Ask and ye shall receive

Remember this post I wrote last September? Well, in the time since I wrote down my Christmas list I have gotten five of my six wishes. Imagine! If you would have told me the results of my list four months ago I'd never have believed you. Here's the wishes that have been fulfilled and how long after I posted the blog I received them:

• #4. Warm water for my showers - electrician came to fix the heater a week and a half later
• #3. Books - found large supply at the Cradle of Love apartment a 30-second walk from my cottage mere days later and discovered a fairly good bookstore in Arusha a month and a half later
• #2. A safari trip - went on one with three other volunteers three weeks later and another this month
• #1b. To see my family - traveled to Cairo, Egypt during Christmas to visit Bryn nearly three months later
• #1a. To see Jonathan - he randomly and very surprisingly showed up in my office three and a half months later

I am so blessed. Jonathan surprised me by traveling all the way from snowy Maine to burning Tanzania for two weeks. We went on a two-day safari before he whisked me off on a trip to the coast and Pemba Island in the Indian Ocean. And there he proposed! So, in four more months wish #1a will again be granted and I'll get to see Jonathan again. And at a yet-undecided date this summer I'll be privileged enough to be able to see him for as many years to come as God sees fit to give us together. I'm hoping it's decades!

(Because of the five granted wishes, I'm almost wondering when wish #5, the trampoline, will arrive :)

Wishes fulfilled

Who knew, when I wrote down my Christmas list a few weeks ago in the blog post below, that I'd get two of my wish-list items more than two months before Christmas Day! About a week and a half after writing the list an electrician came to the campus and worked on my shower so now I have warm water.  Yay, it's so nice to at least have the option of a warm shower! And then, this past weekend, I was able to go on a three-day safari with three of the volunteers at Cradle of Love Baby Home (which is located on the ADRA campus). It was a wonderful experience, but I won't write about it on here. If you want to know more, you can click the link above or check out some pictures on Facebook (but be patient with that...the internet here makes posting too many pictures pretty difficult so it might take a few days to get all the pictures I want to post up on Facebook). I still can't believe I actually went on safari. Now, I wonder which of those other items I'll get in the near future... ;)

Christmas List

It's a tradition. Every year I start my Christmas list in September. I've been doing it for as long as I can remember writing out my own Christmas list. My methods have changed through the years (from paper and pencil to computer with word processor) but the outcome is still the same; a list packed with things I'd like (clothes), I'd love (books), and I definitely don't need (a trampoline...seriously, I write it down every year). I guess I really don't NEED to write down my list of wants and wishes anymore; my close friends and family members know me well enough by now to have a pretty good handle on what I'd appreciate for presents. But I just can't help myself. Like I said, it's tradition. And I love [most] traditions.

What's really weird is that if I haven't started a Christmas list by around September 25, something inside me just starts feeling just a little off. And this feeling compels me to once again write a list. So today I started my 2010 version. But this year the start of my list looks a little different:

1(a).  To see Jonathan
1(b).  To see my family
2.  A safari trip
3.  Books
4.  Warm water for my showers
5.  Trampoline

Yeah...some things never change :)

Snow Day

Today was awesome. I got a phone call last night from the photo editor about a story she kindly agreed to write for the first issue of the Accent. At the end of the conversation about the story she mentioned that there was a marketing story on the school's Web site about Friday's classes being canceled. I was pretty happy about it and got even happier a bit later in the evening when I checked my e-mail and saw the real, live proof. I have to say I was a bit amused by the entire thing. There wasn't even half a cm of snow on the ground when I opened my door to check if more snow had fallen since I'd entered my house. Having lived in Alberta and experienced many real snow days (ones that only took place if the temperature was -40 C or lower, which is when a diesel engine quits working and the school buses couldn't run) this Tennessee snow day was a joke. But don't get me wrong. I'll take any day off school than I can get. I'm already sick of this semester, well at least those two classes that I don't really want to be taking. I guess I'm just kind of ready to be done with school for a bit. Oh well, less than four months left.

So on to my day. I spent the entire morning catching up on lost sleep (I know, ridiculous right? Lost sleep less than a week into this semester? Unheard of. Oh well. It happened) and then later on in the afternoon I went over to Jonathan's. He had made me a lunch of bean threads and we ate it when I finally got over there. It was delicious and I was surprised that I've never had that before. Tim was decided that he would provide our dinner entertainment and showed us a 16-minute video called Ticket Validation or maybe just Validation. It was pretty hilarious. Then Jonathan and I had our Christmas, which was awesome. (It's always nice to have a second Christmas, especially when it's on a snow day!) First I sent Jonathan into his bathroom to hide while I conscripted Tim to help me hide Jonathan's presents for a treasure hunt. I made up the treasure hunt before I'd come over so I knew which rooms I wanted to put each present in, but not where in each I wanted to hide them. Tim was a great help and within minutes I told Jonathan he could come out again. Then we had Christmas in January using Tim's little fibre optics Christmas tree. It was tons of fun, especially watching the treasure hunt, which Tim took pictures of. After that we did some reading and then came back over to my place to make supper and listen to a Dr. Ashton sermon from SEYC a few years back. I love listening to Dr. Ashton speak, even if it's not in person. He just has such a great voice and has a lot of knowledge and good things to say. After that was done I wanted to listen to something else so we found Paul Howe's testimony from GYC a week ago and listened to that. It was super good and I was really impressed and quite inspired. And that's how I spent my snow day. How about you?

Away in a Manger

Happy Christmas to all my readers! I can say, from years of experience, that probably the most obnoxious way to get woken up in the morning is by someone jumping on you. I know this because every Christmas morning my younger siblings come wake me up sometime between 6 and 6:30 a.m. by jumping on me. This morning I was already slightly awake so I heard someone running through the kitchen and dining room. I tried to roll into a ball to protect myself but before I could, Ty was already in my room pouncing on me. I was surprised that Bryn wasn't with him because usually one of them wakes the other up (of course by jumping on him/her) and then they jointly come to wake me up. Bryn showed up two minutes later so I got jumped on twice. Usually I greet this treatment with some gruff-sounding mumblings, pull the covers back up to my chin (they always pull them off), and stuff my head under my pillow. But since I was already kind of awake by the time they showed up, my grumbling session was shortened and I was soon up and racing into the living room with them to check out our stockings. We waited for my parents to come join us and then we all opened our stockings. I was surprised by the number of books that can be fit in or nearly in a stocking. I'm really not sure how I'll be able to read them all before break is over. I haven't even finished "Harriet" yet, but I'll try to work on that this coming week and then get through a couple of my new books. I read two of the small kids picture books already this morning between stocking and Christmas present-opening time. One of our traditions on Christmas morning is to open our stockings really early and then to make hot chocolate and/or freshly-made coffee cake and drink/eat it either during or right after opening our Christmas presents. We also hand out all the presents from under the tree to each person and then we just go around the circle each opening one present at a time. None of this ripping all the presents open at the same time for us. We use a orderly method to prolong the package-opening ceremonies. I got quite a few awesome gifts. Actually they're all awesome. But I have to say, my most surprising (and therefore most memorable) present was a voice recorder. Now I just have to figure out how to use all the features, but I'm sure my dear brother will help out with that. We tried it out on my grandparents this afternoon and we were both pretty impressed with the sound quality. The recorder will help out my interviewing so much, especially to get exact quotes! I'm excited to try it out when I get back to school.

After the presents were all opened and hugs were exchanged were brought our stuff to our rooms. Then we talked to my older three siblings. Ty skyped my older brother Mark and his family and that was hilarious. The kids were so excited to see us all on the screen and they showed us all their new toys and other assorted items Santa had given them. We also got to see their new-to-them dog, who is really cute. I can't wait to meet her in person . . . or in canine-son. Then Coral and Tucker sang "O Tannenbaum" for us. Well, Tucker sang the words in pretty good German and Coral spent the entire song dancing, jumping and twirling all over the room. I'd say she must be a Q. cause her jumps looked a lot like the ones I experience every Christmas morning. When that call was over we all took showers and got to work on the Christmas dinner preparations. Then my grandparents came over. Bryn, Ty, my grandpa and I set up the crokinole board and, after us kids practice our shooting a little bit to regain a little bit of skill, we played a game. Sadly, Ty and I lost to Bryn and my grandpa with the final score being 105-50. I'd say we were sorely beaten although it was a pretty close game at the start. Then we ate Christmas dinner, which was amazingly filling, like Christmas dinner's should be. We were all so stuffed full, in fact, that we vetoed dessert for the time being and listened to my mum read a couple Christmas stories instead. Then we had sundown worship and played a Bible trivia game, guys against girls. The girls won 25-22 so at least I won one game today. When worship was over my dad and Tyler took my grandparents home and then Bryn, my parents and I went to the hospital to visit my great-aunt, my grandma's sister, who has been in the hospital for a week and a couple days because of asthma-related problems. She was really glad to see us, especially since all her roommates were either moved to other rooms or gone for the holiday. We talked to her and read her some e-mails from church friends and family members who live far away. Then the nurse came to assess her and visiting hours were over so we left.

Now my siblings and I just finished figuring out what we're going to play for our church Christmas program tomorrow. We thought we'd play one of the songs we did with orchestra for the School of Music Christmas concert, but that sounded pretty bad with just us three, so we tried a few other ideas, none of which worked out too well. Then Ty said we should just do something easy, like "Away in a Manger" Bryn started playing it and Ty joined in with the rhythm from the version of "All Creatures of Our God and King" we made up. I came in with a harmony part and that's how we decided what we'll play. It's weird how we just play around with things and get kind of discouraged and frustrated that things aren't working out and then all of a sudden something comes to one of us and we all contribute ideas to make it awesome and a new version of a song is created. What a weird process. But it seems to work. Bryn and I tried out some different ways to change up the verses and I had the idea to do a round kind of thing for the first verse. It sounded really cool at the start, but had some clashing notes in certain parts so then I tried coming in a bit later. It worked sounded weird. So then I tried waiting a bit longer to come in and it worked all really good until the last two lines and then that part sounded just awful together. We were almost ready to toss that idea aside when I realized I could just switch to playing a harmony part at the place where it started to sound bad and we could finish play in unison instead of a round. We tried it and it sounded good. So we kept that idea. Then just a little more tweaking made it sound reasonable. I hope it's not too short though. "Away in a Manger" is a pretty short song so we thought up four verses and an ending, but it still seems not that long. Anyway, the audience will just have to be happy with what we play. Hopefully it goes well tomorrow.

Christmas Eve pajamas

gI finally wrapped my Christmas presents this morning. I had most of them bought and hidden around my room several days ago, but just didn't get around to wrapping them until today. It such relaxing work. I also find it fun to be creative with which wrapping paper is best to go with which present for which family member and deciding to how wrap each present and if I should include a bow or not. Maybe I'm just too orderly or OCD or something, but I just find it fun to think about all that stuff.

After my presents were wrapped I went to the grocery store with my mum to get food for Christmas dinner. It was probably the fastest we've ever bought food for any big, family-get-together type of meal. We were in and out of the store in 20 minutes and that was including my mum talking to three people she knew. Yeah, I know. Pretty impressive, right? When I was over in the bakery getting baby-sized loaves of flax bread, a mother and her two kids were there just before me. The mum told the two kids they could choose which cookies they wanted to get and the boy decided on these humongous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The mum made sure the kids knew the cookies were for Santa. She put several in a bag, all the while apologizing to me (like any good Canadian) that they were in my way. I responded with, "no worries," and smiled at the little girl who stared up at me with huge brown eyes. She gave me a half smile back and those adorable eyes started twinkling. I'm serious. They twinkled. It was amazing to see. I was kind of sad to see those merry eyes leave when the whole group moved on to let me get my baked goods. As they walked away I heard the little boy ask if he could have a cookie and his mum told him again, "No, we're saving them for Santa." Poor kid. They looked like yummy cookies, too.

When I got home from the grocery store, I left the bags for Bryn to bring in and ran to grab stuff for swimming then drove to the H20 Adventure + Fitness Centre. Julie was waiting for me in the lobby and so I paid quickly and we went to change. Then we spent the next two hours there swimming in the wave pool, being pulled around this circular pool that had a current (my personal favourite pool in the place), racing down the waterslides (Julie won every single time even though we alternated slides), lounging in the hot tubs, and laughing a LOT. Another friend, Kristina, was there, too, and so was Julie's family. We had a great time, although I was rather pruney by the time we emerged from the water and went home.

After that we went to my grandparents place for Christmas Eve dinner like we always do. It was awesome and I was so stuffed I could barely fit any dessert into my overfilled stomach. Then we played this game where one person had to draw a Christmas phrase while the rest of us guessed what they were. It was rather hilarious. After each song was guessed (the phrase idea morphed into just drawing Christmas songs pretty quickly) we would write the name of the song under the drawing and then get a picture taken. Ty went first and got us in a giggly mood when he wrote the title of his song upside-down and it turned out as "Joy to the Worlb." My mum's drawings were also fun to guess because they got pretty complicated and then were almost impossible to guess. Ty's last one was funny too because it was a four-part drawing of "In the Bleak Midwinter." Maybe I'll try to upload some of the pictures here later, so check back if you want to see them. When we ran out of ideas for that game we taught my grandparents how to play 8 1/2, a card game Bryn got for Christmas last year. We got kind of confused between that and Pinocchio though, so we ended up just using the 8 1/2 cards, but playing by Pinocchio rules. Then I scrounged up my grandpa's crokinole board and discs to bring back home with us. We didn't have time to play it tonight, but we're going to make sure to have a few games before eating Christmas dinner tomorrow when my grandparents come over. I love crokinole. It's probably my favourite games ever. Maybe that's why I occasionally like watching curling on TV.

Then we finally trimmed our Christmas tree and put most of the presents underneath it. My dad had set the tree up last night, but it was already late by then so we decided to finish it tonight. Before we went to my grandparents house my dad had put the lights on so we just had to put the ornaments on. It was kind of fun doing it on Christmas Eve for once. Our tradition used to be to put up the tree on December 1, but that's pushed back now until we're home from college, and this year we couldn't find a time to get the tree and put it up until tonight. It was still fun though. We also listened to our Billy Gilman CD, which has been another Q. tradition since my mum bought that CD for Tyler years ago. Once the tree was stuffed to overflowing with ornaments (it's a rather straggly and spindly tree, but we all love it anyhow), we made hot chocolate and then opened our Christmas Eve presents. Every year we are allowed to open one present each. That present is always pajamas. It's so nice knowing that you are guaranteed new pajamas at least once a year and my mum always finds really awesome ones too. This year Bryn got music ones, which are adorable. Ty got ones that have cartoon animals playing a bunch of different sports and I got moose pajamas. I must admit that I knew about mine. When we were driving to the Winnipeg airport after a weekend in western Ontario for my cousin's grad, we stopped to get gas at a small town that had a bunch of random stuff for sale in their gas station/gift shop. I saw the pj's and told my mum they would be nice for Christmas. Then I forgot about them until I opened my box tonight. I also got Canadian hockey pj pants. And then, of course, my mum took some more pictures before we headed for our own rooms to finish up last minute pre-Christmas secrets. So I bid you all goodnight and a Happy Christmas Eve!! Hope this holiday is amazing for you all!

PS - I just posted this, but came back to edit this blog with some good pre-Christmas news. I just found out that my married friends, Sharlet and Brad, just had their baby at 11:35 p.m. It was due on the 28th, but Sharlet's water broke last night. She went to the hospital, but was sent home cause nothing was progressing. Apparently she was going to get an IV to induce labour this morning if nothing had happened in the night. Anyway, her step-father-in-law posted updates on Facebook throughout the day (which weren't that interesting since nothing was really happening) and then her brother wrote a new status update from the hospital when the baby was born, which is how I heard the news. (Crazy how society has changed since we were born and our parents had to actually call up their parents on the phone to let them know.) Anyway, so they're now proud parents of a Christmas Eve daughter and everything is right with the world because a new Canucks fan was born . . .

Christmas tree

This morning we woke up really early (6:30 a.m., which is early for me at least), bundled up in warm winter gear, and drove about 15 minutes up into the mountains to get our Christmas tree. I know it's only two days before Christmas, but we've been busy doing a bunch of other stuff, so this was the first time that we really had to all go get one together. When I got out of the truck I thought about not even wearing a toque, but about 20 seconds later I rethought that and was glad I had brought it along with me anyway. It was freezing up there. Surprising how 15 minutes and about a 2,000 foot increase in altitude can make so much difference. Dad had checked the temperature when we piled out of the truck and it was -16 C. That's pretty chilly, especially when we've been experiencing weather between 5 and 0 C since we've been home. We traipsed through the woods for about five minutes before I pointed out a tree I thought might be OK. My dad started to knock some of the snow and ice off the branches to see what he thought and Bryn came along, looked at the tree, and grimaced in disgust. "That one's ugly. What about the one right back there?" She pointed beyond my choice to a tree standing alone in a circle of much taller trees. "Hmm, yeah, that could work," Dad said and walked over to check it out. We both agreed with Bryn that it was better. Then we had to call Ty and my mum over from examining the hide of a dead animal. Ty was trying to identify it while my mum was trying to take pictures of it. When they finally made their way to the chosen tree they agreed that it was good. My dad started cutting it down and then each of us kids took a turn with the saw while my mum got pictures of that, too. Then the three of us followed my dad out of the forest. He cut a wider path for us so we could get the tree back to the logging road and our truck. About halfway back Ty got tired of sharing the carrying load with Bryn and me and hoisted it up to carry back all by himself. Then we posed for some pictures near the road before jumping back into the truck to warm up. My feet were completely frozen and my hands were getting cold as well. The temperature had gone down to -17 C as we started driving home. When we pulled up to our driveway I was surprised to see that it was still cold down in the city at -11 C. We put our tree in the garage to let it thaw (notice my appropriate use of the word "thaw" as opposed to the non-word "unthaw") so we could put it up and decorate it later this evening.

In the early afternoon, when my mum, Ty and I were out shopping, I saw the cutest sight. We were in Lululemon, a yoga apparel store (no, I'm not into yoga, but the clothes are super comfy) and I was putting something back on a hook when I turned and saw a baby sitting on the floor of the store. He was probably around five or six months old and wearing a dark brown snowsuit that covered his entire body except for his adorably chubby face. His mum was standing beside him looking at a table of sweatshirts. She was in between me and the baby. How she was standing was exactly perfect for her son to peek through her legs to watch the customers in the store. As soon as I saw him I couldn't look away. I grinned down at him. He stared back at me for about three seconds and then broke out in an infectious baby smile. I kept grinning at him and he kept smiling back. It was the absolute happiest I have ever seen a baby look. We just stood there happily gazing upon each others faces. Then my mum walked up behind me and I half-turned to tell her to look at the baby. She looked down and gasped. "Oh, that would make the most gorgeous picture!" she exclaimed. "Why don't I have a camera with me." I looked back at the baby. He was so roly-poly-looking in that brown snowsuit that he looked like a cuddly little brown bear cub. I just wanted to walk around his mum and scoop him up and cuddle him. Then he started to kick his legs in glee, all the while still giving my mum and I a toothless grin. Ty came up just then and glanced over to see what had captured mine and my mum's attention. "He looks just like a seal pup," Ty said. It was true. His snowsuited feet looked like the end of a seal's tail. Several seconds later the baby's mum reached down and picked him up off the floor and the moment - and perfect photo opportunity - had passed. But I'll never forget that exuberantly happy little baby's face when he first started smiling at me.

After leaving Lululemon, we walked across the street to Mosaics, "the largest independently owned bookstore in the Okanagan Valley" (according to their motto or tagline or whatever that's called). It used to be my very favouritest bookstore when I was a kid. My mum would drive all the way downtown just to shop there and if we were already downtown for an appointment or other shopping, she'd take us there as a treat if we were good. I like it less now that it's moved to a new location. I especially feel that their kids selection has gone downhill since then, but maybe it's just the quality of kids books as a whole that I'm not as impressed with (what is with all this magic and sorcery in kids books these days anyway?). So, in any case, I still like to stop in there to see what gems I can find. Mosaics usually has quite a good selection of Canadian books so that makes me happy. Today I saw my dream book there. I had actually just read about this new book that is newly released during finals week. I went on CBC.ca to check out some Canadian news (something that I have been extremely delinquent in doing this past semester) and saw a link to a story and soundslide by the editor, Mark Reid, about the book. It's called "Canadian History: 100 Photos That Changed Canada" and I desperately want it. My mum told me she'd had it in her hands to buy for me yesterday but then put it back before getting to the till. I told her that I wouldn't mind having it, despite all that. She reminded me that I also have a birthday coming up soon. So I guess we'll see what becomes of all that.

Later in the afternoon Bryn and I picked up my dad early from work (these days he usually walks to and from work) and then went to look for snowmobiling boots. We tried the place that Ty and I went to yesterday to buy boots for my dad. I was a little scared the guy that helped us yesterday would recognize me and say something about our purchase to my dad but, although he was in the store again today, a different guy helped us, so it was all fine. They ended up not having any women's boots at all and the smallest size they had in men's was a seven, which our feet would be swimming in. So we went to the place the guy suggested we try and they did have women's boots and they fit. They're rated for up to -100 C weather (year, I was shocked to hear that, too) so I'm pretty excited to try them out. I've never not had my feet get cold when participating in a winter sport, so I'm really curious to see if these boots live up to their rating. I do have to say that they were the most comfortable pair of boots I have ever put on in my entire life. It was like putting my feet into their own little quilt-covered beds (bad analogy but if I think of something better I'll come back and change it). I kind of just want to walk all around town in them, but I have a feeling that it's not quite cold enough down here in the valley for my feet to like that too well after a little bit. I really wish that we'd bought the boots yesterday so we could have tried them out this morning as we got our tree. Oh, well. Along with the boots, I also got my first pair of Smartwool socks. I can't wait to try out the socks and boots when we head up to the mountains on Sunday!

Christmas on the Promenade

Tonight I finally got to see the inside of the Doll House. I've been wanting to since it got moved to its present location and tonight I got my chance. It actually seems a lot bigger inside than it appears to be from the outside. I had read the plaque outside the building before and had also read the story in the Southern Accent about all the uses the Doll House has had since it was built, but it was neat to see the write-ups and pictures that were posted on bulletin boards inside. I also thought it was neat that Santa Claus was set up on the porch of the Doll House. It seemed like a very appropriate place for him to be. Oh and there was also a gingerbread man right near the line for Santa. Jonathan took a picture of Danielle and I posing with him. Other than that Christmas on the Promenade was the usual, although it seemed warmer - at least to me - than the previous two years that I've attended. One thing I was a bit sad about was that it was my last Christmas on the Promenade and my two siblings couldn't enjoy it with me. They were in Film Evaluation class. Oh well, I found others to hang out with and that was fun too.

After the Christmas festivities, I had to go work at the Accent office. It was super nice of our editor to let us take part in the fun before having to work. Work tonight was a lot of fun, although that could be because of the Christmas music, homemade cookies and apple cider waiting for us back in the Accent office. Tonight's issue took an extra long time - half because we started working late because of Christmas on the Promenade and half because I think we all really wanted to make sure that this, our last issue of the semester, was as error-free as we could make it. Also I think we wanted to make sure all the stories about Kirsten were as correct, appropriate and sensitively-written as possible. When I was finally done editing and fixing and changing things around, the copy editor, Adrienne, and I left together. Reading all the information about Kirsten made us want to stick together as we left the student center so I walked with Adrienne to her car and she gave me a ride to mine. I wonder if extra precautions actually keep you safe or just make you a more-easily-scared human being?