love this kid like crazy!!!

Team Tapper Triathletes

Thanks to the organizers of the Truro Kids Triathlon for putting on a great event! All four Tappers were finishers. All agreed that a triathlon is harder than they thought...and that swimming is the hardest part. What an adventure!

 

Tapper Egg Hunt!

 

We completed our Easter family egg hunt on Monday this year, since Andrew and I were away at his provincial hockey tournament while Mike and the rest of the gang were working hard with the Easter Bunny Blast and Easter Sunday at Moncton Wesleyan.

 

It was fun to read the notes that the kids are writing as they get older. They are really thoughtful, funny, and unique. This is definitely one of our favourite family traditions!



Lenten Thoughts

 

By His Wounds We Were Healed, Anthony R. Falbo, contemporary

 

There is a strange dichotomy between the Cross of Christ and the cross of Christian culture. We wear it in beautiful chains around our necks--Christ wore it in bloody stakes through His hands and feet. We display it on bumper stickers and posters with pride, but shame consumed the One who hung there for hours. We hold it close and sense heaven--Christ embraced it and encountered hell.

Our sanctuaries display a cleansed version of the Cross--no blood, no struggle, no filth of sin--solely a monument to resurrection power. We celebrate the passion of Christ once a year, but for most of us the journey from Good Friday to Easter is a short one.

Somehow the horror of Jesus- final days eludes us as we bask in the glow of His ascension.

 

The Crucifixion: 'Behold Thy Mother' c.1805, William Blake

It's almost as if we've gotten beyond the Cross, though surely that has never been our intention. As believers, we want it to be central to our faith, but struggle to find a practical place for it in our lives.

What would it look like if we did? A morbid fascination with grim details? An aura of morose resignation settling in our souls? Sackcloth...ashes...melancholy chants from monotone choirs? Surely not.

But if no greater love has even been seen than when Christ lay his head on the crossbeam at Calvary, we must find a way to be consumed by it. If it took not gold or silver, but precious blood to secure our redemption, we must comprehend the incomprehensible. If God's glory is a jewel hidden in the hollow of the Cross, how can we do anything less than search for it with all our might?

(Reading from "Contemplating the Cross: A Pilgrimage of Prayer" by Tricia McCrary Rhodes)

 

Crucifixion, 1946, Graham Sutherland

 

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

through which the world has been crucified to me,

and I to the world.

Galatians 6:14