Valentines Party

Fourteen people plus children attended our Valentines Party, held at one of the meeting rooms of our apartment building. We rented another room for the children, and the total cost was a staggering $5 per hour for both rooms.

In Japan Valentines Day is when women give men chocolate, so finding out it was the other way around in other countries was a surprise for many. In fact, chocolate is given by women to male coworkers, and the men are to reciprocate on March 14, which is called White Day. Who originated this? Probably a chocolate wholesaler...

We did a presentation on the history, symbols and customs of Valentines Day, and went on to give some principles for successful marriage based on I Corinthians 13 and other biblical passages.

We've sent out a follow up letter with some more encouragement, and we're considering what kinds of seminars or consultation or presentation might be appropriate for the next step.

That's A Better One!

Well! I noticed there was a comment on our "I'm a PC and I'm 4 Years Old" post, that it was nice to see a picture of us. Well, here's a better one of just the two of us. This is at the front gate of a wedding banquet hall near us. This was taken during a warm spell a few weeks ago. We're wearing heavier coats these days. We even had a little dusting of snow the other morning!

The Other Kind of Hockey

Megan is following in Laura's footsteps (and they're pretty clumsy footsteps with all that padding on!) being a goalie for the Christian Academy in Japan field hockey team. This is a sport where the girls wear tartan skirts as their uniform! Megan's exempted from that of course.

During Laura's Grade 12 year, she spent a lot of the game standing around, because CAJ dominated the other teams in the league. This year is different. Megan gets more action than she'd like, but she's making some great saves, even if the score doesn't go in CAJ's favour. The tournament this weekend will end the season, which pleases us, because with practices Megan doesn't get home until after 7:00pm. Time for life to get back to normal! So, I have a daughter playing hockey, so to speak. Very Canadian experience.

Wisdom from an Ice Cream Man

Here's a healthy perspective on life from one of the builder generation of Japan. Actually, more like "rebuilder" generation, since most of Japan was in ruins after the war!
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20100114jk.html