I am very pleased to introduce you to Olha Tkachenko, the illustrator of my most recent, award-winning children's picture book, The Underdog Duckling. She is as delightful a person as an illustrator and truly a talented artist.

What…

Hot on the heels of my recent national writing award shortlist for my trivia book When Sleeping Birds Fly: 365 Amazing Facts About The Animal Kingdom comes the second book in the series, When Crocodiles Cry: 365 MORE Amazing Facts…

I was excited and honoured to find out that my children’s picture book, The Underdog Duckling, won the Children’s Book General Market category at The 2019 Word Awards. Awards in 43 categories were given out at a black…

I am wearing two hats in this blog as I act as as both interviewer and interviewee for the most-asked questions about my book The Underdog Duckling.

Tell us about your book. 

The Underdog Duckling is about a young…

1. The tongue-eating isopod (a crustacean) eats a fish’s tongue and then becomes the fish’s tongue, feeding on the food the fish catches. 

2. While mating, the male anglerfish grabs onto the much larger female with his mouth, hangs on,…

I am very excited to announce that I have been shortlisted for three 2019 The Word Awards! The Word Awards, sponsored by The Word Guild, are Canada’s largest and most prestigious awards for writers that identify as Christian…

Theo’s first birthday was one that we highly anticipated. Maybe not so much the event itself, but the milestone it represented. Many dog owners we have talked to shared that puppies start to settle down about the time that they…

One of the things I have found difficult to master since our puppy Theo came into our life is figuring out how to maintain a balance between our normal (old) life as a family of two and the new one…

Shortly after Theo turned 10 months old, we had to take another trip with him to the small animal hospital emergency department. (Click here for the first incident.) Like many accidents, it could have been avoided; but it happened…

In November/December of every year, I start to keep my eyes open, and pray, for a Scripture and word that speaks to me to help ground and guide me for the following year. 

My Scriptures and words for the past…

It’s hard to believe that our beloved pet Theo has only been on this earth for nine months, and only seven of those with us. We have seen him grow and mature in leaps and bounds, and he is…

Hi! My name is Theo.

My birth parents are Icey (from Nevada; white with blue eyes) and Sherriff (caramel brown with brown eyes). My new mum and dad adopted me when I was 11 weeks old. Look…

Life circumstances in 2018 prevented me from doing as much photography as I would have normally liked. Regardless, it was fun reviewing and reliving what we did and where we travelled this past year as I scrolled through my photos. 

I am grateful to say that once again I had a year full of excitement, fun, and success. However, I will also remember 2018 as full of challenges and difficulties I never saw coming. Read on to find out more! 

When my husband and I met with our pastor and his wife this past January to share that I was stepping back from leading worship, I never dreamed that it would be the beginning of the end of our journey…

Before I had a puppy, I walked twice a day year-round, regardless of weather. Only when it was close to -30 C or when rain was pelting down did I make an exception. For all that time I pounded the…

This past week we took Theo to the veterinarian to try to figure out why he has been throwing up about once every one or two weeks over the past month and why he has been getting my husband up…

Last week, Theo turned seven months old! I remember during puppy training the trainer telling us that one of the most difficult periods in raising a dog happens between about seven and eleven months. We’ll see how the next few…

This past weekend Theo had his first play date at our house, with his “niece”—my son and daughter-in-law’s two-year-old Wheaten Terrier! Pebbles has a very friendly disposition and is super energetic! The two of them ran around the house…

Two weeks post-surgery, Theo is completely healed. What better way to celebrate than to give him an opportunity to spend a morning with some puppies and doggies at a doggy day care! 

I found a lady fairly close to…

Theo is healing nicely from his surgery. A couple more days and he should be ready to go back to his regular routine. For now, we are still carrying him up and down the stairs, lifting him onto and…

Our family hasn’t participated in Halloween for over 20 years. However, knowing that I couldn’t deter costumed kids from coming up to our house and ringing our doorbell AND knowing that our little Theo is highly social, we decided…

If you are like me, one of your greatest wishes for your children is that they will have a best friend or two. My wish is no less great for my puppy Theo. When we go out for a walk,…

This past week was Theo’s final class for puppy training. As per usual, as soon as I pulled him out of his car seat and he realized where he was, he couldn’t wait to jump out of my arms and…