Monday, April 21, 2008

Crazy weather

Vancouver weather is ever surprising. We have had our fair share of gorgeous spring days filled with glorious flower scents, wet and windy rain days, and...snow days. This past week, a stressful finals week for us, was an example. On Thursday night, after I'd already taken my history final, edited, printed, and turned in my 23 page (single space) counseling project, taken our friends flying home to England to the airport, made a Costco run with my housemate Melissa to get stuff for a baby shower I threw yesterday, and made and eaten dinner, I took a leisurely walk with my other housemate Alesha and Cora and Cao down to the library to return books and to Starbucks for a post-finals treat (Dave was at church worship practice and wasn't finished yet anyway, so wasn't quite ready to celebrate.) We strolled down and it was so pleasant we sat outside coatless and drinking frappuchinos. The next evening, Friday night, as Dave and I curled up with pizza and a movie, snow began swirling around outside, and by the time we went to bed everything was white. We woke up Saturday morning to a couple inches accumulation, which Cora stomped about in while still in her pajamas, and which was mostly gone in the warm sun of the afternoon. Sunday, we didn't even need coats for church, and we left the french doors leading to our back deck wide open during the baby shower. Yet this morning, as I sat in the living room for some early morning quiet time before the household woke up, snow started flurrying about outside again, although no accumulation this time. It is wild and unpredictable. I love it.

So, Dave and I are finished...well, almost. David is in the final editing process of his 16-page Biblical exegesis paper on Jesus' baptism account in Luke. He has already finished a final on Thursday afternoon (after I'd taken my final in the morning) in Christian Thought and Culture involving topics on creation care, science and Christianity, globalization, those sorts of things. Friday he finished a paper on worship for his preaching and worship course. And then the weekend has been consumed by this massive exegesis project. Who new so much could be drawn from a couple verses in Luke? In my history exam, I wrote essays on the questions "How did German Pietism influence 17th and early 18th century Evangelicalism?", "How did the Enlightenment influence 18th and 19th century Christian thought and culture?", "What was the relationship between liberalism and fundamentalism?", and "How did the Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany support the Nazi regime?" These were smatterings of the course topics, a course which surveyed church history since the Reformation and was life-changing in its emphasis and understanding of history and the evolution of ideas to the postmodern culture we belong to today.

Here is a video of Cora wrinkling her nose and saying "nyo" for snow. Under that is photos of her before church yesterday in her new green dress looking so cute.