As has been our tradition over the last few years, we wanted to provide you an update to some of the happenings around the Peterkins homestead in 2016.
Let’s start with the kids.
Maggie
now in grade 10 and having just turned 16, went out on her birthday and acquired her G1. Now Dad gets to start her off driving in the same neighbourhood as her brothers did.
Maggie has been attending Carleton Place High School. Unfortunately for Mom and Dad, that happens to be outside of our school zone, so that means driving her each morning to her bus stop a few minutes away and then planning for something similar at the end of each day. Perhaps we just as excited that she might be able to start driving to school soon!!
At school, Maggie has enjoyed her studies and playing basketball and volleyball for the junior school teams. She was voted MVP for her basketball team. Dad and Maggie have also been playing in a family volleyball league on Tuesday nights. Dad’s trying not to embarrass her too much!!
Maggie continues to enjoy Echo Camp hitting all the dates that she can – spring, fall and summer. She’s made a good group of friends from there. We are thankful for the great ministry there.
Also, Maggie was part of a youth missions team to Belize from our local church – without her parents. She was able to go back to the same village that Stephen and Ben had been at a few years ago. She loved the experience and cannot wait to go back.
Benjamin completed his grade 12 at Sacred Heart High School. As of this Christmas, he has just completed his first term at Trent University. His studies are business/computer science – we think
he’ll decide as he moves along. Ben spent last summer working two jobs, one at Menchies serving some great tasting “froyo” and second on Saturday morning selling eggs at a local farmers market. Ben also enjoys helping out on the soundboard at Chapel Ridge our local church.
Stephen finished off his third year’s studies at Queen’s 
University. He spent his summer working with an engineering firm in Kingston called Transformix. Maggie likes to remind him that it was through a contact from her basketball team that he was able to apply for the job. Stephen has just finished a work term and spent the fall working in Ottawa with Shopify – a job he landed without Maggie’s help!! The company conveniently provided a subsidized apartment downtown. He really enjoyed the experience and it was nice for us to have him close by. Also, our family has enjoyed getting to know Stephen’s girlfriend – Mackenzie who is fortunately also studying at Queens.
This year we celebrated a number of significant birthdays and anniversaries. Birthdays – Maggie – 16, Ben -18, Stephen – 21, Tracy 50. Anniversary – Mark and Tracy – 25 years.
As we think about 2016 we realize we were fortunate to be able to travel to a number of different locations 
this year – mostly for work. We traveled in March to New Orleans for a training conference on marriage, to Chicago for a leadership conference in August, a couple of times just out of town with a group we lead with One Way. In addition, Tracy traveled to Guatemala with Vicki (our sister-in-law) to help out at an orphanage. While Mark had a trip to Florida in February for some facilitator training (conveniently absent during the biggest snow storm of the year!!) and a trip to New York City with a work team. As a family we had trips to Philadelphia, Florida and Canada’s Wonderland.
This year has been a challenge for Tracy in that she has been nursing a nagging rotator cuff injury. It seems to be improving slowly. Along with her half time with One Way, Tracy also took on some part-time work working for a friend who runs an online auction website called Auctria.
We really do enjoy our cottage on the Rideau. We find it a wonderful spot to connect with and enjoy our family and friends. Also, we continue to enjoy the traditions of our families – Greek Easter (complete with a whole lamb roasted on a spit), cousins long weekend on the Rideau (always with fireworks) , Labour Day weekend softball tourney (including campfires and karaoke).
On Mark’s front, he continues to give leadership to One Way Ministries. He’s been spending more of that 
time in an area that’s newer to him – that being fund raising. It’s a wonderful team that we get to work with there. Mark is still enjoying playing hockey weekly, running and working out at the gym and a bit of golf. A highlight was again spending a couple of days with brothers John and Thanos in Watertown playing a round of golf in mid October. This year as in last, we were the only ones on the course so we got to take our time and hunt for golf balls without any pressure – mostly ours that were lost.
Blessings to your family from ours for 2017.
