Sightseeting

Thursday we went to the Vancouver Public Library and the Police Museum with Matt and Christina. Here we are in our police hats!

The Library is 7 stories of books! We only spent an hour there but I could have spent many more (particularly because I'm ineligible for a library card at the moment). The architecture looks a bit like a coliseum!

We then went to the police museum, which had history back to the 1800's with weapons, confiscated items, evidence from old murders - you even got to go into the rooms which used to be the cold room and autopsy room. There were some preserved body bits on the wall (not for the squeamish). They also have a program where you try and recreate a face of a 'wanted' person, which is quite tricky.

We stopped at Chapters Bookstore on the way home, as I'd been given a voucher for Christmas, so it was a lovely day, despite the rainy weather.

White Christmas

Well, our dreaming of a White Christmas came true! As we were eating Christmas lunch today with a Melbourne family in our apartment block, the first snowflakes started to fall. Enough to give us a white dusting outside, probably not enough to make a snowman with. 

Theology and Music

I have been listening to Jeremy Begbie from Cambridge on Theology and the Arts...

Here's a 90sec clip on how a 3 note chord in music can help us conceive of the Trinity.

some of his books are on this web page
http://www.theolarts.org/publications.html

or you could try to get the audio cd from here
https://shop3.gospelcom.net/epages/RegentCollegeBookstore.storefront/476d6ef800b8b7d9271d45579e7b071e/Catalog/1523

Holidays at last!

Big sigh of relief, with the promise of sleep-ins to come. What a hectic week! At last I am on holidays. This week has been disrupted when trying to practice for the Christmas concerts when most of my class has been away sick. Not a lot of school work going on. The music teacher couldn't run through the acting part of the musical because 4 of the 5 students were away sick from Mon-Thurs, and dragged themselves to school Thurs morning to practice. They went home at lunch to rest before performing that night. They did so well, despite feeling awful. I'd been out every night Sun-Thurs, so I am very tired. Today was pajama day at school, nice and relaxing. Our friend Ziggy did some science experiments with my students. Only 4 sleeps til Christmas! I hope to do some shopping tomorrow. Our apartment is looking a little more Christmassy since we put our Christmas cards up, and I have a poinsettia in my kitchen which adds some nice colour. We're looking forward to Christmas Eve party with two families from England and Scotland, and Christmas lunch with an Aussie family downstairs. Less than 3 weeks til Nathan's folks come for a week. Time for bed!
Picture of Ziggy with a pupil looking at chemical reactions.

Last exam today

Nathan finishes his last exam today! He has had 3 already this week- he finishes off with a 3hr Hebrew exam. I know he is looking forward to his break. This weekend we have 2 Christmas parties and a birthday party. My Staff party is on Saturday night, and they play an interesting game where you 'steal' Christmas presents from each other....will be interesting to see how that pans out. We're both feeling pretty tired at the moment, and looking forward to some rest. Yesterday there was some more snow, but it was mixed with rain and didn't stay around, seems to be how its done here in Vancouver.
Tried decorating the apartment - got as far as putting some red beads around the living room, some coloured-paper snowflakes on the windows, and our little rosemary Christmas busy on the top shelf.

As quickly as it came

Well, the snow lasted til Sunday night....then the rain washed it all away. So by Monday morning the snow was gone. It was if it had never happened! We've had some sunny weather since then, although day temps are around 6 degrees.
Nathan has one week to go, including exams. He's been getting some results back and they are good! So we praise God for that, as it's been 5 or so years since Nathan was a student. I've finished my report cards and am now starting new units of work, 2 weeks to go. We have some Christmas events coming up which should be fun, and I'm going to attempt a pavlova from scratch for the staff Christmas dinner.
I hope all you Aussies are enjoying your steaming temps, bbq's and the beach!
PS Grovely cell group - listened to the audio tape the other night, thanks so much! Nathan's seeing what he can find on the Nephilim. It was great to hear familiar voices, what a brilliant idea :)

1 Dec SNOW!!

What do you do if you see snow in Vancouver?