I looked out my window this morning...

And this is what I saw.

Christmas Activity Pictures

Christmas Break has been filled with many fun and relaxing activities.  I have enjoyed being back in the beautiful Bulkley Valley.  It has also been a pleasure to be able to reconnect with friends through a variety of activities.  Here are a few pictures from the last couple of days for just a glimpse of what I have been doing.

Here is a picture of Christmas cookie decorating from earlier this week.  Dad, Janine, and I decorated the cookies together.

Yesterday morning the sun was shining nicely on the fresh snow on the ski hill.  The entire mountain was beautiful, but I had the clearest view of the ski hill for a picture without leaving home.

Later in the morning, I got together for 'coffee' with a couple of my good friends, Renee and Natasha, from high school.  Although none of us actually drank coffee, we enjoyed a variety of tea.  It was so nice to be able to catch up with each other and what is going on in our lives.

After supper was the annual girls alumni volleyball.  The senior girls had their team, and there were enough alumni to make 3 teams.  We played games to 20 points.  Our team started out by losing a couple of games, and then as we played the last team, we pulled off a win.  Then we continued with a tournament style crossover for semi-finals and finals.  We won our semi-final set and even came back to win the finals.  Above is our team picture after our victory in the finals.

After the alumni games, the Reitsmas came over for goodies and games.  We had 11 people and played cards and then telephone pictionary (aka fax machine).  It was a great end to a fun day.

This afternoon, I went out to the Reitsma's to go sledding with Renee.  Our first run on the toboggan was the best run I ever had there - we made it farther than I have ever been, and we had to bail before we went down into the gully and to the creek.  The packed snowmobile tracks made it hard to steer, so we fishtailed a lot and turned back and forth despite our efforts to go straight.  It was good exercise, but so much fun!

Christmas Traditions

Yesterday I got to take part in a variety of Christmas traditions in my hometown.  These were not really family traditions, but more traditions within our church family and group of friends here.

I really enjoyed being able to go to my church here in Smithers.  It was great to reconnect with some friends here.  After the morning service was the annual lunch for post-high students (in the bulletin they listed it as 18-30+) at the Nanninga's house.  The Nanninga's were involved with the youth when I was in middle school, and actually Elaine was my grade 3 teacher.  I got a ride there with Sonia and we spent a couple of hours there with many different people.  Each year it makes me feel a little older, especially this year when I saw at least one person there that I used to babysit - he is now a high school graduate.  The afternoon was filled with visiting and a variety of delicious foods.  I did not come even close to talking to everyone there, but it was fun to visit with different people.

Our evening church service on Sunday was our candlelight service.  I enjoy being able to attend this special Christmas service at our church here.  Through the years the number of candles used has decreased, but it is still a really neat service.  There were eight candles on the organ, our advent candles, and eight candles leading up to the front door.  These candles outside were actually in star shaped ice molds, which looked really neat.  It was definitely cold enough outside to keep the ice frozen.  The service was a combination of carols, special music, readings, scripture passages, and even video clips, which were all used to tell the story of Christmas.

After the service we stopped at home to pick up some goodies, and then headed to the airport to pick up my youngest sister, Janine.  From the airport we headed to Lester's for the annual eggnog party.  Jacquie makes a lot of great eggnog - some for the adults, and other for the kids - and everyone brings goodies to share.  There are always a lot of people there, many of them are teachers from our school along with their families.  Some of them were my teachers when I was in high school.  The evening was a lot of fun, and until someone mentioned something about the time I had no idea how late it was.  We left sometime after 11pm.

Sometime this afternoon, Janine and I will decorate some Christmas cookies.  Mom already made the cookies, but we need them decorated for tonight.  Tonight is another Christmas tradition that has very little to do with Christmas.  Every year we have the Steenhofs over on December 24th for Chris' birthday.  He is a teacher at our school, and the tradition started many years ago when my older sister Lynnea was in his class in 6th grade.  This tradition involves good food, cake, visiting, and sometimes games.

Later this week, after Larissa and Bryan arrive, we will participate in another tradition - going out for breakfast on the day we open our gifts.  We started this tradition when we were visiting relatives for Christmas.  This gave us family time with just our family, and all of our family enjoys breakfast food.

I don't typically think of myself as having a lot of Christmas traditions, but these are all parts of Christmas vacation that I enjoy.  I may also partake in some sledding and cross-country skiing while at home.  I also plan to get together with some high school friends for tea at some point as well as play some hand and foot with Renee.  I hope that you all have a wonderful time with family and friends this Christmas.

Random Meeting

I should know to expect it, but I didn't.  This morning, as I was waiting at my gate in Vancouver to fly north to Smithers, I met one of my friends, Sonia.  I was standing up to head to the bathroom when she saw me, walked towards me and gave me a hug.  We had both been in the same waiting area without seeing each other for a while.  She had also already met up with another one of her friends.

It took some extra time to board because some unaccompanied minors had to be moved around, and some families were split up.  It ended up that there was a little flexibility in seating once we got on the plane.  Sonia and I were able to sit beside each other for the flight north, with her other friend right behind us beside an unaccompanied young girl.  Sitting with a friend made the flight far more enjoyable.  We were also at the very front of the plane, so we also chatted with the flight attendant.

Meeting up with Sonia was a pleasant surprise, and it was also fun to get to greet her family as well as my own upon arrival in Smithers.

Temperature Contrasts

We have now had frost three times!  One time it was on the ground, and the other two times I only noticed it on the roofs.  Recently I have been using my heat more than my AC.  Despite the cooler weather, it only takes one day for it to go from cold (for here) to quite warm.  It still seems wrong to me to comfortably wear shorts in December.  With the extreme changes in temperature also come thunderstorms, we have had a few of them recently.  Sometimes I get slightly annoyed when it warms up again to the point where I may need my AC, but then I am simply thankful that it was cool enough that I got to use my heat and enjoy colder weather.

This week is supposed to start warm and then cool off later.  Even with it cooling off, I think I will have to adjust to winter temperatures when I go home to Smithers this weekend.

What do these two items have in common?

What do these two items have in common?

If you guessed that they were both gifts that I received today, you guessed correctly.

The first was a gift from one of my students this morning.  The second was given to me by a student this afternoon.  She was in my class at the beginning of the year, but switched back to Kindergarten.  I saw her when she came along to pick up her older sister.

I love simple, thoughtful, and unexpected gifts.  They have a way of brightening my day because of the thoughtfulness and love they present.  These were definitely both a blessing today.

Snowflakes - Pictures

Here are the requested pictures of two of my snowflakes from earlier this week.

The first snowflake of the Season

The Christmas Snowflake

I have since been told by one friend that I don't need to make them a Christmas card, she would rather have a snowflake like the second one.  Another just said 'ooh, I want one', while someone else offered to pay me to make some for her to bring to her family for Christmas.

This evening after Bible study I made a few more snowflakes - miniature ones.  At this point they are decorating Sonbuchner's coffee table, underneath the sheet of glass covering the wooden tabletop.  It makes for a festive table.

In case it wasn't clear, I love making paper snowflakes.