He's Finished!!!

John turned in his last bit of this semester's work yesterday. Woo-hoo! One-fourth of the way through! Most of his stuff was due right before or right after Thanksgiving, but it still is nice to have all his schoolwork done for the next two weeks...of course I came home from work last night and he'd already 30 pages of the book "The Making of the Pentateuch." It's a good thing that he's interested in his studies even when there is nothing to turn in :)

We had a couple friends from Trinity Western over Sunday night to celebrate the end of the semester. These are two of the guys that John spends time with at school - Jeremy is his library study buddy and Jee Hoon is his regular lunch date! As Jee Hoon is not going back to Korea for Christmas, we thought it was necessary to have a little Christmas shindig.

Here are the three guys relaxing:



A few people have asked if we got a Christmas tree this year, so this picture is to help show off our Christmas decorations. No, we did not get a tree; instead, we hung some of our ornaments above our kitchen window (you can see them in the photo). When the candles are lit the ornaments look just like they do when they're lit by Christmas tree lights...beautiful!

Van Dusen Gardens

Last night we went on a date to Van Dusen Gardens in Vancouver. Every year it is lit by thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Christmas lights. There were all different kinds of sights to see in the garden - Candy Cane Junction, Gingerbread Wood, Dancing Lights, and more. The Dancing Lights was actually a song and light show set to many Mannheim Steamroller songs! We began craving gingerbread after walking through Gingerbread Wood, so we started to head home. Along the way it started snowing and let me tell you, it began to look a lot like Christmas!!! We came home, went for a walk in the snow and made gingerbread waffles. Delicious. Enjoy some pictures...

Something Completely New in Politics

So we're wondering if any of you have been following what's been happening in Canadian politics this week. Events have occurred that have never happened before!

In October the Conservative party retained control by having the most votes in Parliament out of any party. Thus, Stephen Harper remained Prime Minister of Canada. Since then, there have been some proposed budget changes that have not been liked by all. The main one was a big cut on government funding of political parties. This and other proposed measures enraged the other parties.

So the centrist Liberals, the socialist New Democrats (NDP) and the separatist Bloc Québécois leaders have united to form a coalition government (which is constitutional). Led by Stephane Dione (the leader of the Liberals), they were hoping to take over by winning a majority vote on December 8 in the House of Commons (in which the Conservative party only holds 145 of the 308 votes).

Harper then met with the governor-general (the Queen's representative), asking her to close Parliament until January when he will present the proposed budget - which means the confidence vote can't take place tomorrow. She agreed.

So Canada is in a state of limbo. Who knows who will be leading after January 27th!

Note: This is really complicated. I've been trying to learn about it and digest all of it throughout the week. If you want more information, click here for a more detailed and educated account.

Tagged

So I've been tagged in the blogging world! I'm supposed to post the fourth picture in the fourth picture folder on our computer...so here it is:



We got a new camera a couple of summers ago, and since then, John and I have been having lots of fun playing the part of amateur photographers. This photo was taken at our old apartment complex's pool. Despite the sign saying there was no lifeguard on duty, we were able to find one!