Bedazzled

I'm officially back from the whirlwind that was Alberta! I arrived yesterday morning only to find that the world of Abbotsford had been covered in a thick carpet of snow, and undernieth that snow exists a very solid carpet of ice ready to destroy anyone who ventures out on it! Seriously, I still cannot open my car doors let alone find it! SO MUCH SNOW!!!

So, Alberta ended up being a very fun, encouraging, stretching, and tiring experience. Upon arrival in Calgary on Thursday night the weekend of driving began. I went to Three Hills, arriving at midnight, and then went for an early breakfast with my family. Directly after breakfast my dad and I drove into Calgary where I had my first 3 hour meeting of many. That evening I spoke in a caregroup in Airdrie, which was loads of fun, and then went home (the place I had been billetted out to). The next morning, bright and early, we loaded up into the car and drove to Lethbridge. We had a fantastic time with the people down there and then drove back to Calgary afterwards. I happened to get back to Calgary just in time for some square dancing, so I passed the night away doe-see-doeing. The next morning (Sunday) we drove up to Edmonton where we met in a Thai restaurant for our final meeting. Again, it was awesome connecting with pastors and church members, especially around Thai food. You can't go wrong! Rather than getting back into the car, I caught a greyhound bus back to Calgary and spent the night at a friends, nearly missing my early morning flight. God had my back though, and the flight was delayed. And that brings me to now....

So, thanks to all of you who were praying. God is good and did give me strength. I was so tired yesterday, but thankfully school was cancelled so I was able to get a good day of sleep in. I think I might be caught up.

New Photos!!!

So I just received some new and BETTER photos from our hot springs adventure. Please note just how muddy the water is...we seriously did not know until we saw these photos.

Original sized pool

Sick mud...Reg and Duane, eating it up

The hot springs adventure crew!!! It's a pretty big pool, huh?

Hot Springs?

This last weekend was random and yet so fun! There was a group of us that wanted to hang out and do something, but we wanted to do something different and adventurous, so we went online and found a natural hot springs somewhere in the States that we thought would be fun to check out. By "natural" I mean somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and it's more like a giant hot mud puddle than a pool. You know...the fun kind!

So, we all piled into a few cars and began driving. We didn't really know where we were going and we ended up taking a bunch of wrong turns and having to backtrack a bit. It took us about 2 hours to get there, and we all joked about the fact that there might not even be anything there once we arrived. Well, that's exactly what happened!!

We hiked in in the dark (hardly a hike), and came upon this clearing that looked slightly reminiscent of the clearing that had the hot spring...only this clearing was ravaged by some natural disaster. Seriously, all that remained of our long awaited hot spring was a hot puddle roughly the size of a couch pillow, or a kitchen sink. We defintely could NOT fit 7 people in that hole!!! Somewhere along the line we all became quite motivated to make this puddle into a pool and so we removed our shoes, rolled up our pantlegs, and began digging! I'm not even entirely sure how long we dug for, but we were damming creeks, redirecting streams, and deepening and enlarging our spring. At one point we broke for peanut butter and banana sandwiches, all laying down our rocks and releasing our handfuls of mud, only to pick them up again after we finished. Finally, we decided that it was big enough, changed into our swim suits, and lay in these muddy hot/cold pools. There were areas that were really hot, like skin scalding hot, and other areas where the redirecting of the cold streams just didn't work. But it was SO FUN!!!

After we were finished, we all piled back into the cars stinking like sulfur and looking ragged and dirty to make an attempt to get back into Canada. Thankfully, they believed our story and granted us entrance...they likely just didn't want to talk to us anymore as there was a foul stench wafting out my windows. Hurray hot springs!

That's the size of the puddle right when we arrived...

Beginning the dig...

Peanut butter and banana sandwich break...

Whirlwind Visits and Whirlwind Tours

I had my dear friend, Crystal, come and visit me this past weekend. As it turns out, this may have been the last time I saw her before I leave for Thailand. It was short, but sweet, and involved an awesome visit to Vancouver's China town, lots of music (thank you Daniel Bedingfield) and very little sleep. Crystal got an amazing hair cut and we had some pretty great last moments together...

Now...about the whirlwind tour. I am going to be taking a trip to Alberta next weekend (Nov.24-27) and will be literally driving over 1200km in the span of 48 hours. Please pray for strength, energy, and words as I am going to be presenting to many missions committees and pastors from all over Alberta. I really need prayer!!! I will obviously have no time to see anyone as this is a quick trip to raise support and to bring awareness about northern Thailand. Also, if you could be praying for me that weekend as I am currently in crunch time concerning my classes and have a large majority of my major projects due in and around that time. Thank you so much! I will continue to keep you updated on the happenings concerning this trip...

Men Only?

So tell me this...is Pocky making their delicious chocolate sticks only for men now? And if I were, by chance, to eat some of these twig-like snacks, being a woman, have I committed some cardinal Pocky sin? Will the Pocky Police come confiscate what is left of my box of chocolate sticks (and rightfully eat them as the dominant, male police force), and admit me to the Pocky-Prison-for-Women-Who-Eat-What-is-Only-for-the-Man?

Or perhaps I have overlooked something and have not noticed what Pocky sticks they are making explicitly for women. Would they be pink? Taste like flowers?
Anyway, I thought this was hilarious!!! I did eat the majority of this box, it didn't smell like men's cologne (as I thought it should), and I still have my freedom...no jail time for this bird.

I had a great weekend...it was girl's weekend out and five of us went down to Birch Bay and spent a night at my friend's parent's cabin. We played cards, laughed alot and then went into Seattle the next day to do a bit of shopping. It was so relaxing, and I think just what all of us needed.