Our Adventures

Sorry, no pictures this time around. I usually don't post anything unless I have pictures but for some reason, I didn't take any from the past week of events. Strange. Anyways, we've been (actually I have been) finishing up the Christmas shopping which is finished minus one present so that's pretty good I reckon. Some years I didn't finish until a few days before and that is no fun going to the malls at that point in time. Other than buying fabulous presents I've been working two days a week at MEI and every other day I have been volunteering at Evans a few hours a day. I'm really enjoying being at Evans, the group of kids are a lot of fun. MEI on the other hand is very challenging and tiring but it is also fun at times. I look forward to the new year when I will be at Evans more consistently and getting more involved. Chris has been steadily getting through teaching, he is definitely looking forward to a break though.

This past weekend we had some Christmas shin-digs to attend. First was on friday night for Chris' staff party. That was a little awkward since some of those teachers were my past junior high teachers. Also the fact that Chris is new and hasn't had too much time to get to know everyone very well made it hard to carry on conversations with people. We made our appearance though so I guess that's what counts. On saturday we headed out to Mike and Sarah's for a final gathering before we all do our separate Christmas things. The night basically consisted of all the boys playing Playstation 3 over and over and over again while us girls made our own fun. It was a fun night had by all. Yesterday we enjoyed some tasty chinese food at my parents and watched the Survivor finale. So it was a good weekend.

As for events coming up, we just have to get through this week of work and the relaxing and parties and presents can begin! On Sunday we are having Christmas with my family and that night we're having Jen, Jamie, Paul, Jon and Bonnie over since that is the only night to see anyone before we leave for Herbert. Christmas Eve morning I'll be taking some pictures of Jen's family for them and then probably spending the day packing and editing photos. Christmas morning we'll be driving to Vancouver airport and leaving at 10am for Saskatoon. We're supposed to arrive at 3pm so hopefully all goes smoothly so we can get to Herbert not too late. That night we'll open our presents with Chris' family and then who knows what will happen the rest of the time we are there. We have a big family gathering from the 28-30th at a camp with all the cousins, aunts and uncles on Chris' moms side of the family so that'll be a lot of fun. I don't know if I'll be posting until we get back so a Merry Christmas to all you readers and talk to you in 2008!

This is a little late but we decorated our place for Christmas this past Saturday. It's nice and festive now and makes it really comfy at night with the tree lit and candles burning. Here's the finished product...

Our fake tree which I think looks pretty good for $30 (I added some candy canes today so just imagine those on there too)

The living room view

The whole shabang

Our lanterns from ikea and Christmas town my mom didn't want anymore

Yup so it's officially Christmas season around here. We got a whack load of snow at the beginning of this week but it basically melted in one day. It was good while it lasted. My dad had his surgery and everything went well, he only had to stay the night in the hospital and has been doing well at home. Chris had two more basketball games this week and won both of them! Looks like things are improving after their first loss. I also started volunteering today but it was only for an hour and a half. The class seems to have really good kids so I look forward to going in more. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good amount of time in before Christmas and then I'll try and do a little more in January. Other than that, not much else has been going. Only two more weeks of school so we're getting excited for Christmas break to start. Until then we'll enjoy some Christmas parties and other festivities until we come to Herbert in 19 days!

We're going to have to find other ways to spend our weekends these days now that the Grey Cup has been won by the Riders. The last three weekends we have had some sort of football party. I guess there's still the NFL....

Before it gets too cold out we wanted some new pictures of us because the only pictures we have recently all involve Chris in a tuxedo and me as a wedding guest. So we headed out to Cultus on Saturday afternoon and took some shots to update our picture frames. It slightly hailed while we were there so maybe we're getting snow early this year, there's supposed to be real snow tonight. Anyways, onto the pictures, here's some of our favorites that we took at the lake.















Yup, so I think we got some good ones out of our photo shoot. The other thing we did on the weekend, was kicked my parents out of their house and watched the Grey Cup on their big screen. Everyone came over and we ate lots of nuts and chips and had some burgers for supper. And to make the evening worth it, the Riders won so all in all it was a good night.





Today is Chris' first basketball game with his grade 9 team so we'll see how they do, hopefully they don't get pummeled. I worked at MEI preschool today with an autistic boy, he was really cute, I'd spin him in circles and then tickle him and he'd always come back for more. I'm still waiting on the elementary school to get me hooked up for volunteering. I already know the teacher who I'll be working with because he lives next door to my parents so I just need to be told when I can come in and what I need to do. It seems like this process just gets dragged out much longer than it needs to and by the time I actually start volunteering it'll be Christmas. I was hoping to start last week and now the principal tells me, if he doesn't call me by Thursday then I should phone him. Anyways, it's sort of frustrating, how hard should it be to volunteer? Chris has parent-teacher interviews all day thursday so hopefully he won't have stubborn parents telling him that he's the reason their kid is failing. On friday I'm taking my dad into the Abbotsford hospital for a surgery on the leg he had surgery on before. They're putting a shunt in his arteries so the blood flows better so hopefully it will help and the surgery won't be too long or difficult. Then on Saturday, since it's December by then, we're going to start decorating to make this place festive. We unfortunately have to buy a fake tree because they're very paranoid about fires in our building so we'll have to survive without a real one for a while. I think that's about it for now, until next time...

Football, football, football. That pretty much sums up what we have been doing these past weekends and what we'll be doing next weekend. Two weekends ago we went out to Carmen and Eric's to watch the western semi-final between Saskatchewan and Calgary. After eating some delicious fondue and wings and the Riders winning the game, we booked tickets for the western final against BC. Before we get into that, here's a look at our new tree and pot from Ikea.

Our new tree

On friday night this weekend we had Mark and Jeremy over after about 4 months of not seeing them. We had a good time eating beef dip, going for a walk and playing some games. It was really good to see them, hopefully we won't wait another 4 months to see them again.

Mark and Jeremy finding Chris' weak spots

The Boys

This sunday we headed out to BC Place to watch the Riders vs the Lions. We took the sky train out which was a first for me. We had seats in the end zone on the upper deck in the second row. They were pretty good seats and it was definitely the most congested area of Riders fans in the stadium so that was fun. Except for the guys who had stuffed lions heads on a stick with fake blood, they were a little over the top. At times during the game it would get so loud that you could not hear anything. It was hard to make a difference cheering for the Riders against 40,000+ Lions fans. At the end though when it was for sure the Riders that were taking it, half the stadium cleared out and mostly Riders fans were left so then they could hear us cheer them on. Supposedly the Riders were lifting their arms at our section during that time but I missed it because I was trying to get some pictures. Anyways, it was a really great game and now we have one more big game next sunday. It won't be quite the same as being there but it should be good. After the game Carmen surprised Eric with Canucks vs Flames tickets that she had gotten him months ago. The game basically started right after the football game so they just walked across the street to GM Place to watch hockey, Eric was pretty surprised. The rest of us spent a good chunk of time getting on the sky train and then we went to Red Robin's for dinner in Langley.

Intense whacking of tubes

Josh and Cassie eating some expensive hot dogs

Here come the Riders!

Coming in for a touchdown

Proof that I was there too

Most of the gang in green

Bring on the Cup!

Other than watching football games, Chris has been busy with work because it was report card time. He's also coaching the grade nine boys basketball team and they have their first game next monday. I am hoping to hear back from the school I will be volunteering at soon and I have been working at MEI this past week for a few days and am for sure working one day a week there until Christmas break. After new years I'll hopefully find a decent job that I can work full-time at until school starts in September. I'm guessing once I start volunteering twice a week that the weeks will go by faster and Christmas will be here in no time. Only 5 more weeks! We're really looking forward to going out to Herbert during that time to spend with the fam. Until then, we'll keep watching football...

Time for an update. Well, now with the time change and the neverending rain it's definitely starting to feel like winter is coming. It gets dark here around 5pm these days which seems to make us eat supper earlier and go to bed earlier so I guess it's a good thing. Anyways, some events that have happened in the past little while... I don't have pictures from it but we went over to David and Karin's place last week and played some games and Chris even scored a free game of trivial pursuit because they're moving to Australia in the new year and won't be taking it with them. David was an LTS the year I was at Bible School and Karin was an LTS during Chris' year and they just got married in May and we hadn't seen them since last Christmas so it was good to catch up and hopefully we'll see them again before they move half way around the world.

On Halloween, which also happens to be my dad's birthday, we went over to my parents place and celebrated my dad's 75th. Chris and I were the hosts, bringing the food to the table, clearing the table and answering the 6 rings at our door of trick-or-treater's. At the party were all my parents Danish friends that they have known since they moved to Canada. So to go along with the Danishness of the evening, everything was decked out in Danish colors and flags. Except we had chinese food, which isn't Danish at all. My dad's cake was this Danish cake that my parents had at their wedding. Sort of like a big pyramid of cookies, it was pretty good. As for gifts, let's just say my dad can get very fat and very drunk on all the chocolate and alcohol that was given to him. Oh, and he might be able to read a few books in between all that eating and drinking. All in all it was a good evening except for one of my parents friends who had a little too much to drink and would not believe that Chris doesn't like raw beef or smoked eel because I guess she assumed everyone should and from there on decided she was against everything he said. It was pretty funny though. Here's a little glimpse at what the evening had in store...

The table all decked out

The birthday boy and his cake

A picture my mom took of us after trying to take one with the lens turned the wrong way

This past weekend we spent hanging out with friends, playing games, watching games, stuff like that. On Saturday we went and bought some new jeans and then headed over to Mike and Sarah's for a good round of guitar hero which I have to say, Chris and I were the worst at. After everyone had their fill of that we played quelf which is a game that pretty much makes you look like a fool. Here are some examples...

Eric had to keep his hand in a bowl of warm water for a round

Chris had to wrap his hand in foil for the rest of the game

The night ended with the boys playing hockey on the playstation

On sunday we were invited to Pam and Jeff's to watch the big Colts vs. Patriots game. Pam is Mike's sister and we've hung out with them a few times at Mikes and they live in Chilliwack so it all makes sense to go to their place and be their friends. Anyways, we watched the game with Chris being nervous but finally being able to calm down once his team won. We were then served three different dishes of pasta. Jeff is a really good cook and goes all out when company is over. It was pretty scrumptious.

This week I worked with the blind kids on monday and went to a local elementary school to tell them I wanted to volunteer a few days a week so I just need them to get my criminal record sheet and then I'll be able to do that soon. I may also get a call for some Teacher's Assistant jobs I applied for so we'll see. Chris is getting more into the groove of his job, kids are being less bratty but new ones are becoming bratty which is just the way things roll in junior high. He's also the coach of the grade nine boys basketball team so he'll have to make cuts soon and get them all up to shape for their big games. Other than that, there's not much else to say so I guess that's all for now, have a great long weekend!

I thought we'd try and actually update earlier than a month since our last post. We've been pretty busy this past week. On Monday, for those that don't know, Chris had his first day of being the official teacher of the class he was TOCing for. So that was really good news that he got the job but now he has a lot of work to do since he is the real teacher of the class. I got to sub for a teacher's assistant at MEI on thursday with two blind grade one's. It was pretty challenging but they were fun kids. That hardest part was getting them to pay attention. The best part was during computer class, since they couldn't see the screen, they had headphones on and listened to the noises that would come from using the mouse but the best part for them was holding the mouse over the help button which would say "help, help, help..." over and over and over. They basically didn't want to put their mouse anywhere else but that button for the whole class, it was pretty funny.

Wednesday was Chris' birthday so after he came home, I gave him his gift of all six Star Wars movies and then we headed to Mission for dinner and a movie. We had some delicious triple-o burgers at White Spot and then saw the movie We Own the Night which was pretty good. He thought that that was all but secretly I had been communicating with Eric, Mike and Josh about a surprise party for him on friday. So friday, we were just relaxing in our sweats and Eric, Carmen, Mike and Sarah show up at our door. I sure got him good, he didn't see that coming. Josh and Cassie came later too and then the boys played poker on Mike's table that we had picked up for him from a guy in Chilliwack and us girls played an intense game of Yahtzee. Then we all played a rousing game of Buzzword and that was that.

The Boys playing some poker

The girls chatting

Some Yahtzee Action

The Boys got bored and decided to play their own version of Yahtzee

On Saturday we headed down to Seattle because Mike and Britt couldn't go so Carmen and Eric asked us if we wanted use their tickets to see the David Crowder Band. We hadn't really heard much of his music before but it was a really cool concert. We got across the border easily, even with one guy missing proper ID. Once we got to Seattle we went down to the waterfront and got some fish and chips and then headed to the concert hall. The concert was in Moore Theater and it's basically this really high roofed opera type venue and we were on the second balcony which basically sloped straight down, it was kinda scary but we got used to it. We could definitely see the whole stage but couldn't quite see their faces, we were a little far away for that. The concert was really good though. David Crowder even used a guitar hero guitar that was rigged to actually play notes during a few songs. And of course on the way home the boys got hungry so we stopped at McD's and then headed home.


Watching fish being thrown at the market, judging by the faces it was pretty exciting.

Getting some fish and chips

Walking to the concert hall

The David Crowder Band (notice his guitar hero guitar)

Today we went to Central Community Church, which is one of the churches we're checking out. Today was a special service though because the African Children's Choir was performing. It's this choir of 26 kids aged 7-10 who are from Uganda. They tour around and sing and dance and money that is donated helps build schools and with their education and other needs. The kids that are picked to be in the choir are chosen based on their need and family circumstances. It was pretty amazing to see these kids singing and so happy that they were there.

So now another week of waiting to see if I will get a job or not. I'm planning on working up at camp from tuesday-friday so that'll make me feel more useful and I get paid so that's even better. Hopefully something will come up soon though. Anyways, that's all for now, just thought I'd leave you all with a lovely picture of Chris in some very ugly and stretchy jeans that my mom randomly bought for me which I quickly rejected because they didn't even have bum pockets. Enjoy.

Don't worry people, we're still here. We've been really busy this last week with weddings and parents visiting. Chris was the best man for his best man Eric this past weekend so he was busy planning parties and giving wise advice to the soon to be married man. Chris' parents came out for the long weekend and also came to the wedding. We had a good time eating lots of chocolate and going for walks and just relaxing. I also made my first ever turkey supper with both sets of parents invited. Nothing went drastically wrong so that was good. A little work on improving mashed potatoes would be beneficial though.
Well, let's start with the wedding. First of all Chris planned on taking the groomsmen and Eric on a camping trip but it rained that day so instead they took over our apartment as I went and hung out with Amber. They had some good bonding time as did I with Amber playing Guitar Hero. That game is very addictive and fun. On Wednesday last week there was another bachelor party for all of Eric's friends to come to and they dressed him up in some nice spandex and a muscle outfit and made him go around doing foolish things like getting an application at La Senza and doing push-up's in front of a girl talking on her cell phone who pretended not to notice him. On friday was the rehearsal which got all the kink's ironed out for the big day. Chris slept over at Eric's that night so he wasn't alone the night before his wedding. On Saturday was the wedding, it was slightly rainy but not enough to stop us from taking pictures outside. I was asked to do candid shots as the hired photographer took their posed pictures. I also took some at the reception since their photographer wasn't there for that. I got quite a few good ones so hopefully they'll like them. Here's a little (or big) sample of them.

Okay, that was way more pictures than I originally thought I would post but there you have it. That was the wedding, it was a good one and the day was great. Now onto turkey, I have a few pictures of our meal with the first use of our fancy denby dishes and extended table. It was nice to actually to have an occasion to use those dishes and I'd have to say they looked pretty schnazzy.
Chris' first ever carving of the turkey

The display of food

The company proving the food was edible

Whew, this post is taking quite a while. Anyways, other than our past busy week or so, Chris has an interview for a full time teaching position in the class that he has been TOCing for for the last couple weeks. His interview is today so I don't know when we'll find out if he got it but here's hoping. Me on the other hand have been finding it difficult to get a job. I had an opportunity to work in Mission with a school program but the lady hiring miscommunicated to me that I would have a chance to try it out and see what it was like when really she meant she was looking for a highly motivated and dedicated person for the job and was interviewing many people which I did not know about. So I have decided to just stick with Chilliwack and hopefully find a job that will let me volunteer at an Elementary school every week so I can get in my experience for when I apply for my PDP. I've applied at 7 different places so hopefully I'll get a chance at a few of them. Kay I think this post has gone on long enough so that's it for now. Enjoy the fall weather.

Well it's been almost a month since our last blog so I guess some of you are wondering where we have gone or at least are anxiously awaiting to know what we've been up too. I guess the reason Vicky hasn't posted anything new is that she hasn't taken any new pictures lately. But that doesn't mean we've done nothing. Anyways, here's what's going on for all of you far away who haven't seen us.

I've been working! I'm pretty excited about that. I was worried at first about being just a teacher on call out here and not having a known salary to depend on. But so far it's been great. I got called in to a school on the first day and have been there ever since. My last day there is on Tuesday but I expect lots more work after that because the Abbotsford district calls me every week and is always disappointed that I am already taken by the Chilliwack district. So yeah thats exciting for me. I was getting pretty stir crazy by the end of summer and really wanted to get into a normal routine of things. I like routines.

As for Vicks, she's been job hunting hard. It's hard to find a position for something like a geography degree. For me I got by B ed. and knew exactly where to go to apply. For her it is not that easy and she doesn't just want to take any old job that takes no advantage of her degree. Anyways, it looks like she is also going to be a TOC at a number of private schools so thats something. She is planning on being a teacher eventually and doing her teacher's college next year. We're both sure God'll provide us something she loves soon.

Yep, What else is new? My good buddy Eric gets married a a few weeks so I'm starting to think of some fun things we can do with him to send him into marriage. I'm his best man. Other than that we've been able to get out and do something with friends most weekends. That is so nice because all of our close friends in Saskatoon had moved away, so its nice to be around friends again. I miss my family though, so I'd like to just give a shout out to Mom, Dad, and all the kids back home. haha. I really do miss you guys though and I'm glad you are coming out at thanksgiving mom and dad.

Well now you are all up to date on our lives. Till next time...

We've been having some good ol' fun around here this past week. It started off with a full day's worth of making wooden coasters for Eric and Carmen's wedding. It was quite the process but I think they turned out pretty good, it's a swell idea I think. We sanded, stained, glued and varnished until supper time and then had a delicious barbeque and peaches with ice cream. Then we broke out the catch phrase and Chris almost broke Eric's toe on the rocking chair. Eric somehow got his toe stuck in between where the chair glides and Chris was gliding pretty hard and it took a big chunk out of Eric's toe. We hope that it healed good enough before he left for Mexico, which was two days later. A chunk of skin didn't stop us from finishing our boys against girls tournament which I regret to say we lost in every game of.