Friday, June 27, 2008

The Butter Knife Stabbing

It started out a pleasant summer evening in a quiet residential neighbourhood of Abbotsford. The Jr. Youth group had just set out on a "Progressive Dinner", the first stop...buns. But things were about to take a buttery, bloody turn for one youth director and her youth. While standing in line, awaiting her turn for fresh baked delights a disturbance arose from a group of grade 6 boys (which is pretty much a given...when is there not with grade 6 boys!) who began to fight for control of a butter knife. And in the blink of an eye, or perhaps a stab, it had happened. One boy grabbed the knife, thrusting his fist back over his shoulder and into aforementioned youth directors face, leaving an eye full of butter and cut. Onlooking youth began to shout, "Your bleeding!!" Controlling the situation with a bandaid or two the night returned back to its peaceful chaos.I went to the hospital under the advise of some medical professionals who said it would heal better if I got it stitched. Not wanting to look like ol' Al Capone I heeded their advice. Turns out it didn't need it after two hours in emergency. So I guess I'm stuck with "Scarface".

Friday, June 20, 2008

The Bakerview Church Annual Genral Meeting: White Girl Raps

This past Wednesday evening was our church annual general business meeting, well known for it's hefty agenda of reports and formal business-like manner using words more typically heard in parliament and enforcing "Roberts Rule of Order." For this event each pastor is required to write an annual report for their area. So, therefore, I set forth and carried out this task. Then at the meeting those who have written reports get up and speak to their report and then a motion is made to accept the report after further questioning and commenting. So since this was my first AGM report (and could very well be my last!) I took the liberty of writing a rap to speak to my report. Now the demographics of this meeting would suggest that this would not be the prime audience for this format. I would say about 85% were over age 60 and this being a Mennonite church I chose to introduce it as a "light hearted song" as to offend fewer and do it in a slow and articulate manner so it would seem more like a poetry reading than a rap. This could be the "whitest white girl rap" ever! I was aided by my posy of Margie, Dustin, and Jason who "creatively moved" in the back while Margie lay down the beat! Enjoy!

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

MennoNight!!

In celebration of our rich, yet frugal, cultural heritage I held a Menno-Night with our Jr. Youth group. We all hooked up the ol' horse and buggy, dawned our bonnets and suspenders, communicated in Low German, and of course, ate!

Here we are, a fine looking family!
Here's Jackson with a traditional farming tool, the pool noodle.

We played several games such as "Menno Simon Says" and awarded prizes for best dressed. Here is our best dressed girl, Rachel, winning her prize afhgan, a precious moment!
And what would a Mennonite be without food?! We had two wonderful volunteers, Barb and Marian, come make fresh roll kuken (basically deep fried dough) and watermelon, which really helps the grease of the roll kuken go down quite nicely. Here are our strapping young lads, Curtis (Left), Andrew (Center), and Davis representing our Russian roots!Roll Kuken in all it's greasy glory! Best enjoyed with Rogers Syrup .
Rebecca, our runaway Mennonite on crutches!
Our Sr. Youth will be having a Menno-Night of there own next week...I'm in the process of trying to make huge Dutch Blitz playing cards our of strawberry flat boxes for the event.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Tsawwassen Twelve

It was just another ordinary day (except for the fact the sun was out) when six grade 12 students and six youth leaders embarked upon an adventure in commemoration of our students academic success in completing high school. We set out from the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal to head towards Pender Island where we would spend three high impact days of fun and merry making. Upon the ferry we made elaborate stories of our ferry sinking into the waters and us becoming, unknowingly to the world, left to fend for ourselves on a near by gulf island, which would only be the beginning of the drama that would ensue. Sound vaguely familiar? We called ourselves the "Tsawwassen Twelve" not to be confused with the "Oceanic 6" and this is our story...

(For all the photos click here)
At the ferry terminal we all got out of the van and wandered. Whilst many of us were quite a ways down the lane I came to the realization that our lane was moving forward. We all started frantically running to the van while screaming "start the van!! start the van!!" to Robert, our driver who was standing near by. It was an intense race but we all made it in the nick of time as the door closed just as we had to go. We drove about two meters and then the line stopped for another 10 minutes.


Our proud little graduates
Julie and the Bikes: Julie proudly posed in front of a variety of two wheeled vehicles!
Even Moses showed up for the grad retreat!

We had a little photo shoot and Trish and I played "Portrait Studio" using our valuable skills learned from our time at the Sears Portrait Studio.

And by "little photo shoot" I mean the weekend was pretty much a grad photo shoot extravaganza! We happened upon these broken cabins and everyone got to be Pender Island's Next Top Model! (Check out the entire album for more and look for Trish's cross eyed shot...it is brilliant!)
The weekend marked some sightings of the ever elusive "Creepy Caitlyn" as seen in all the shots below!

The thrift store on Pender Island just happened to be having a $5 bag day where you could fill a bag with as much as you could fit for five bucks. Oh we filled a few bags. And then of course we had an evening fashion show! It was pretty fierce!
I tried to make an extra couple bucks to finance the snazzy finds from the thrift store
More photo shooting. Our little Caitlyn's all grown up!

The island had this incredible frisbee golf course that ran all through the forest and you basically had to become half mountain goat half amazing disc thrower to play. We got the mountain goat part down okay but it seemed Joel's body somehow took the brunt of many of our disc throws.
Here I am molding the young minds of our future!

They said I was running a "fat camp" because of all the active things we did (ocean canoing, hiking, ultimate frisbee, fribee golf, beach exploration, general walking about) and so we found this place on the map called "Starvation Point". So we thought it only fitting that we eat our lunch there!
So here are Brad and Julie eating at Starvation Point.
We went on a hike and it took three tries to find the right trail to get to this view point, but the third try was indeed the charm!

I'll leave you with this lovely shot of my sweet three inch burn acquired while sitting in a canoe for a couple hours.