HOME!!!
I made it through my first semester of university and through the crazy week of exams. The last week was full of adventures, late night studying and random activities.
The dorm walls are lined with balloons, one balloon for each exam, waiting to be popped the moment a test is finished. Little 'bangs' echo throughout the halls throughout the day, followed by little cheers and sighs of relief.
Another sign of exams - people who are overtired and have lack of energy, or people who are overtired and strangely have too much energy.

Anyhoo, our dorm headed out to Denny's for a late dinner and one last 'night out' before the holidays which was really nice. The girls are all so rad and I feel really blessed to be living with them. Sadly, one of our Cheryl's is leaving second semester to travel, so we will definitely miss her like crazy. It will be neat to see if we have any new girls move into our dorm after Christmas too.

Random...

So now I'm home and anxiously awaiting the arrival of my brother, as well as Antonia:) I'm so pumped to see the two of them, Christmas will be a grand ol' reunion this year. I'll keep you posted:)

The 'Final' Days
Three exams down, and two more to go. In five days, I'll be sitting at home...I can hardly wait. And then Jeffy and Antonia will be here, and Scott will eventually arrive. I sure love Christmas, we even had a surprise Christmas party here last week. Our parents sent us a little gift, and our dorms sat around a christmas tree and opened them and just hung out. Thankfully Santa and Mrs. Claus made an appearance, so it made the evening perfect.

So, during a spare study moment, Rika introduced me to Wikipedia.com - which she described as the most unreliable encyclopedia around. I guess it's pretty fun because it allows you to edit and add things to the info yourself. But we looked at some random topics, like Mario Smash Brothers. We read the title in Japanese, and found a liking to the word 'sumasshu' = smash. Kari then, who wanted to procrastinate from studying, made Rika and I this lovely little surprise picture, of us and our nintendo friends. One of the most random things I think I've seen, but it made me laugh.

It's strange to think that a semester is almost done...it's been good. Full of challenges but also awesome blessings, especially Hanbanan. It's been so rad living with her and having our random fun, and growing together, with encouragement and prayer. It makes me excited for spring semester.

Candace and I went to a ladies dessert night that my friend Tracy was hosting earlier this week, and I found it really encouraging. The speaker spoke on the gift of Christmas, which a lot of sermons are on at this time of year, but she made it connect in my heart more than it has before. She described what Bethlehem would have most likely been like, a hustling bustling place, overcrowded with people, not enough places for people to sleep. Most of the people wouldn't have been too happy, especially with taxes being placed on them, and being forced to return to their home towns for the census, definitely not a nice place for a young pregnant teen. The little stable would have been gross and dirty, yet this was where God chose to have His precious son born. God could have waited a few months until the crazy census stuff was finished, or had Jesus born into a palace, but instead, he picked a small ordinary stable with a humble young girl and a loyal man. What touched me the most, is that it's such a picture of God's love for us. He sent Jesus to be born into a place that could be considered the 'lowest of the low', and this is also where Christ meets us in our lives. He doesn't wait until we have our lives all beautiful and pulled together nicely, but He meets and loves us when we're falling apart, dirty, unworthy, when we feel like we're at our lowest point. So I was humbled and thankful that the King of kings doesn't overlook us when we're broken and feel ruined, but He lifts us out from that. Definitely a cool reminder to be thinking of during this sweet holiday.
3 more days and I'm heading home!

Tracking Santa...

So for all you friends of Santa, here's the sweet NORAD tracker so you can track him on Christmas eve. Pretty sweet:)
http://www.noradsanta.org/en/tracking.php

Living in a Christmas Dream...

This weekend, Trinity has been hosting the first annual 'Spirit of Christmas' celebration. It's been hustling and bustling around campus with busyness this week, but it looks beautiful. Tons of lights, Christmas trees, and snow creations scattered around.

In our Student Building they have a row of Christmas trees for different departments and groups, so its fun to see the variety of decorations.

The school also has a living nativity scene, where we were guided around part of the campus to experience the Christmas story. I was actually pretty impressed and enjoyed it quite a bit. Especially because they had animals at the end by the stall where Mary, Joseph and Jesus were. Hannah loved the donkey, but I loved the llama. My new friend named Leonard. He was the funniest thing ever, such an interesting face that kept me laughing. It took us a while to snag a good photo of us together. At a moment we even locked eyes and stared straight at each other, pretty special.

There are some pretty impressive snow creations around campus...one of my favorites is this beaver. He even has a large tree branch stuck in his teeth.

This is also an igloo that was built by Hawaiian Chris...he's definitely enjoying the snow, and even slept in it for the first night. Han and I enjoyed sitting in it, but had an unfortunate experience with a young fellow who was at the Christmas celebration. It involved Han getting an iceball in the face and us shoving snow down his back...we made it out alive which is good.

SNOW DAY

A Snowy Surprise

Sunday morning, and I'm sitting on top of my bed looking out my window at the lovely snow falling down, with Christmas carols playing in the background...it feels perfect:) We had quite a funfilled weekend again, and now we have snow! This is the story:

Friday, a group of us headed down to Washington (my first time) for Kris' friend's concert that night.The concert was really good and the band is pretty dang talented, I felt a little out of place since it wasn't quite my style of music, but we had a blast anyways.

Afterwards we went back to Kris' and a few of us tried the huge zip line in the dark. It was a little intense going in the dark flying towards trees, but was a ton of fun. Nathan and Kris woke up early to make the group breakfast, which was super yummy, and then we headed off to downtown Seattle. It looked so pretty all decorated for Christmas. We even got to stop at the first Starbucks, pretty rad, except their expresso machine was broken.We even had our own "elf" playing on the escalator.

And we found a really rad um... gum wall, Hannah's favorite. It was impressive artwork, and Billy could not resist trying some.

It was fun to be in the city, but I definitely think I'm still a small town (or small city) girl.

Now the exciting part! I came back Saturday with Kenny, Chris and Nathan so we could dive into our homework earlier. And then is started snowing!! The super exciting part is that Chris (and Nathan too) is from Hawaii and has never experienced a snow fall before, so he was absolutely stoked! So everytime we pulled over, he was out of the truck into the snow. We stopped in the cool little Dutch town Lyden before crossing the borden again for some more fun and to build a snowman. It seemed like the perfect little hallmark town.

We went pretty slow on the way home, but got back to school around 10:30pm and the campus was alive with snowy fun. We meet up with some gals from my dorm and then a crew of us created a sweet snowball fort, which sadly didn't bring a lot of enemies. So after we were frozen and had a mini fight we departed off to bed.

So that leaves me here now. After a restful sleep, I feel so relaxed just sitting. I sure do love looking out the window and watching huge snowflakes fall, its so peaceful and beautiful. I just don't want to make a sound but almost hold onto my breath to enjoy every moment. I didn't think we'd be getting snow this early, and I guess at home on the island there is even more, who would have guessed? Maybe we'll actually have a white Christmas after all!

I must depart and get ready for church, but hope you are all enjoying the snow as much as I am. God bless and keep you safe too!

Chris' First Snowfall

O Christmas Tree!
For Dorm meeting last week we did some christmas decorating. Janelle, Sarah, Han, Cheryl and I were the tree chopping crew while the other gals picked up food and decorations. We 'hiked' into the woods, crossed a little creek (got a little wet), climbed the tree til it bent and sawed off the top. And voila! we have a beautiful (maybe not perfect) tree in our dorm. Less than a month til Christmas day!

Home...

I've been looking over my schedule and realizing how busy things are going to be over the next few weeks. I might actually go crazy by Christmas. I am so stoked for Christmas to be here though...it will be so great to have the whole family together again. I sure hope we get a good load of snow too, even though Dad doesn't like it a whole lot.

I've also been knocked in the head again lately about where I am in my faith. Life definitely is full of challenges, and when my eyes aren't always fixed on Christ, they do a good job of hitting me over the head when I don't see it coming. I'm so thankful to serve such a faithful God, who is constant even when I am not. What a blessing it is to know that when I fall and trip, and when I'm frustrated with myself, knowing that my Lord is right beside me and will hold my hand as He guides me. How foolish I am when I take my eyes off of Him. I'm also thankful for fellowship, for my parents and brothers, and those good friends who remind me of truth and spur me on in love. Thanks.

Another good friend...a good ol' cup of tea. I've been drinking this wonderful drink since I was a wee youngster, thanks to my Nan and Grampa who always had a cup waiting when I'd be over. It's so much a part of our family, that my Grampa's dog even loves a cup. Nothing better than being wrapped in a blanket, sipping on the tastey drink, and spilling my thoughts in silence, or with my mom when we have our tea parties:) Maybe I'll get to look like this lovely elderly lady when I'm older...she even has crazy eyes like me.

So all in all, my thoughts today....God is good and faithful, even when I am not.

And I'm definitely looking forward to catching up on hugs over Christmas too, dad's always have the best hugs.

"The unfolding of Your words gives light;
It gives understanding to the simple."
Psalm 119:130

Power, Friends and
a Pizza Wedge

It has been an interesting past few days, and a whole lot of memories to combine into one entry. So I'll try and keep it short, but knowing me - it won't be, especially with a few added pictures, but I'll give it a go.

So last Wednesday, we had an impressive storm which knocked out our power for basically two days. It was off Wednesday night until early morning, then went off again Thursday at 10 until 7am the next day. But it was such a good time to slow down and be reminded of how insignificant we are incomparison to nature and God's almighty power. As I was walking to class Wed. afternoon I heard a crazy loud 'crack' and turned behind me to see a huge top of a tree snap off and fall a long ways down until a heard a loud BOOM. Thankfully no one was hurt, but there ended up being a lot of big branches flying around, so we had to keep our heads up.

It's amazing the way a power outage spurs on peoples creative juices, as there was hardcore mud sliding, and my favorite: one guy pulled out his sweet kite and was flying it and would jump when huge gusts of wind came along, and man - he got some amazing air, one gal made it up 8 feet in the air. Two buildings at school had generated power, but my building was pitch black across campus, so thank goodness for flashlights. Wednesday night was extremely encouraging as we had our dorm meeting in the dark, and then brought out some guitars and flashlights to sing and praise the Lord with some girls on our floor. It was so nice to be brought back to 'simple' life and to come together as believers and praise.

The next day most classes were cancelled with a second power outage. Although, my HKIN class was still ago since we were going ice skating which was really fun to be back on the ice. I never knew most Americans don't skate much since it was a first time for many, but then again it's not like I skate a whole lot either. Thursday night brought a lot of mischief with water ballooning people in the dark, hide and seek in a very dark building, and intense pillow fight...it was a fun-filled night, but the power sadly came on again the next day. It flickered a bit on Friday which caused mini-riots in our dorm, so it's a good thing it stayed on.

My good pal Lindsay came over Friday and Saturday, which was such a huge blessing to reconnect with her face to face. She's such a wise girl with a massive heart for people and for the Lord and it's contagious when you're with her. We went to a Taco Fiesta dinner, which Linds was able to pray for in Spanish - she also help me win a slinkee, watched Bourne Identity, walked in the rain, did my children's outreach Sat. morning and walked around the pond with Han. But it was a relaxing time, and always good to hear what God is doing in others' lives.

Sunday afternoon brought on a very much anticipated boat christening. Bryan and Kris built their dream boat: the Pizza Wedge over fall break and it was time to test it. To be honest, I was a little hesitant as to whether it would float or not, but they did an impressive job on it. Bryan and Chris were all suited up for another diving adventure and Kris was prepared to paddle. They broke some sparkling 'champain' (which meant glass ended up everywhere) and slid then the boat it. The pond wasn't actually too deep since the guys could stand up in it, but they enjoyed swimming around in the gross-ness anyways. "My feet are either really cold, or full of glass." Kris
Kris took some of us out for a ride, cramming as many people in it as possible, we all came close to tipping, but we made it out dry for the most part.
Needless to say, the turn out for the christening was pretty good, and we were all impressed. And the guys were pretty psyched.
So it's been a good, busy, funfilled and spontaneous past few days. We ended off on a good note last night by watching "Elf" to enter into the Christmas season. We couldn't find anywhere inside to watched it co-ed, so we ended up watching it outside, but it just added to the Christmas effect.

A Perfect Weekend Rendezvous...

So a dream came true, and us four gals were reunited this past weekend, and it was amazing. It was made up of continous laughter, games, movies, relaxing, eating, wrestling, tickling, lack of sleep, lots of talking and just basic 'us' stuff.
I flew out 2 hours late on Wednesday night, but was greeted by the beautiful smiling Larrissa. We went back to her place to grab a few hours of sleep before we woke up and go grab Terri at 5:45am from the bus. We figured we would get more sleep afterwards, but since Ter was wired, we decided an early morning coffee date at Starbucks would be better. Cassie met us at the mall later that afternoon. The anticipation of waiting to be all together again was intense, but the moment we were all together it was as if we'd never been apart.

So the first night we ate pizza and watched a movie and tv. Larry had to work for a bit on Friday, so we just hung around and played with silly putty (thanks to Cas, who also treated us to some sweet bouncy balls!). Larrissa's employers also allowed us to have their fantastic cabin out past Banff for the weekend, so we gals loaded up in the car and took off into the mountains.
But first, we had to stop for cheesecake. Cassie can eat normal foods again:) So we loaded up on some sweet treats.After trying to break into the wrong cabin, and finally getting into the right one, we checked out our 'home' for the weekend and fell in love with the place. It was like a dream come true, escaping the 'world' to a little town in the mountains, and having nothing else to do except hang out together. So we played games every night while cooking dinner, watched a whack of movies, went through lots of Cassie's bridal magazines, and did some random stuff.

Saturday, we had a nice sleep in. Terri and I had been up late practicing our bed diving jumps, so the sleep was well needed. Cassie burst into our room in the morning to tell us we were 'surrounded' by mountain goats. We were pretty excited to see a ton of them all around the cabin, Ter and I tried our best to get some by throwing rocks, but somen goats with the massive horns scared us away.We took a nice walk around town, there wasn't much to see and pretty much everything was closed, but the view of the mountains and the fresh air was awesome.

We decided to celebrate Christmas early so we could share it together. We found a classic, Charlie Brown style tree, and decorated it while singing some christmas carols, and then took a family photo. It was sad to wake up Sunday morning and realize that we had to head back to Calgary. So we jumped back into the car and took off. The drive was beautiful, through the snowy mountains. Once back in Calgary, we pretty much went to the airport to check me in. Cam was able to come and pick Cas up so we were all able to see him again which was such a cool bonus. He treated us to a yummy lunch, took a picture of us with a cool cowboy, and then I headed on the plane back to school.

It was so encouraging to be with these girls again, to have their friendship with no expectations that allows us to be exactly who we are. It was also really good to catch up and to talk about the things we are dealing with in our lives right now, and to encourage each other and be reminded of God's truth and how it applies to us. I am so thankful that this reunion idea actually came together. Thanks Larrissa for putting up with us all;) Like Cassie said, God really knew what each of us needed, and the weekend definitely was a refreshing holiday, in more ways than one.

A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.
~Lois Wyse