Here is a selection for Michael of pictures of spring flowers blooming in our neighbourhood recently. It has been a lovely spring this year, cool enough for the flowers to last much longer than usual but not cold.

We enjoyed setting up blocks for our grandson to knock down!

It was early spring in Vancouver and the very earliest rhododendron was blooming there along with daffodils and forsythia and the very first cherry blossoms. Spring was more advanced in Victoria where the cherry blossoms were quite spectacular.

This statue was at the front entry of our hotel. It was of a fisherman taking as break with his faithful dog. Dave joined them for a break.

We went to Victoria for an overnight to visit a girl and her mother who lived with us for 3 weeks two years ago. We had a really good visit and they are doing very well. They put us up in a downtown hotel -- this is the view from the 18th floor restaurant where we had breakfast. You can see the Empress, a world-famous hotel, at left and the harbour behind it. There was a lot of construction going on in Victoria -- we counted 7 cranes from the window of our room alone!

We went for a lot of walks when we weren't sick.

We are proud grandparents! We decided we would be grandpa and oma, by the way. Oma has the inside track, not just because she's an oma but because oma is easier to say!

Sam has a great laugh!

We had a lot of fun playing with Sam with his toys. Here, he is working hard on his hand/eye coordination as he starts little cars down a runway. When the cars run off the track, he says "oh oh!" and when they succeed he claps his hands. He is saying a lot of words in addition to oh oh -- book, mama, yeah yeah, no!, puzzle, button, baby, dad and even before we left "moma" (oma). Of course, the words often require deciphering. Button and puzzle sound awfully similar! It's an exciting time!

Spring break was 2 weeks this year, so we took advantage of the time to travel to Vancouver to see our grandson Sam (as well as our son Chris and daughter-in-law Julee too, of course!). We had a wonderful time, even though everyone came down sick! We think Sam is a real cutie! He eats a wide range of foods though he treats it somewhat like a restaurant -- he samples something and then "orders" something else and continues in that vein until he decides he's done!

We completely re-arranged our photo wall to include a new 8-picture frame reserved especially for grandson Sam. Here it is!

We envy mom and dad their bird feeder right on the deck where you can watch it while eating breakfast and for the many birds that come to it, including LOTS of colourful cardinals! A hawk arrived while we were there, which is most unusual, and all the birds scattered. The hawk sat around for a bit, then swooped down into a bush, but missed the bird that was still there, probably because it hadn't been able to escape when the hawk first arrived. I was lucky enough to catch the hawk swooping back up again empty handed!

We were able, for the first time in probably 10 or 12 years, to join dad's family for Christmas. Everyone was there except for Ralph and Anne and their family. That's Greg and Krista at the left alongside Tim and Carolyn. At the far right are Katie and her dad, Tom. The celebration was held at Jim and Gwen's house in Ionia and we were able to arrive by 3 p.m. on the Saturday before Christmas, shortly after the party started.

Joe is the focus of attention here as he opens what turns out to be Christmasy reindeer antlers. The idea was for everyone to bring "white elephants" to this part of the gift exchange. Dad tried for a Jenga game, but it was too popular, so he redirected his efforts and ended up with a singing fish, Bass Bill Bob! Melanie (on the right) is overcome with laughter at her nephew while Bob and Jean look on along with Katie and Tom again.

The other video is so much more wintry with the snow falling, but here we are digging out the next morning. Mom said to say that Dad did most of the actual shoveling, but someone had to be behind the camera!

We have never had such wintry weather in December in our memory. This weekend we had a major winter storm come through, forcing the cancellation of our candlelight services. In the 28 years we have lived here, I recall only one time that we ever canceled a worship service, and that was for an ice storm over 15 years ago. This short video shows you what you're missing, guys! (It's just someone around the corner on Victoria shoveling a driveway.)

This is the view we woke up to this Sunday morning! Winter seems to have arrived with a vengeance... and we wanted to post this for the sake of those living in Vancouver... and Malawi.... This is what you're missing!

Staff and council held a retreat this year, organized mainly by dad. He also took the picture of the group, using the time-delay feature on his camera. It was a marvelous weekend, considering that two weekends later we have winter!

We always take a photo of mom's class every year - one serious and one where they make weird faces. Guess which one this is!

The church has been changing almost daily! This is a view of the front of the church. They are working on the lobby wall, which rises to 24 feet high in the centre!


You can see the lobby in front of the lobby wall in this picture. The steel on the left will be the front of the centre tower.


Last week, they put up the trusses over the youth hall (foreground) and the office area (background). They brought in a crane and it took half a day to get the trusses up. That's Pastor John in the foreground.


Isn't it amazing how complex the web of trusses and supports that hold them together? This is a view of the roof over the office area.

Here is a view taken from inside the youth hall, standing on the mezzanine. The main floor will be two feet below the mezzanine.

Construction is moving ahead at our site. I got my own personalized work hat -- supervisor's white! One of the pictures is of work on forms for the footings for the wall between the lobby and the auditorium. The other shows a portion of the foundations for the same wall.