Thoughts for the Day

Finally! Rain! The sound of rain falling off the roof onto the deck was the first sound I heard this morning.  Power washing the deck in preparation for staining has once again ended our dry spell.  It's as much a "sure thing" as forgetting your umbrella at home.  If you listened closely you could hear the ground inhale the moisture.

The past 2 weeks of warm, and not so warm, sunny weather has brought the last of spring's flowers out in their finest. The bridal wreath spirea, Siberian Iris, and hybrid lilac are all in bloom.

The last week has been rather hectic in our house. ESL will be winding up next Thursday so Don had to make a video of all the students reading a short presentation to show off their new-found English skills. They have worked very hard in preparation, and the video will be shown at our potluck lunch on Thursday.  The potluck lunches are something to behold. You don't realize how many cultures are represented in the Bethany ESL groups until they all try to feed you their favorite foods.  Definitely not a diet day! 

These are 4 of the 5 students in my Level 1 class this session.

Linda is from mainland China. She currently assists her husband in his accounting firm, but her first love is cooking.

When she first arrived in BC several years ago she took a cooking course at the Vancouver Culinary Institute, then worked as a cook at the UBC Golf Course for two years .  Prior to emmigrating to Canada Linda and her husband spent a year in South Africa operating a small hotel.

           

Gracielle is from Columbia. She and her husband have landed immigrant status. They came to Canada 6 months ago, following two of their 3 children and several grandchildren.

Gracielle had taken several English classes in Columbia but is finding it quite different to be the only person in the classroom who speaks Spanish.

Michelle is a single parent, mother of 2 adult children. Her daughter is a flight attendant with Air Canada based in Toronto, and her son attends University in Burnaby.  She is from Seoul, South Korea and is a vibrant Christian. Currently Michelle works in a Japanese restaurant and shares her home and her heart with her son and an adorable pooch named Toto.

This is Grace.  She is the youngest of our students at age 23.  She is single, and an elementary school teacher  from Seoul, South Korea.  When she returns to Korea this fall, she plans on teaching English as a Second Language .  While she is shy when speaking in class, she has very good English skills.  She joined our ESL class to work on her pronounciation and to gain more conversation skill. She has attended many ESL classes during her teacher training, but finds the Bethany group provides her with the interaction that was missing in some of them.

Our summer plans are very laid back this year.  We hope to travel a bit in the fall, assuming we find a suitable house sitter, so want to save our pennies for that.  While we visited Glasgow and Edinburgh on our last 2 trips to the UK, we have yet to see anymore of Scotland. This time we will recitify that.  Plan A is that we will arrive in Edinburgh in advance of our daughter's vacation and visit some castles, a whiskey distillery, and some of those lochs we've been reading about all our lives.  Who knows, we might even catch a glimpse of Nessie!