Family: Day Four. Also known as The Birthdays Day

Happy 70th Birthday, Opa!!













Our birthday gift was a really great book from the kids. They came up with an elaborate story "The Adventures of Opa, Asia and Ezra" which I turned into a real book thanks to Creative Memories . It was the perfect gift for Opa who is an author of many of his own books.














He cried and laughed all at the same time as he read the story of their adventures. It was full of totally personal touches and inside family jokes.














And then we all (us four, my parents plus my bro Kevin and Theresa) headed back to our house. But first yet another hour-long wait at the border...














Make a wish! The extra-special thing about the day was that my younger brother, Wiebe, and his family came from Atlanta to join the festivities. Not only was it dad's 70th, it was also my nephew Jehan's 5th birthday! It was pretty special that our whole family was together to celebrate both of those milestones.














Look how adorable little Stephan is! He's almost 1 1/2 and the boy always has at least one ball in his hands. He's bound to become some sort of athlete. I know his daddy is hoping the ball fascination will turn him into the first Nigerian/Dutch/American/Canadian/Trinidadian soccer player :)














Let the liming commence!

Family: Day Three

The start of another lovely day in Vancouver (this is the view from my parents' dining room).














I got to reconnect with an old friend at my parents' church that morning. AnneMarie and I went to school together in Nigeria and sang several duets in talent shows and such. We hadn't seen each other since I graduated in '91. She ended up marrying Bernard who went through seminary when my father-in-law was working there. A weird combo of two parts of my life!














That afternoon we began the celebrations for my dad's 70th birthday! A bunch of friends and family gathered at a restaurant in Surrey, BC.














This is my dad with one of his brothers, Tinus, and Chum, a friend from when the family first immigrated to Canada--so my dad has known him since 7th grade.



















Dad, Uncle Tinus and two of their sisters: Aunt Martha and Aunt Karen (she's the oldest of the 10 siblings).














You know who we are :)



















Hi Auntie Karen! I promised you I'd put this picture on my blog :) Check out your beautiful new coat that made it into the photo too!

Family: Day Two

We snuck out for a quick lunch date to Stepho's which is a Greek place just around the corner from my parents' apartment that usually has a super long line of people waiting to get in. The line starts forming around 1pm so we got there at noon and got right in. It was good food, although we don't think we'd ever bother waiting in the long line for it.














Off for a walk, such a lovely sunny day.














Our first stop was at the local liquor store where our dear family friend, Solomon, was on duty as the security guard.














Me and my big bro














(most of) the family enjoying the big city...














I've seen this funky decorated car every time I've visited Vancouver but never realized that the owner of the car (to the left of my mom in this photo) is an acquaintance of my parents. I should've known, my dad knows half the people in that city!














The clock counting down til the Winter Olympics in 2010. Only 727 days to go!














See? That's the line I was talking about!!

Family: Day One

Now *that* looks like vacation!



















Uncle Kevin and Auntie Theresa were at mom and dad's place in Vancouver also.














Writing a story on the XO Laptop.

Road Trip

On the road headed up to Vancouver to visit Opa and Oma. Nothing like a little family bonding over electronics! No, but seriously--how did parents survive road trips before portable DVD players were invented?!?!



















Yummy. A stop for lunch at the Macaroni Grill.

Happy Valentines Day!

The kids (sort of) helped me make these treats for their teachers for Valentines Day--candy sushi. Yum!














I helped get things ready for the party in Ezra's class (candy and more candy!!!)














I hung out for a bit with Ezra at his party...














...then off to Asia's class for her party.

Wowee, we all had enough cookies, cupcakes and candy to last us a long time. Fun fun.

100 Day!

Today was the 100th day of school! A good reason to celebrate :) In case you can't tell, Ezra's glasses are in the shape of 100.

Out with friends

We had a double date night out to a neat little place called The Red Barn with our friends Tara and Adrian (who looks super excited to be there ;).

Our waiter was good looking but didn't have much of a personality. We decided he just has a dry sense of humor, but in my opinion even that was stretching it. At one point when I asked him to take a picture of us he actually said "I can't right now b/c I'm busy." Tara giggled assuming he was joking. Nope. Off he walked. So we asked some customers who were leaving to take a picture on their way out instead of bothering Mr. Sunshiny Waiter.

An old friend

Here's a cool Facebook story for you. Through someone else's Facebook page I came across Samit. He was one of my older brother, Kevin's, best friends in school in Nigeria. Samit used to come to our house a lot when I was in elementary school. Once he stayed with us for a few weeks and it was during his visit that I quit using butter on bread.

You see, between Kevin and Samit's growing-boy-appetites my mom was making like 20 sandwiches each day for our school lunches. One day that time when Samit was staying with us it dawned on her that we could make our own lunches. Being that us Boer kids like to be efficient, I decided to skip the step of putting butter on my bread and to this day I barely ever use butter!

Anyway, so through Facebook I connected with Samit, we found out we both live in the greater Seattle area and we made a plan for him and his wife to come over for dinner. We hadn't seen each other since the summer of 1988!!

Throughout the evening he kept commenting on how weird it was to see me as an adult b/c in his mind I looked like Asia.














Because of the Nigeria connection we figured we ought to have Nigerian food for dinner. Samit hadn't had Nigerian food in a long time so he was excited. Here's Andy making the pounded yam (which is actually made from yam flakes, but tastes pretty legit) (and no, Nigerian yam is NOTHING like what Americans call yam).














Good times













A closeup of the Nigerian food. Pounded yam eaten with hands and delicious stew. SO flavorful! Andy makes it really well considering he was only in Nigeria once for two weeks.

Caucus

Not that the caucus itself was super exciting, but it was pretty cool knowing that our vote actually mattered by showing up at the caucus!














In case you were wondering who I'm voting for...














Very proud of the representation from our neighborhood! We pretty much filled a whole row.














The leader of our precinct is someone from our school PTA who lives in another neighborhood in our development (striped shirt near the right). Our gang hung out at the far right (see that tall guy? Andy is always easy to find!) where there was the perfect little cove for...



...the kids










Sure, they don't look too thrilled to be there, but someday they will probably be involved in their communities and in politics and this will be their first memory of taking part in democracy.

Serving dinner to the "Wise Men"

Our friend Chris invited us to join her family in serving dinner to some homeless men at their church one evening. Asia and Ezra both really enjoyed the experience.














We made rice-krispie treats with Valentine colored M&Ms for dessert.

Afterwards Ezra said "Those men were really nice!" then later he asked "Can we go serve dinner to the Wise Men again sometime?" Meaning the homeless men. It was really funny. But maybe you had to be there.

Obama Rally 2/8/08

Look at that line! I went to the Obama rally with my neighbor friend Rob, his little guy Robby, and his mom. Here we were in line until we noticed a back door that was open and people jumped out of the line and ran in that way instead. Whatever works!

We ended up with really good seats and found out later that the arena was full beyond fire code regulations (tsk tsk) and around 3000 people were left outside! What can I say, Washington State hearts Obama...


















It was really exciting being in that atmosphere! Okay, so Robby managed to take a nap, but it was exciting for the rest of us!!














The one thing that I have to say really bugged me? They came and handed out signs to the people surrounding the stage--they even brought out homemade signs! That just felt wrong to me. Ahh, politics, gotta love it.














There's our guy!














Kirk met us there. Just look at those crowds!














Robby eventually woke up. He already knows who we need to see in that White House :)

My evening with Kirk, our philanthropic friend

Our friend Kirk invited me to be his guest at a lovely reception for philanthropists such as himself who donate regularly to the Combined Fund Drive at the U of Washington (where he works). Employees donate to the charity of their choice and the Drive adds in an extra 5%.

The reception was rather swanky--free wine, lovely appetizers and even a speech from the president of the University!

Kirk and I were the youngest there by a decade or so. We're proud of you for being so generous, Young Kirk :)













Afterwards we went out to a local bar in the U District during happy hour. A bit more our speed than philanthropic receptions ;)