New Years

So this was New Years, in many many pictures. Let's just say it was a total blast, and very very cold outside! So that is my justification. Thank you Kayte and Nyla for such a good shindig!

We're time confused.

Kayte edited these, hence her calling me cool.

We may have found Nyla's old dresses, wedding, bridesmaid and grad! It was snazzy, and required dancing and posing! Here's a classic bridal magazine shot, plus a shower curtain.

And I guess I should explain, the pictures you are about to see are intended to be a sequence. This is the birth of my adult child.





Oh my baby, she's so beautiful! I'm so proud!

Remember, it was cold. Happy New Year!

Odds and Ends

Here are the Odds and Ends:

• I'm feeling enormously better from the pneumonia, all is well. We discovered the likely cause: a large radius of mold caused by a slow leak in our basement, leaking directly into my room! Really nasty, but we've got it cleaned up and I've moved back down.
• The Edmonton road-trip worked out, I got to see my grand-folks, and go to the concert. The John Butler Trio are amazing - so freaking talented, I can't even explain. And The Skylight Room is a bit of a hole. And driving home all night and going to straight to work, is not the best plan!
• My midwifery degree seems to be falling apart at the seams, as the saying goes, "anything that can go wrong - will." I'm trying to figure out the pieces, and trust Jesus that He led me into this in the first place, and He won't leave me hanging. At least not forever.
• My Kuya TonTon just called me, all the way from the Phils, just to talk! I was so blessed! He and my Ate Nona, were my Manila-parents, they run the guesthouse I ended up living in for a bit. It was so special to hear from him, and seriously bizarre to get an unexpected call, late on a cold and snowy night!
• And then there's that... last week it was Spring, the snow was gone. This week it's Winter all over again, brushing off the car, letting it warm up, icy roads, 2ft of snow! Absolutely unacceptable!!
• I'm looking forward to 2 things: next week is our staff retreat... in Victoria!! Can't wait for a beautiful place, and some semblance of heat. And in a couple weeks I'm moving into a great basement suite with one other friend, and it will be great to reclaim certain freedoms!
  
• And now I have a prayer request, for a little 2-year-old girl who's facing a deadly cancer. Please pray for Charlize, as her last chance is receiving a stem cell transplant tomorrow. Her immune system is very very low, pray for a true miracle!!
  

We Ski for Free

Well, it's been four years since my last Ski attempt, and yesterday I tried again. Dad's company puts on a ski day every year, but I haven't been around since the year Dakota came, so it's been a while. Did I mention that this was only the 3rd or 4th time I've ever been on downhill sticks? And as such, our family has switched to snowblades, we finds it fits our clumsiness far better! But for all my un-co-ness, I did my best skiing ever, and have only one really good bruise on my left rear.
I feel like this has been one of my most Canadian winters ever! I made it out sledding a half dozen times, skated twice, went skiing, and rediscovered pure maple syrup as the secret ingredient of everything!

Soul Restoration by Moonlight

As my whole family found it prudent to be elsewhere this Family Day, I took advantage of the day off with some dear friends. And filled a deep need in my soul for nature, not quite the Rockies, but a bit of beautiful medicine, in Tumbler Ridge.

It being several hours drive away, and us starting mid-afternoon, (due a certain game of Settlers lasting till the middle of the night before), we started our outdoor pursuits at a rather late hour. And you will see, as we traversed this bit of Woods, the sun slipped away into night, the pinks hid behind the hills and the moon rose higher.


I had the good fortune of traveling and trekking with the lovely young-Jones family, which meant that we had great conversation, good travel tunes, and lots of hilarious fake-sneezing, on Lilah's part.



Before we ended our journey back at it's beginning, we paused to overlook the expanse, dark but for the moon, and quiet but for distant highways. We felt mighty from our vantage point and then we closed our mouths, as the truly Mighty roared suddenly through the trees.

By the night light of the moon,
You wrapped Your arms around me,
Told me I was safe here,
And told me that You loved me.

In silent words You spoke it,
To a feeble body such as mine,
Your gentle, tangled forces blow,
By the moon, hung in Your sky.

Blue at Night

I ran home tonight, hoping to catch the last bits of sunlight before the day was done. I was anxious to finally catch the beauty of the hoar frost, which always seems to melt before can I train my lense on it. And I succeeded, in those last blue moments of the day. As for my payment, to the snow and the trees, I sacrificed feeling in my fingers, and gave to the cold, a bite.

Winter + Family = Christmas

All Daddy's girls in one place for the first time. We took advantage of the weather and went for some morning sledding on Christmas Eve.
Mom and Shye.
We could be sisters. Wait, 2 of us are.
Dad and Dakota.
"Sisters, sisters, never were there such devoted sisters."

Being Home

Things I love about being home:

• layers of heavy blankets at night,
• long sleeves, fuzzy sweaters and mittens,
• big, beautiful containers of vanilla yogurt,
• not waking to find roach and gecko carcasses in my home,
• making phone calls - not texts,
• great sermons and having communion,
• driving again, driving a truck(!!),
• pecans and almonds in great big costco-sized bags,
• cupboards full of baking ingredients,
• being invisible on my street, at the store, anywhere,
• constant access to my fam,
• having a new little sister!

Things I don't love about being home:

• the weather,
• my skins reaction to the weather - (think lots and lots of lotion),
• getting into frigid vehicles,
• the rude and self-centered side of this country,
• the lack of easily accessible, cheap, public transportation,
• having cold feet, hands and nose - always!

Blizzard!

So GP was hit with the same Blizzard that's ravaging all Western Canada! It came in yesterday with 46km/h winds, a foot of snow, less than a click of visibility and temps feeling about -35! I ended up crashing overnight at my folks, and even got stuck downtown today when I went to work. This is a picture out our side door, that snow is hitting the top of our fence, the drifts all over town are like that. My folks are almost snowed in!
I will be soooo glad to get to the tropics in a few days!

The IceCapades

Skating Dramatics...


Canucks vs. Oilers (uhh, how about neither!)...


And a bunch of Posers.

New Years Day

A beautiful afternoon as the sun disappears for the day.

We spent the afternoon skating on a pond downtown, I love skating despite my complete inability at it. I mean I can move and all that, but stopping and abrupt turns, not so much!!

It was lovely!

Shoes of Snow

I went snowshoing this weekend. Is that how you spell that? Or is there an "e" at the end of shoe?? I think I'm probably supposed to know that, what with it being a part of my job and me having a grade 12 education and all...
But anywho, I went snowsho?ing! I haven't done that since elementary school days, back when we had the giant traditional-Aboriginal style shoes and we would waddle around in great effort on what was usually quite packed snow. A real hoot, right. So with no real positive prior experience I had no reason to ever consider picking it up again. And to be honest - whenever anyone at work would ask me about snowshoes I would look at them blankly and go find someone else. But now, now I am Pro-Star, or atleast not a complete fool.
We went out late Saturday night and tramped around through the trail system just outside of town. It was perfectly dark and peacefully quiet. And I suppose we ruined both of those things - what with headlamps, shoes on snow and conversation. Hmmm, I hadn't thought of that yet. But at least our only lasting footprints were our very footprints.
It was a peaceful getaway. And how often do you use Saturday night for a great workout with friends??

Snow Day!

This is an official Snow Day! It hasn't stopped falling for over 24 hours, and I couldn't even tell you how many inches we've got!

I figured everyone would stay home today - but proving that we are truely people of the North, everyone was out anyway, business as usual. We had a steady day at work, even though we had to shovel the walks 3-4 times in twice as many hours!

Take note of the snow on top of the fence!!

I was driving to work this morning, going real slow, all was very slippery, but going well. And all of a sudden with no particular change in driving I was no longer facing forwards and moving but completely jack-knifed, on the tracks and - not moving. By the grace of God there was a bit of space between me and the folks behind me, and they did not slam right on into my lovely ride! Scary roads, when 2 of your tires are near bald! I must say the Lord had mercy.

Now, just so you know - there was no snow on the ground when this started up yesterday. And this was early this morning, its been going all day since then too!

Despite all the snow, or maybe right along with all of it - life is going good. I'm enjoying my job - we have a lot of fun, and with such cool stuff to sell, why wouldn't we? And come Tuesday I'm picking up country dancing! Looks like the next 6 weeks will be a hoe-downing good time! And by then it will be Holiday season, although its already beginning to look a lot like Christmas!