Christmas with the Bulthuis Side

Bishop Family
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

We went to Christmas with the Bulthuis side of the family today. We left at nine thirty so that we could make it to Olympia in time for church. We went to my aunt and uncle's church, which had just recently gotten a new addition. That was pretty cool to see. Then we went to their house with everyone. It was quite a big group of people, many of my cousins who I have not seen in a while. They also brought two new babies to show the family, Anika and Caden. That was pretty exciting and provided for much the conversation. We had another wonderful meal to finish off a great weekend of holiday foods. After dinner we took a nice walk through the neighborhood as well. Presents were fun because we had all bought presents for ourselves with money that grandma had given us. Then we had her open the presents and guess whom they were for. I was the only one who hadn't gotten theirs yet, so that was kind of sad.

Christmas with the Famly

Whole Family
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Christmas has gone very well. Christmas eve we went disc golfing during the day and then had a big meal. After that we went to a candlelight service at church. Then, just like every year, we opened our presents that night. Today we hung around for most of the day, well actually I slept till about noon. At about four we went over to the Manning's house and had Christmas dinner. Afterwards we watched Super Size Me, and then we went home and watched Napoleon Dynamite as a family. I also got my grades tonight. I did okay, best semester yet, but not as good as I had hoped. I guess there is always next semester.

Christmas Shopping in Seattle

Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

The family went Christmas shopping in Seattle today. I had to rush after getting out of the shower and we just barely made the ten-thirty ferry. The ferry ride was nice. Calvin played GameBoy, Markus and I walked around and Mom and Dad talked to some people from church. It was such a beautiful day and I was especially excited to be going to Seattle. We took the Alaskan Way Viaduct, because it just has great views. Our first stop was Glazer Cameras. I looked at some Lomography cameras and my dad checked out the telescope style binoculars for looking at boats from our house. My dad just wanted to know how much this one was, but they took him through this long demonstration of it and then found out it was like a grand. Why do sales people waste their and our time like that? Next stop was one of my dad's favorites, the Armchair Sailor. Basically it is a store full of sailing books. I found this one book of pictures from Norway. A guy whose last name was Eide made it (that is my middle name). We also went to University Village for a while to make our Apple Store stop. I also saw my fifth and sixth grade teacher as we were walking around. Luckily it was a nice day out, because University Village is an outdoor mall. I don’t know whose idea it was to make one in Seattle, but I guess it is kind of neat. They have umbrellas everywhere that you can use though. Our next stop was South Center. We were in the mall for quite a while, but got really hungry because we did not have lunch, but not before checking out the mini Apple Store they have there. We decided upon Red Robbin, which is usually pretty safe because Markus can get the Ragin' Cajun Chicken Burger. Of course we also had to make a stop at Ikea. There were actually not that many people there, which was a relief after all of the crowds of the day. The last stop of the night was at Borders in Tacoma. Our family goes there just about every time we are in Tacoma. I am getting to know those books pretty well. Being there makes me wish I could read a lot faster. There is so much interesting information. I could sit in there all day looking at books. On the way home my parents dropped me off at church so I could hang out with the college group for the end of their Christmas party. I got to see a lot of people I have not seen in a while, which was pretty cool. They have grown a lot too. There were over twenty cars in the parking lot when I got there and they started with three people two years ago. I also got to see Brett again for the first time since I dropped him off last Sunday. Well I took seventy-six pictures today and posted about half of them on my Flickr site, so go check them out (click on my pics in the right hand side bar).

Studying for Pyhsics

studying for pyhsics
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Finals are finally over. It has been a crazy, long week, but it is over and I can sleep now. I went home in the early part of the week to study and got a bunch done. My physics final was on Friday and my Computer Science one was Saturday, the very last final that anyone on campus had. On Friday I studied with the guys in the picture for seven hours. It helped me a lot, and I was glad they invited me, but the final was still pretty rough. My roommate and I agree that the Computer Science final was the hardest we have ever taken. What is a big pain though is that one of my labs showed up as a zero so now I have to try and sort out what happened to it with the TA, and grades are due Monday. I will probably have to work on that next semester. Aaron and I drove to my house last night and then got up at five this morning to take him to the airport. He isn't going to be back next semester, so it was pretty sad. He will return next year though. After I got back I went to sleep again and then got up for church. It was the children's Christmas program, so it was pretty exciting. I thought it was very funny. The kids dressed up in the traditional clothes but had coffee makers and duct tape and stuff. Afterwards Jeff and I went to get teriyaki while a bunch of others wanted to go to Quizno's. So Jeff and I got ours and met them there. I was totally surprised to see Stacy working there again and she had her break while we were there, so I got to talk to her for a while. Then I went to Jeff's and laid around till he had to go to work. I played with his new Gameboy DS (Dual Screens), which is pretty incredible. Now I am back at home, kind of in a state where I am uncomfortable and tired, but not tired enough to fall asleep. Oh, also, many of you know about how I work with kids in Vancouver every Friday night. Well, we are trying to raise money for them to go on this retreat this winter. I am responsible for raising money for four of them. We kind of made this little Compassion child like cards for them with their picture (we only had a picture for one of the four that I have, so we drew pictures of the others). The cost is $25 CAD (~$20.50 USD) per kid. It is only a one-time thing, so no long-term commitment. If you are interested in sponsoring one of them, just get a hold of me. Thanks.

Polar Swim

huddle
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Sunday I went to North Langley Vineyard for church with Jenny and Jana. I enjoyed it a lot. I had never been there before, but I had heard lots about it. Some of my profs go there and the music is pretty good. It was nice and chill, no drum set, just congas and stuff. A lot of popular music comes from this church too, like 'In the Secret.' They meet and a school and they are not that incredibly big. I mean Harper has more people. The first hour was mostly music and then there is a coffee break. During the sermon they also had a testimonials. It was also communion Sunday. They have couples serve communion at tables around the room. You go to the table whenever you want and they pray with you and talk and then the service is over. After church I took my car down to a park by the river and did some homework. It was so incredibly cold that I almost had to go back to school. My car also started sounding a little weird. There is this extra sound that was never there before in third and fourth gear. At five I went with Amy and Jenny and a bunch of their friends for an end of the semester thing. Of this group of about six girls that are really close, only one of them is coming back next semester. So they invited all there friends out for this thing. We first drove around downtown Vancouver and looked at Christmas lights. Then we went to Stanley Park for the Bright Lights Festival. There is just a ton of Christmas lights everywhere, a petting zoo and a train ride through the woods with more lights everywhere. It was pretty incredible. I dropped my camera when we were getting on the train and it got a little dent. I was looking at it when I was sitting on the train and for some reason noticed that my memory card was gone. I jumped off the train real quick and made them wait for me. I ran over to where I dropped it and started trying to get people to move so I could try and find it in the dark. I was just about to give up because the train was trying to leave and I found it. I think someone had stepped on it, but it still worked fine. I really love my camera. I am surprised, considering it is a Casio. Everyone else that sees it is amazed as well. They always find it pretty shocking home reasonable it was too. After the train ride we went to Cafe Crepe downtown and had crepes. I got dark chocolate and banana and it was incredible. Then we went back to Stanley Park and went swimming in the ocean. It was so incredibly cold out, but it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. Then we hopped back in the warm cars and drove back to school. It was an extremely fun night, and I am so glad that I went.

Kim Chi Palace

Kim Chi Palace
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Friday night was Youth Extreme again. We drove around Vancouver in the rain, measuring stuff with candy canes. You mostly just got some in Stanley Park, but we also went to Granville Island. I had the two guys in the car with Ross and me. They were nuts. Yelling the whole time and screwing around. It is kind of fun though and I think it would be pretty boring if they were not. When we were on Granville Island, Ross got out to do something and I left the door open. I made the kids stay in the back and was holding them there. They started yelling at people going by, saying that they were being kidnapped. It was a little awkward. I had to ground one of the kids from coming out next week because he was cursing a whole lot and trying to see how far I would let him go. Saturday I did homework all morning and afternoon. I got one of my papers on open source software done. It was pretty interesting and I had fun writing it. In the evening a couple of guys and I went to visit Kyle again, he had had surgery on his ACL. He was doing pretty well and was just hanging out in his motor home, with his mom cooking him food and some friends from home watching the football game with him. He seemed to be doing pretty good and can actually walk around on his leg. At six thirty, Aaron took me and two of our friends, Amy and Jenny, to the Kim Chi Palace. It was a pretty good. We got sushi and this BBQ thing, where you had a hot plate in the middle of the table that you cook all your food on. After that we went to Amy and Jenny's room to cook cookies. We stayed there for most of the evening and then I played some Dutch Blitz with the guys.

War Stories

war stories
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Last night my wing of the dorm played a campus wide game of capture the flag. It was a blast, and very tiring. If you got your flag pulled you had to go back to your base, which was on the other side of campus. So, you really didn't want to get captured. I mostly sunk quietly around. I did have a nice get away in to the woods as well. As I lay there catching my breath I saw an owl. He was just kind of hanging out in the tree. I walked over and watched him for a while. Then I slowly made it back toward their base. I was sitting pretty close to the flag and then they called the game off. Here is a pic of us swapping war stories from the game. Today I went to Lynden to get a check to pay for tuition. I also went to this store and got Dutch Blitz. I can't wait to play.

Further Seems Forever Show

steve
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

The last time Further Seems Forever came to town the show was cancelled. I was pretty bummed so I emailed the band and they put me on the guest list for this time around. This was really nice because it saved me $26. I also got to bring a friend with me. I was going to bring Matt, but he bailed on me and I took Kyle. So after a day of working on an essay all day I drove into Vancouver. It was at the Commodore Ballroom. I had never been there before, so I was pretty excited. It is probably the nicest venue I have ever been to, but I still like the Showbox in Seattle better. This place even had a coat check though, which was pretty nice. We sat around with some people from Trinity for a while waiting for it to start. It took forever. The first band was Sunshine, but I wasn't incredibly crazy about them. Up next was Further. The new lead singer made it kind of awkward. He did pretty well on the CD, and his own songs were satisfactory live. He didn't handle to old stuff very well though. Hearing the band though was still incredible. I really respect the original three guys that are still sticking it out. Up next was Sparta. I had never heard them before. They provided some good energy, but their songs got a little repetitive. Kyle and I decided to leave part of the way through their set, and get back to school to finish some homework.