Dec 22, 2007  We hosted the gift drive for TELUS and the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau tonight.  What a great turnout.  Tonight alone, we collected over 30 gifts for the Bureau, and over $350 for Camp Goodtimes.  Thanks to all who came out.

Clockwise:  Van set up, Chad Friesen and family, Reps from the LMCB, and myself accepting a cheque for $5,000 from Wing Leung of TELUS.

Dec 10, 2007  Variety club came by last night with 4 or 5 buses full of kids.

We uploaded 2 videos tonight.  You can see them here.  We'll try to film the other 2 tomorrow.

CBC Radio was also out today for an interview.  It will be aired this Wednesday morning at 7:00 PST.

Dec 8,2007  It was quite a small turnout for lightup this year due to the weather, but all who attended seemed to really enjoy the show.  Sorry these pictures are coming so late...been kind of crazy around here.

Dec 8, 2007  We apologize for not having updated the site until now, but we just changed hosting companies, and had a hiccup with the old one.  All is back to normal.

To catch up, here's a bunch of pictures up to lightup night:

Nov 29, 2007  2 days until lightup, and we still don't have the large tree or arches us.  The signage was ready with one day to spare...

And of course, the Lagerstrom luck says we must have a 24 hour dump of snow just before lightup.  Krista and Charles freezing their butts off, and Dan securing the arches to the tree across the street.

The kids shoveling the street just hours before lightup, Glenn getting the animals ready, and the last arch being rebuilt.  Nothing like leaving things to the last minute. 

Nov 28, 2007  We have the brochures all done up.  Click the picture to see it.  2 days and counting.  Saturday will be busy.

Nov 26, 2007  The arches are back to normal, the large tree is up, the invites are out.  We have tons of last minute tweaking, but will be ready to go on schedule.  We received confirmation, TELUS will again be matching all the donations we receive this year. 

Nov 12, 2007  Here we go again.  We had winds last night gusting nearly 100 km/h.  Ripped the arches right out of the ground.  I guess I'll be leaving them where they lay until just before lightup.  These winds are so frustrating.  And expensive too.

< Glenn adding the C5's to the chimney

Nov 11, 2007  Setup is coming right along.  We have 36 new C7 strings on the roof, plus 3 new C5's on the chimney.  We're leaving the large tree until the week before lightup (wind storm risk).  All we have left is the 2 new LED trees, the large tree, and a bunch of small odds and ends...

Mom & Dad finishing the windows >

Nov 2 - 4, 2007  Here we go again...All 42 trees fit in Charles CRV, Day 1 9:00am, Steph grinding rebar, large tree setup, Sundays commotion, EXTREMELY slippery roof, Charles waiting for me to land on him, Chris & Co in the neighbors yard, Lisa looking for that one bulb that doesn't work, Rosie helping Lisa look for that one bulb that doesn't work, and the yard how it looks after weekend # 1.  

Sept 16, 2007  OK, nearly 6 months has past, and here we go again.  We have already begun the programming and planning for the year, and 2007 will be the best show so far.  We're adding two 10 foot trees, a dozen or so more channels, completely new music (we've shelved the sequences from the last 2 years, and may bring some back if anyone cares to complain), and much, much more.  

We have been working with our sponsors again, and all are still on board.  It looks like TELUS has agreed to again match all of your donations.  I'll let you know when that's all firmed up.

I haven't taken any pictures recently worth posting, but we'll have some soon.  The display will come out of storage late September, and hopefully all of it will be up by early - mid November.  Ya, right.  

We have decided this will be the last year for the current panel.  We have outgrown it, so come January, it will be disassembled, and rebuilt as a portable, enclosed unit.  If I started it now, we'd risk not having it done by this years show...

March 28, 2007 Well, we finally have the last of the lights down and put away.  We had way to much wind/rain/snow to get it done any sooner.  6 months from now we'll be starting all over. :-)