Church Split

Over the past few months, one of our supporting churches has split. Well, perhaps 'split' isn't the right word... it's more 'exploded.' Only a core of people remain and the rest have been scattered to other churches in the area. I don't know which side is right (though I have my suspicions...) and quite frankly it isn't my issue to judge unless everyone wants to present evidence from both sides and have me judge for real once I have all of the unbiased facts... and sorry, but I don't see that happening. I love people on both sides, so what do I do? Tim and I have prayed a lot and have decided it is wise to stay out of it unless we are called in to be reconciliation facilitators (again, HIGHLY unlikely). We have loyalties on both sides and hope to uphold them all and love the Body of Christ (broken as it may be) as best we can.

-JLR

Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC

Today was a beautiful day. We've been in the Langley, BC, area for more than two months now and decided that a trip to Vancouver was finally in order. You know, after driving across the US, we just weren't in a hurry to get in the car and visit ANYWHERE! So today we took advantage of the fact that we had a rare opportunity-- no classes, no work, no other obligations AND the weather was good!

Stanley Park is in the downtown Vancouver area. In a lot of ways, the urban setting mixed with natural beauty reminded me of Forest Park in St Louis, but that's before you factor in that it's on the WATER and with MOUNTAINS in the distance!!! There is an amazing walking/biking trail that runs along the perimeter of the park, right along the ocean. Or maybe it's not technically the ocean there... maybe it's a bay or a gulf or whatever. It doesn't really matter for the purpose of this post. Anyway, it was cold and we had to bundle up, but managed to enjoy a brief picnic lunch (it was cold!) and some time at Prospect Point, which seems to be a fairly famous lookout point. We took Micaiah's bike and she definitely enjoyed the riding, the playground, and later the piggy-backs and shoulder rides as we walked along part of the sea wall.

These first 3 pics are from Prospect Point.

Micaiah got to ride her bike for part of the path.
The next 3 pics are ones we took along the sea wall bike/foot path and along the second beach area. I was feeling a little artsy today and got some good pics of the sun&reflection. Keep in mind it was only ~2:15pm when I took those!
All in all a good trip!

--JLR

Candy

So it crossed my mind as Micaiah were making a huge pile of Halloween candy wrappers (ahem!!) that Canadian candy is really quite different than American candy. Not so much in sugar content or even taste, but I didn't realize how many different names were out there. In the US we're used to Halloween bags full of snickers, butterfinger, reeses, crunch, hersheys, and m&ms. This year Micaiah got mostly crispy crunch, wunderbar, smarties (the chocolates, not the little sugar rolls!), caramilk, and coffee crisp (yuck!). There was some crossover like twizzlers, starburst, reeses, and kitkat, but I was amazed at what made up the majority of her candy bucket!

We're not THAT far north of the US-Canadian border, but sometimes it sure feels like it!

-JLR

Halloween 2009

We spent Friday afternoon carving our pumpkin. Tim loves to clean out the pumpkins, I love to carve, and Micaiah enjoyed a bit of both! We also enjoyed the roasted pumpkin seeds a few hours later. :)
Micaiah in her giraffe costume (a hand-me-down from her cousins). Giraffes are her favorite animal.
So the funniest thing happened last night while I was handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. First of all, Halloween is really big here in BC. REALLY big. There are houses really elaborately decorated. One of our neighbors even staged a car vs bicycle accident in his driveway, complete with loads of fake blood! There are also lots of fireworks throughout the night and especially late in the evening. It was strange but we had been forewarned, for which I was very thankful. Anyway, a boy--probably 9 or 10 yrs old-- walked up to our door. We happened to be in our entry way and saw him reach for the doorbell (there's a window by the front door). At the exact moment he reached for the doorbell a neighbor set off a firework in our yard and it triggered the alarm in a truck parked on the street. He was so terrified! As I gave him candy, I would have sworn he had pooped in his pants bc it smelled awful! I felt so bad for the kid and yet, it was the funniest thing I'd seen all day!

-JLR