The Advent is Winding Down

The sunrise at our house this morning.

Folded paper Christmas ornaments we made this year...I'll try to post pictures of the other ones we made too.

Good morning!

Last working day before we go home for Christmas! Hard to believe December has flown by. This may be my last blog before we go, so a couple orders of business.

First, Happy Birthday to my long-time friend Ryan (since Kindergarten!) on December 25th!

Second, if you have any spare Canadian Tire money, Camp Silversides (address on their site) would love to take it off your hands to pay for a new generator.

Third, if you're looking for us in the next week, try one of our parents' houses.

Last, a Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night! Make sure that you take specific time to build into those people close to you and to remember that the miracle of the birth of Jesus Christ is the real reason for our celebrations!

Lots of love from the both of us.

En Morsom Tog At Se

I'm not sure how I got this, or who made it, but I think it might have been my brothers a couple Christmases ago. Dorks!

Oh yah, I'm done school for the semester now! YAY!!

Male 1/2

Useful ways to procrastinate studying:

1) Make your own snowflake at this site. They'll even let you download the finished product. Watch out, addictive! Ask my brother or husband. :) One of the above snowflakes is mine and one is Brent's. Your guess as to which is which.

2) Catch up on the local news via the local paper. The Lacombe Globe

3) Send a virtual message in a bottle here.

4) Or, if nothing else works, do a little watersliding.

Now you know all my secret anti-studying techniques. ;)

Jeg behove en bog!

Pictures are of our bookshelves, by Brent, who was playing around with camera. I like the little angel in the one. :)

Anyway, these relate to my real reason for posting: Believe it or not, the end of the semester and a three week break is almost in sight and I was reminded by a friend to take advantage of the relative decrease in workload to catch up on my reading. In case you didn't know, I am an avid reader of both fiction and non. I particularly like biographies, Victorian literature and history--both real and historical fiction.

So...all you blog-readers out there, do you have any book recommendations? I can't promise to read all, but I'd love some suggestions.

In reciprocation, I will offer but one author who has written children's lit, Christian lit, philosophy and adult fiction. She is a very thoughtful author, giving insight into the place of Christianity in literature, academia and life in general. So, I recommend Madeleine L'Engle, most famously known for A Wrinkle in Time, but writer of many many others.

Nu Ar Det Jul Igen

Translation: Now is it Christmas again (literally) Now it is Christmas again (properly).

Friday night Theo came with us and we got a Christmas tree! It's just a cute little gaffer with a bit of a bald spot. We don't have a lot for the tree yet (although considering we've bought none, we're doing pretty well--Thanks Mom and Dad :)). So it's a bit of a Charlie Brown tree, but I am just glad to have one. Siebenga family tradition is to set up the tree on St. Nicholas Day--the sixth. Growing up we picked one up from the neighbour who cuts it out of his tree line so I have little experience picking a tree out of a lot. S We had to buy a stand for it--cost nine dollars at Canadian Tire. It's red and green and has a little dish for water.

So far we have all the ornaments from Brent's parents on and the star that we got from Rach and Trev for Christmas last year. :) We're going to make Danish paper heart baskets tonight. I'll show pictures as they are finished. :)

Also, Saturday afternoon Brent and I took the train downtown and attended a singalong of Handel's Messiah, Hallelujah chorus and all. It was wonderful. The Calgary Philharmonic put it on. The orchestra was on stage with the soloists but the choir sat in the audience with us. The audience was divided into soprano, alto, tenor and bass sections but since Brent and I wanted to sit together, we sat in the tenor section although he is a bass and I am an alto. The conductor was Handel himself! (Although he looked surprisingly like the conductor of the Calgary Philharmonic). We arrived too late to buy the score, so I sang along from memory for the first half and then one of the tenors offered to share his score so I read off it for the second half. Next year we'll be sure to get there in time to buy a score! If you ever have an opportunity to participate in something like this, I highly recommends it. It cost fifteen dollars, about a quarter of what one of the evening non-singalong versions of the production cost, and we got the same show as them plus the interactive element!

It's December!!

It's December and Advent begins. Oh how I love Christmas time! A couple orders of business for today. First: The Nativity Story Looks to be really good. Put out by the same guys as Lord of the Rings (New Line Cinema). Heck the trailer makes me start to cry. Definitely going to see this one. (Have to view through Internet Explorer, doesn't work through Firefox). Second: one of the giraffes at the Calgary Zoo had a baby! Check out the story and pictures. Third: I found this last Christmas and I was reminded of it. I figure it warrants revisiting since it's so cool. That's all for this morning!

Conservative Leadership race

Probably you are not all as dorky as me in following the Alberta Conservative Party leadership race but I believe there is reason for celebration.

First, the reason to follow the race whether or not you are a small c or big C conservative. Whether you like it or not, the Conservatives will continue to be in power in Alberta for a very long time unless something disastrous occurs. Sorry all you left-wing readers, but that's reality. Consequently, if you want to have an effect on the direction Alberta takes, the leadership of the party is where you must look.

And the reason to celebrate: Ed Stelmach, a quiet, scandal-free farmer from Northern Alberta is our next premier-to-be. I believe he shall do well. Middle of the road, not too left or right, no bad connections, family man, interested in environmental concerns and (big bonus) not a creep like Lyle Oberg.

So Hurray for Ed Stelmach!

Here's a story about the election: Stelmach chosen
He ended up winning by quite a bit indeed.