I'd rather be traveling

Right now, as I type, my dad and my older cousin Nathan (who is basically like a big brother to me) are flying from SEA-TAC to Seoul, South Korea. From there, they'll take another plane or two to Borneo. My dad first went to Borneo when Tyler was a senior at Upper Columbia Academy. Every year some UCA juniors and seniors go to Borneo and in 2007 my dad went along with Tyler. The next year the administration at UCA asked my dad to go back there with them. He did. Then last year my mum was planning to go along with him, but at the last minute she got ill and both she and my dad decided to forgo the trip. So when my dad was invited to go to Borneo again this year, he asked my cousin (who was going through a job shift when the lumber mill he worked at decided to shut down) to come along. So, they'll soon will be in Borneo for two weeks of mission work and building churches. Each year my dad goes on the UCA trip I get jealous, but this year I'm extra jealous because I'm in the midst of some major fifth-year-senioritis. I'd give anything to be heading out on that adventure. But alas, I'm stuck here in Happy Valley.

Also, I got another interesting Captcha when I was commenting on Janelle's blog. (How come the interesting ones only seem to show up when I'm making comments on her blog and no one else's??) Anyway, when I hit the Post Comment button, the word "aliscrou" appeared for me to type out. I found that extremely amusing. I mean the first four letters of that fake word are the exact same as the first four letters of my name (which I'm sure you all caught). Anyway, I was trying to figure out a way to use that in a blog post, but it's been really rainy and cloudy lately and I don't seem to have the gift of creativity when the weather is so gloomy. If any of you have an idea for that word, you can let me know in a comment on this post. Or, feel free to make up something on your own blog using that word.

Winter hike

I went to the Village Chapel church in McDonald this morning for the second time since I've been here. I went once last year. Tim's parents are visiting from their AFM posting in Palawan, Philippines and his dad did the sermon. The whole church was packed to overflowing, mostly with college kids, probably all of them friends of Tim or his sister Stephanie. It was a really great sermon, at least I thought so. I found it interesting that it went along so nicely with Paul Howe's testimony that I listened to last night. They were both about missions and very inspirational. (Stay tuned for more on that in another post.)

After church I changed and then Jonathan and I went over to some people's house that are related to people he knows in Maine. One of his Maine friends, a nephew of the people whose home we were at, was there visiting so it was nice meeting him. Quite a few other college kids were there, too, all of whom I knew, so we had a nice afternoon. I also tried to coax the cat, Maestro, to come sit on my lap and let me pet him, but he wouldn't agree, so I just had to try to pet him whenever he walked by. Later on we all met up with some other college students and went on a hike on the Biology Trail. It was cold, super cold, and it even was snowing nice fat flakes for part of the hike, but I had some layers and nice long sleeves to hide my hands in, so it survived. Actually once we started hiking only my hands were really all that cold. I never thought I'd say this, but it kind of felt nice to hike again. Except for the steep uphill, but I made it through that ordeal without too much terrible hardship and the rest of the hike was fun. We did manage to accidentally leave Jonathan and Daniel behind when they stopped to take pictures of the sunset, but they found their own way back and came to pick us up at the other end of the trail. All in all, my verdict of the day: great because it was very different than many Sabbath's I've spent here at school. I like it when my Sabbath's aren't all exactly the same.