Australia Day celebrations, the Flower and Garden Show and Basketball!

On Saturday, the 31st of January, Australia Day in BC Fraser Valley was celebrated with a potluck dinner. Canada was in charge of organizing the event this year and we had it in the Abbotsford church. We had a good turn out of approx 50 people. Dinner was a wonderful selection of sausage rolls, lasagna, meatballs and salads.

The hall was beautifully decorated with bunting, flags, Aussie serviettes etc.

Here's the two little girls ready to go with their Aussie jumpers and tattoos.

After dinner, we sang some good old Aussie songs and of course the National Anthem!

And then we had dessert!

Delicious individual pavlovas - a real hit!

A little mouse stole some key letters - it was meant to read "Happy Australia Day"!

We even had live entertainment! (Henriette and Wendy!)

There were Aussie pic coloring in sheets, Aussie puzzles and the boys played a game or two of cricket on the carpark.

A neat little poem to sum it all up!

We had a really nice evening and it was great to catchup with the other Aussies in the area. 

Next year is Lynden's turn again!

On Friday morning, Stefan along with his basketball team and coach, went to Canada to Sunshine Coast (where ironically it rained the whole time they were there!) to play in the tournament. They first had to get to Vancouver (1 hr) then go on the ferry (45min) then 15 minutes driving to get to the school. They lost the first game and then they bunked in the church next door for the night, and the next morning played another team, but unfortunately lost them too. The team they played against was an A team while Cornerstone Cougars is a B team, but they had fun anyway!

We just enjoyed our mid winter break which meant three days off school. On Thursday I, along with 9 other ladies, headed to Seattle for the Flower and Garden show. We left at 8 in the morning and got there just after 10am. We checked out the various garden displays and stalls and then headed to the Cheesecake Factory for a delicious lunch! After lunch, we headed back to the show for another hour of browsing and then we headed back up to Mt Vernon to Hobby Lobby, where you could spend all day and all your money on beautiful decorative stuff for the house. We curbed our time there to just under an hour and headed to Applebees for dinner. Another great meal! We then drove back to Lynden and got back around 8:30pm. We had a great day, great company and great food. What more do you need?

Below are some of the displays. Some inspiring ideas!

And I discovered another word which we use in Australia but is not known here. And that word is:

Secateurs = clippers or pruning shears

On Monday of our winter break, we went to Vancouver and spent the day there. We went to the Salmon hatchery which would be really neat the see when the fish are running as you could see the fish ladder behind glass.

We then went to Lynn Canyon which is free and also smaller and not so extravagant as Capilano. It also has a suspension bridge over the canyon and then we went for a hike in the forest.

From there we headed to Stanley park and enjoyed the park and the water views.

It was a nice day out and a nice way to end the break!

Basketball has come to an end with the finals played last  Tueday and Thursday. Stefan's team just didn't make it but Jaclyn's team won!

Here's a quick video of Jaclyn scoring a basket!

Here's the winning team with their trophies!

And Stefan the mascot!

And that ends another post! We have been enjoying lovely warm sunny weather. Spring come early! We won't complain.

We pray this finds you in good health in your corner of the earth.

We thank God for His continued love and care.

Thanks for looking!