Tender Heart

Last night at Sunday dinner my mother-in-law commented that Ava is a sweet girl and has such a tender heart. I agreed. Then she said, "Ava gets that from her father." I started laughing and said, "what, because I'm so cold hearted?" Of course she didn't mean it like that at all and we laughed about it. But I told her, I'm putting that on the blog.

Passed

I passed the citizenship test and interview today! Yay! I'm not a citizen yet though, I still have to attend the swearing in ceremony. They will send me a letter and let me know the day and time of the ceremony and I will post the info as soon as I get it.

Baby Grace

My brand new baby niece, Grace. Born 1/19/11. I'm so excited she's finally here!

Citizenship Interview and Test

On Friday I have my final citizenship interview and examination. At 1:00pm I will meet with an agent of the Department of Homeland Security for about 2 hours and discuss topics such as my history and background, my devotion to the constitution, and my morality and character. I have to bring tons of documents. In fact, I've got a whole accordian style file folder full of documents pertaining to my case. During the interview I will be asked questions about U.S. Government and U.S. History. This is part of the test. I've got study materials that I've used to prepare myself. Here are some questions they may ask:

1. What are two rights in the Declaration of Independence?

2. How many amendments does the Constitution have?

3. What year was the Constitution written?

4. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?

5. Who is the Chief Justice of the United States now?

6. How many justices are on the Supreme Court?

7. The House of Representatives has how many voting members?

8. We elect a U.S. Senator for how many years?

9. Name one of the writers of the Federalist Papers?

10. Before he was President, Eisenhower was a general. What war was he in?

11. Who was president during WWI?

How did you do? Here are the answers, check and see:

1. life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

2. 27

3. 1787

4. Thomas Jefferson

5. John Roberts

6. nine

7. 435

8. six

9. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay

10. World War II

11. Woodrow Wilson

Wish me luck on Friday! I hope everything goes well. If it does and I pass the interview I will get a date to be sworn in as a citizen of the United States. I'm not sure when the ceremony will be but I will definitely blog about it.

New Year's Eve Eve

On our last night in Canada the six of us went to a dinner theater and it was so much fun! The parents stayed home and watched the kids and we went and laughed our heads off while we enjoyed delicious chinese food!

Tub Time

This is another picture from our Canadian Christmas. The girls took a bubble bath together in the big tub!

Sledding on the Golf Course

Over Christmas we went sledding on the Desert Blume Golf Course behind my Dad's house. There's a nice little hill just outside his back door. It was cold out but the snow wasn't wet, so we stayed pretty warm.

Finally, Christmas Pictures!

Here are some highlights from our Christmas holiday.

The party began with Santa at the Hansen Family Christmas party on Saturday, December 19.

Of course Tess didn't really like Santa, but she sure enjoyed getting a present from him.

Ava told Santa that she wanted a fairy Barbie.

We saw the lights at Temple Square with my Mom and Alan. Kristy and Justin were there too

!

We drove up to Canada and visited with my Grandparents. These are my Shaw grandparents. We also visited my Grandma Anderson, but unfortunately we didn't take pictures there. Bummer!

Christmas Eve dinner was delicious.

Christmas morning we all opened up our stockings from Santa Clause.

Ava got a soft blanket.

Tess got the movie Incredibles!

Max, Tess and Ava.

Going to church in Medicine Hat on December 26th.

Christmas was great! The long car ride was a success too! I wish we had taken more pictures. We did a lot of fun things, like sledding, swimming, playing games, watching movies and shopping. The weather was very cold, at one point the high was only -6 Farenheit! Yikes! It was a great vacation with a lot of relaxation too. Although we all did get sick, luckily we didn't let it interfere too much with our fun!