Sunrise Service 2007 wasn't as freezing as Easter 2006!

Happy Easter, everyone! This post will probably make clear that I know a bunch of people at church who share the same first name, if not a last name!

Woke up at 5:45 AM - by the time I got downstairs, my siblings were having issues with the printer, which caused us to run late. Oh well, the same side printed on both top and bottom of 30 sheets of paper made for some hilarity when Sunrise Service finally got under way! ("let's have an extra-long service!") Had some milk before leaving the house to pick up Eric - thanks to Steph's fast driving techniques, we made it to Van Tech in 18 minutes from Eric's while Jon fielded phone calls from Nathan / Jeremy (first to arrive!) / Harmony. (talked about certain people / the lack of traffic / Dad being a proud father when it came to Steph using aforementioned driving tactics / Steph meeting Melissa later tonight since she's in town to visit friends) Talked to a bunch of people who were there already: those of us who remembered how FREEZING it was last year had toques / mittens / scarves galore! We had to share mittens and such last year [one mitten for two hands], and designate people / poles to serve as windbreaks in 2006 - Steph predicted on the way over that we'd overcompensate and have winter parkas and such to protect us this year! She tried to make me notice certain things, but I moved closer to Eric and away from Jeremy so I wouldn't have to see them, haha. (not that a couple of inches to the left made any difference...)

The service was pretty good even with Danielle reminding us that we'd better not take too long since she'd have to go sooner or later (we definitely remember last year!), and I received help from people along the way too! Mike K. on Danielle's announcement: "Hey, we ARE behind a high school..." No, Mike... it would be a BAD idea to pee there! It seemed we all had issues with reading aloud this morning, and with answering the "call-and-response" that Jon had for us: "Christ is risen!" *silence from everyone except Daniel* Heh, it happens - and I wouldn't be surprised if Grace now thinks we're crazy since Danielle told her that I could eat a lot of SIU LONG BAO. I don't even want to THINK about it right now - maybe next month or so! I saw Joe Yu there, woohoo! After service ended, Daniel announced that we were 15 minutes late for breakfast, so we all went over there as quickly as possible! (he had an original reservation for 20 people, then changed it to 30... then 40 people showed up for Sunrise!) But poor Darren C. couldn't make it because he had to play stuff for the morning service at 8: he COULD have said no to Auntie Rebecca when she asked... but all the same, it's annoying to not have breakfast when you get up that early! We couldn't sit together at one long table since 40 people went to Sunrise: yay for one-third of the ESC!

I sat with Andrea, Daniel, and Nathan: we discussed understanding technology and teaching, iPods and such as appendages, being really academic, flipping over creamers, keeping in touch with our (non-Christian) friends, the food, Vanessa's roundabout, Nathan's Homestar Runner hat, Michelle and Daniel's degrees / income / smarts, Daniel leaving at 9 to pick Michelle up since she was awake when he called, and Nathan's sleep deprivation... good thing he got SOME sleep, but he's still on Hong Kong time or something! Seven minutes of sleep in 33 hours will certainly do a number on you even a few days later! He blasted hard rock music and the air-con, opened the car windows, and slapped himself to keep awake while driving - all this for the sake of research on a project he HAD to finish! At breakfast, he couldn't follow the discussion / asked us to wake him up when the food came / played with his sugar on a saucer before putting it in his tea / seemed subdued. I had toast from Nathan via Daniel, half a pancake from Andrea, and a traditional Eggs Benedict with hash browns for breakfast. Had issues with forking the toast properly, putting the proper amount of syrup on my pancake (almost all of the little thing?!), and cutting the Eggs Benedict too! Talked to Emily C. and Mike T. for a while, who were at the next table... we mainly discussed their convocation next year instead of this fall since their school doesn't offer it then. After paying, some people went outside to do the ABC Country Restaurant roundabout: Nathan captured one-third of it on his cell phone camera, heh. Emily L., Isabel, and her brother Darren L. wanted to know if our car could take them to church: not unless they wanted us to drive illegally! ("Isabel, leaving your brother at the restaurant is a BAD idea!")

At church, I heard that Sam didn't really want to go to Sunrise... however, his brother really wanted to be there - that's good for Jeremy who's in Grade 7! Sam had stayed overnight at church on Friday / Saturday (got 2 hours' sleep), worked 8 hours yesterday, and then had to get up early for Sunrise today. Oh well, not much he could have done! Eric told me to move closer to white Jeremy so he could sit down too: no problem, especially since we didn't have colds today! Jon and Jeremy did a lot of pew-drumming during service, which led Christon to think that they'd had too much coffee. I asked Jeremy about this afterwards, and he said that he'd had something else - eh, the caffeine from the tea COULD do it since the coffee was like the weakened coffee his grandpa used to make when he couldn't have it anymore!

Karen Lew asked me what time we had to be at the airport when embarking on our cruise - she wasn't impressed when I told her "6:35 AM," but I'm not exactly thrilled about it either! Eric took a few opportunities to look through my bag: you can't have the Mexican bubble gum lollipop OR the chocolate eggs that I plan to "spoil" the kids with, and you KNOW that! Then I borrowed Steph's Sharpie to add stuff to the note for Amos and Jason: Eric commented on what I wrote about the cookies, of course. ("20/30 packs" makes sense, but maybe it floated by him because of tiredness) Some of us had (rather obvious?) sleep deprivation issues: Jon was going to pass the offering bag to Jeremy, who just stood there without passing it on to me - no, I don't think he was praying! So I gently elbowed him: good call, heh. I know I couldn't really concentrate on stuff this morning, but that's par for the course! Having to ask Eric TWICE about what he said when the kids weren't dismissed for Children's Church is NOT normal for me! Maybe the "holy chest slaps" that Eric, Jon, and Jeremy were giving each other (across ME!) temporarily woke them up at the start of service, but didn't do any good during the sermon! I heard later that Sam fell asleep at least twice during service, too.

Later, I gave Helen C. and her son Nathaniel their birthday cards - Joe T. thanked me on his son's behalf, although he DID say "thank you" as well in Mandarin. Went downstairs after service to hopefully catch the Wong brothers: I did, and Amos thanked me for the cookies... NO PROBLEM, and I'll have to ask them how they liked the cookies on Saturday if I remember or they bring it up! Jonathan Chan asked me what was in the bag, so I told him that they'd never had Dad's cookies of any sort before! I forgot to take out Lily's and her daughter Hannah's birthday cards, which was bad since I saw them outside a little later on: next week it is! Talked to Chung for a bit about his and Karen's Hong Kong trip, discussed Daniel camp with various people, said hi to Chris / Sophia and her baby Olivia, and talked to Margaret about her experience playing for Sunrise. It seemed we had been outside for a long time when people checked their watches to see if it was time to leave for Sunday School: Jeremy mentioned that he hasn't worn a watch since he got a cellphone, and that makes sense. When I checked my watch, I showed my sister and others that it was only 11:10! Man, that's EARLY when we expected it to be maybe 10 or 15 minutes later!

I went to the toddler Sunday School when the others left for next door: Rachel and Wilson were all right today ("Teacher, I'm a spaceship!"), but little Sean loved running around! (he leaned on me for some reason, which Auntie Tracy thought was cute) They loved the chocolate eggs that I had, but I only gave them three each: that went for big brother Ian, as well. I waved to baby Amos when he looked inside the room: his mom Jennifer tells me that he gets lonely since he's the only baby in the nursery these days, but it'll be a couple more months before he turns two and can then join us! After Sunday School and talking to Julie S. about waking up really late at 6:40, I gave varying numbers of eggs to people who wanted them: David (1), Quan (1), Ryan (2), Ethan (2), Lawrence (4 or 5), twin Andrew [NOT Lawrence's brother!] (4 or 5), Julie C. (3), Hannah W. (3 - she and Julie took my joking around about a 50¢ fee seriously!), and Alina (1). Isabel, Darren, their dad, Vivian, and a few others didn't want any - I still have some left over after having one for myself, yay!

I went outside and met up with people, then found myself almost prepared to drag Eric away from his conversation with some other white dude by the arm-in-arm trick. Hey, man... it's Louis Garden and you haven't been there in years! Let's go! (haha) Of course he couldn't leave in the middle of the other person's sentence, but certain relatives of mine tend to get very impatient if they don't have their food within a certain time period after church! Jon stayed behind to watch AMAZING GRACE (William Wilberforce) with the high school Sunday School class, and I hear that the Daniel program on Friday will be some other movie about a football team that converted to Christianity. Sounds like what I'd want to watch, and reminds me of those revival videos we watched in church prayer meeting during 2001 or 2002.

Went to lunch at Mui's (another name for Louis Garden), commented on the toilet paper store (Kleenex is also "on sale" there) / the Laughing Bean coffeehouse, and talked about morbid Bible passages / more buildings / Skytrain in Richmond / Steph setting the alarm at 1 after Daylight Savings Time / teen pranks possibility / cannibalism / Sunrise / memorable recent sermons and jokes / hockey (the Islanders are in the playoffs instead of the Leafs - yay for goals scored with less than a second left in regulation time!) / Fellowship. Eric (who tried paying $5) and I were NOT isolated from everyone else because we were flanked by one empty chair on each side, thanks! He helped me with a bunch of stuff, which I definitely appreciated. When Grandma refused to link arms with me for better balance outside the restaurant, I told Eric to be an extra set of eyes and make sure she didn't fall or anything! After finding out that Linen & Things didn't have Dryel, we went home.

Soon after I got in, Eric wanted to tell me something on MSN. Unfortunately, I lacked the necessary brainpower to have anything resembling a coherent conversation especially about more involved subjects. ("me sleep now... bye!" "oh sure... no answer [because I was trying to see if I could concentrate on ghostly reading - no go there!] and then sleep!") I did tell him that we'd left our stuff in my dad's car since we didn't realize he was going back to church for the Chinese / Mandarin baptism service till halfway through lunch or later. We don't NEED the things right away, so we can pick the knapsacks up tomorrow! A nap did me some good, though I suspect I'll be sleeping at a weird time tonight - ah well.