“We don’t see things as they are;
We see things as we are.”

Anais Nin

St Mary's Coptic Orthodox Church

Please pray for St Mary's in Lynnwood, Washington. This fire has caused a substantial amount of damage to their church--much of it in the altar.
The copper on the dome caused a great deal of trouble for the firefighters and they had to pry it off before they could reach the blaze.

Transcending borders and religions and families and life experiences....

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

--Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

43 Things

My wonderful friend in South Carolina introduced me to this website. It really go me thinking about life, the universe and everything--which makes me wonder why this website is 43 and not 42--anyway, I find it fascinating.

Ancient Waters

Pictures

Liturgical Pictures

The Great Blessing of the Waters January 2007

Lamps at Christ Church Cathedral Vancouver, BC

Liturgy at St Nina's

Oh Gladsome Light

The Priest and the Censer

Wedding Finery

Just another Wednesday Afternoon

This is what happens when you spend 5 hours in a minivan. These two are celebrating their freedom after making the trek down from Penticton. They had a lovely time running like crazed chickens all over their grandparent's house for the last 3 days. Please note that even though the TV is on in the background, there is also a wonderful ABC poster above the fire place that Esme had the little ones colour and glue onto cardboard. I may not be teaching my kids anything, but Esme was a born educator!
I managed to survived spending 3 days with my four children at my in-law's home sans husband. I got to see him for one whole hour today before he went off to work. I will get to see him for a whole 1/2 an hour tomorrow when he comes home from work and before I go to work. That is not my favourite part of the day.
Elijah played some of the best hockey of this year at the Penticton Atom division Invitational Hockey Tournament. His team lost terribly, but Eli made some spectacular plays; I am more pleased with the fact that he played hard despite his team's performance than I would have been if they had won the tourney.
Go Venom!

Celtic Celebration

This Saturday evening Esmé's Choir, The Vancouver Children's Choir is performing at Christ Church Cathedral. They are going to be performing with Pandora's Vox

It is sure to be a magical evening of beautifully lilting Celtic songs.

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at the door.

Come out and support this amazing choir and let the music make your heart soar.

Keys

Does anybody remember the original Twilight Zone episode where people were Set Painters? It addressed how you can lose something and then find it later in the exact same place you had already looked for it....the explanation was that the set painters had forgotten to paint it in and later remembered; that is why it was EXACTLY where you had already looked a dozen times.

I had this experience today. I have somehow managed to lose BOTH sets of my car keys. Now this wouldn't be so tragic except for the fact that they are the new fangled kind of keys

that have a bunch of security features that adds up to a whole lotta cash for a replacement key. Did I mention that I have lost both sets and we have been running on emergency key mode (not auto lock--ugh) for about 2 weeks? Well today I went to get something out of my purse and there they were in the pocket that I had already check a dozen times! Rejoicing and praises shouted through out the house! What a relief.
I does make me think of how NOT in control of our circumstances we are; I did check that pocket and we have turned the house upside down looking for the keys. What was it about today or this time looking that made the difference?
What lesson am I to learn? I still need to find the other set. Then the crazy key exchange at the front door can end. Being a one mini-van family the possession of your own set of keys tends to take on a heightened significance. My husband was just given the keys to the building of his new job today--this caused undue excitement and the searching about for a key chain to attach these new key to--why? Is it the granting of responsibility? The acknowledgement that you can be trusted with such important items--he can now enter or exit as he chooses.
My key for work is a swipe card. This has a different kind of significance: my employers knows what time I use the gym, what time I enter my office, what (and how many) times I use the bathroom. Very Orwellian. My employer could recreate my whole day and restrict or allow me access to whatever areas it deems fit. Plus I have the added bonus of having a driver-license-like picture hanging from a fob on my belt all day long.
How does this affect my psyche and my work ethic? I prefer not to think about it and carry on as normal, but p'hap that is because I am an honest Joe and actually have a tendency to work more and not less than my required time. For me this "big brother" tactic just proves that I am a good employee...I wonder how it makes others feel? I do know that one supervisor has been caught taking extended night shift naps in the first aid room!

Happy Birthday Margaret and Nikolai!!!

This is Niko and Margaret about 3 hours after she was born. Niko climbed into bed with us and found Margaret there! Quite the birthday present. They were both born on February 16th, two years apart. They were also both three weeks early. How weird is that? I have tallied it up: 10.5 total hours in labour from Feb 15-16 2002/2004. Not bad for two such gorgeous kids!


Here they are this morning. How big they are: 3 and 5. How did that happen?
We are having the family over for a spaghetti dinner tonight and tomorrow they are having a "King and Princess" party with 12 little friends and Cupcake the Party Clown!!! She is the best clown ever! Fun, fun, fun. Alas, I must go and bake a cake and cook some spaghetti sauce and make 12 party crowns and 12 loot bags....

Introducing.....

King Nikolai and Cinderella (Also knows and Princess Margaret)


Niko and Margaret wanted "King" and "Princess" costumes for their birthday presents this year. I just finished them!


I really like sewing. I don't get much change to do it, but it is very satisfying. These silly kids wanted me to make them costumes for their birthday presents. They had to take them off once I made sure they fit and took their pictures. Now I am going to wrap them and they will have to wait until Friday to see them again!

An Inconvenient Truth: Remix

I have a jounalist friend who is doing a great deal of research about global warming.
He has just created this Remix of Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth"
It is worth the watch. It is sort and not so sweet and highlights the main point of the movie in under 5 minutes.
Well done Raphael!

Vancouver Children's Choir

Esmé's Children's Choir has a wonderful Christmas CD out. It was actually released last year, but it is a volunteer organization and it was out just before Christmas. It did not get a lot of PR. Well that has all changed this year. Check out this review in the Vancouver Courier. She performed last night at the Christmas Concert . It was wonderful. Esmé has a duet during a song called, "En Nombre del Cielo". She sang as Mary to another child's Joseph. She did a great job--very professional! I actually have a really shaky video of it that I will try and post when our ill computer is recovered.

St Nicholas resource

I was just pointed to this wonderful website by my friend Jenny in CT. Mamma Jenny is using some of the suggestions from it for her parish's outreach for St. Nicholas Day.
It is a wonderful resource and very fitting as we prepare to celebrate the feast of St Nicholas on December 6th!

Winter Wonderland

This is not a typical November for Vancouver. 20 cm are predicted to fall overnight. The city is beautiful; the drivers are not. No one here has a clue how to drive in the snow. We have already had a successful attempt at snowman making.
Quite a change from Florida! Look at the below post and see what I was wearing two weeks ago in the evening! It is 0'c (32'F) and 60 km/h winds are predicited.

Many Years to Mitzi and Todd

This is the whole family celebrating my brother's wedding. It was a beautiful day. All four of my children were in the wedding party. I made the girl's dresses. They seemed to turn out well. They did a fabulous job: Margaret and Esme were flower girls, Niko was the ring bearer and Elijah was the junior groom's man. I did a reading at the wedding and my husband said the prayer before dinner. We are all very tired now! I was shocked by how grown up Elijah looked standing at the front of the church. He really is becoming a man. I am not sure I am ready for that. Esme loves her new aunt and I can tell that Mitzi has a big influence on her...during the dance at the reception Mitzi and Esme were shaking up the dance floor! We couldn't get Esme to leave to go to bed.
The little ones love running around and playing with all of the other kids--there were tons of them. I had to keep a very watchful eye on them; the lake had ALLIGATORS in it.
I am not kidding......I don't know about these folks in Florida.










This is the present I made for my brother and sister in law. It is a duvet cover, 2 sets of pillow cases and various pillows. I think that they really liked it. My house was chaos before we left: me working and trying to sew all this and the flower girl dresses!


I will try and post some pictures of the rest of our holiday soon.

Things I learned in Texas

So there are some interesting things that I have learned during my sojourn in The Woodlands, Texas:
1-Watch out for Fire Ants (they have that name for a reason)
2-When it rains...it RAINS. In BC it rains a great deal of the time, but in TX it rains the same amount, but in about 45 minutes.
3-The mosquitos are BIG...and hungry
4-It is possible to have seven children; as long as their are four parents
5-Texas is waaaay too far away from BC.

BFF

How can you tell if you are with REALLY good friends? Everyone is on their own lap top in the same room chatting while blogging / working / checking email /shopping. Does it get better than this?
We are in Texas staying with our friends-in-the-trenches. We have had a fabulous weekend. We went to Blue Bell Creamery and had a tour of the yummy ice cream factory. Now the kids are plotting out the states in which we can purchase this new favourite.

Here are all SEVEN kids that have been under the same roof for the last four days. This is outside of Blue Bell Creamery.


This pic is of the two 2 yrs olds. They are having a blast! They met when M was 8 months old and G was 10 days old; now they are both 2 yrs old and fast friends.
Texas is too far away :(