Skiing at Cypress Mountain

We went downhill skiing yesterday at Cypress. It was a beautiful day - the snow was good, the air was warm, and we were on the slopes! The view was also great. You can actually see downtown Vancouver from the top. It's incredible how close the mountains are to Vancouver and vice versa.

After a few runs, I realized the main reason why I like downhill skiing. I like watching John ski. He's good. When he skis, he looks so natural and graceful. He's able to stop at basically any point he wants. He can go off jumps and go down black diamonds. Like I said, he's good.

I, on the other hand, go down the hill with all my focus being on staying in control. Of course that doesn't always happen - which meant I fell five times yesterday. It's funny. I see someone fall ahead of me and all I can think is "How do I avoid that person?" John sees someone fall and he goes over, quickly stops right in front of her and helps her up by actually pulling her up with his pole!

On the slopes at Cypress Mountain:


We packed a lunch and actually ate it at the foot of the 2010 Olympics Freestyle Skiing hill! (If anyone is interested in attending this event, it is going to have an incredible viewing area, as the parking lot starts less than a meter away from where John is sitting.)


John could have probably skied until the mountain closed at 10 p.m., but I was exhausted by the end of the afternoon!

A Scavenger Hunt Date in Vancouver

Our home group gave us a wonderful Christmas present full of treats for study breaks. There was also a bunch of envelopes whose contents contained a scavenger hunt date! We went on the hunt this past Sunday.

It all started off at the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park. Not only were we to enjoy the aquatic animals, but we were also to search for answers to questions among the animal signs. Did you know that the front flippers of sea lions are larger than their back flippers but it's the opposite for seals? Did you know that sea lions have ear flaps but seals do not? Did you know that a baby beluga whale was born at the Vancouver Aquarium this past summer and that her name is Tiqa? Neither of us had ever seen a beluga whale before. It was really incredible to see such a large white whale swimming in the dark water.

We then went on our first geocaching expedition! Well, we first we had to figure out how to use our friends' GPS, but once we got that under control, we realized we were already quite close to the spot. A little shifting, a little moving of short logs by a tree's trunk, and voila! There was the little ziploc bag with the little Altoids container inside that we had been looking for! It was quite exciting. (Okay, it wasn't quite that easy.)

The last stop for the day was Kam's Place. A staple restaurant in downtown Vancouver, it serves delicious Singaporean food. Wow, what a treat! Thank you for the great date!

Updates on Lots of Life Things

So I stopped posting about my black eye because even though I thought it was all very interesting, I figured four pictures of my own eyes were enough for a blog that hasn't been around for long. There have been, however, requests for more! So here's another photo for you:


It looks like one of those cheek streaks that football players use to reduce glare, but it's purple. The pain has basically disappeared, and the swelling is gone everywhere except for where it initially swelled by the eyebrow. Thanks for being interested!

The snow has stopped falling and is now melting. It's amazing - we haven't heard the sound of a shovel for days now. During that first week back, it was considered strange to have not heard the sound of shovels after walking by five or six houses! While there are still mountains of snow on our neighborhood's roads, life has gone back to normal...

Except for, of course, the flooding, mud slides, and avalanches that have been caused by the snow. I think the death toll from avalanches is around 12. While we haven't heard any stories of serious flooding in Langley, the flooding is still apparent when driving by farmland, riversides, or the golf course we went sledding at! Towns east of us have been severely hit by flooding and mudslides.

Getting off of the topic of weather, let's move on to John. His studies have begun again. He's taking Old Testament Seminar, Greek Readings in the Septuagint, and Aramaic. This semester's work is requiring him to use his previously learned languages often, plus he's learning a new one! According to him, Aramaic is relatively easy after already having a handle on Hebrew. I, for one, wouldn't know but... :) Here's a photo of him laughing at his wonderful wife - er, his wife who is trying to figure out how to use the computer camera!


P.S. Yes, this photo was taken in our bathroom. All our pictures have been taken in there because that's where the brightest light is. John's family members out there - do you recognize the picture hanging on the wall?

Gruesome Photo

Here's how my eye is looking today!

Progress?

Here's what my eye looks like today. The swelling has gone down a bit, but now the entire area is quite tender. It's actually quite green around the purple and blue, but the computer doesn't pick it up. It'll be interesting to see how my new employer responds to me this morning! An adult with a black eye teaching 11 year-olds?

Number Two

(From the picture below it appears as though my right eye is injured, but it's actually my left. Our computer's web-cam, with which we took this picture, flips pictures.)

A couple of you have asked how my face is doing. The wounds around my right eye have healed nicely. I have 2 one-centimeter long scars below my eyebrow, and I think that they will gradually disappear. The burns have healed. So that part of my face is doing well.

My left eye, however, isn't faring so well. Tonight we went sledding with friends from church at a golf course. Now you'd think a golf course would not be a good place for sledding... but don't forget that we live in BC. There were quite a few sizable hills at this course. The one we utilized even featured a ridge.

Eight of us decided to make a train of one toboggan and three magic carpets. We started down the hill, hit the ridge, flew (and I'm not exaggerating) four feet, and crashed. My head collided with the head in front of me and the goose-egg you see above tells the rest of the story.

And yes, it's still snowing.

Back in Snowy BC

After a wonderful Christmas vacation which we spent in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and even North Dakota, we have arrived back in BC - and what a chaotic place we have come back to! You've probably heard about all the winter storms that occurred in the Northwest over the last few weeks, but have you heard about the havoc that they created?

We left December 17. It took us an hour to get to the border, rather than the normal 20 minutes, as it was snowing. No one has snow tires around here; imagine cars going no faster than 10 mph! We had dinner with friends in Seattle, and they told us school had been canceled that day due to the coming snow - yet no snow had fallen in Seattle yet. We flew out with no problems. Then it snowed and snowed and snowed.

We arrived back in BC yesterday. It was quite funny to drive on the main roads and see piles and piles of snow on the sides of the roads - we're talking 4 foot high piles that are on the shoulders of the roads, not on the grass next to the road. We drove by one pile and then realized there was a car underneath it - only it's left side mirror and the back window were visible!

Then we got off the main drive and into our neighborhood. Again, huge piles on the sides of the road, but this time, there is only one lane that is sort of plowed. Besides the piles of snow on the sides of the road, there were some piles in the middle of the road. As we normally park on the roadside, we had to find a parking space that wasn't a pile! Yes, we admit, we got stuck. Eventually we got unstuck and found a different parking spot that was accessible.

Our neighbor told us that BC hasn't had this much snow since the 60s. Vancouver has 16 plows - Langley has fewer. One person in our neighborhood has a snow blower, so he/she snowblowed all the neighborhood driveways, until he/she got sick of it. It sounded like he/she may have also snowblown the one lane on the road, but we're not absolutely sure about that one. We're used to seeing this much snow in the Midwest. We're just used to seeing it being taken care of in an orderly fashion.

We wish we could show you some pictures, but our camera is broken. But believe us, this much snow is crazy! Are we going to head out and enjoy the snow? Well, if you mean tromping around our neighborhood, yes. If you mean go downhill skiing in the mountains, then no, there is a very high risk of avalanches much less the risk of traveling on the semi-plowed roads!

And yes, it is snowing right now.

Tagged Again

So I was tagged while we were gone. This time the sixth photo in the sixth folder was requested, but the sixth icon in that folder happens to be a video. That works, right?

This past summer my little bro and I were playing catch. Two things to notice - Rob's great laugh and my great wind-up. I know you'll notice the great commentary!