It's been long enough

Howdy,
It’s finally cold here! Yippee. I love winter! It is currently snowing! I am going to make sure that I walk today. So..I wanted to let you all know that I have managed to land a full time position again at the Credit Union. It is going well and I am fully into the banking business again. Everything came back to me so quickly that it was hard to remember if I had been away for almost a year or not. :) It is interesting to have a paying job again. In my position right now, I am answering phones and directing calls and answering tons of questions. In January I will be on the front Member Service Rep line. Yay! Back to my old job. I’m going to miss the girls in the Call center though. It is a fairly large building and I will have to make an effort to go and visit them. ;) So, anyone looking forward to Christmas? I am. I love the caroling, and being with family, and all the lights and snow. I am actually really excited for next year Christmas, because we will have another little one to celebrate with. Josh and Jenna’s baby. :) Something that I don’t like about Christmas is how busy it is all over the place. I have something like 3 Christmas parties for work alone. On top of that I have to take into consideration the church events and my bible study group. I know, it sounds like such a chore. Haha. It is just hard for me to fit it all in. So here’s my question. If you could have anything in the world for Christmas what would you ask for? Think hard about this one. Leave me a comment. :)

New Time

This morning I got an extra hour of sleep, but I seem to be more tired than usual. Weird. Actually it's a dreary day outside and I'm wishing it would snow rather than rain. :) We had an awesome lunch today. Ham and mashed potatoes, veggies and cheese and pickles, and Raspberry cheesecake for dessert. I love raspberries! I guess the food at lunch may have something to do with me wanting a nap now. If I go to sleep now though, I'll be up late tonight. I guess I don't actually want it to snow until Nat gets his roof and siding on. It would be nice if it was warm for another couple of weeks. Actually we're lucky to not be getting snow today. 20 minutes south of us there is snow. We have rain instead. :( Anyway..you can tell I don't have much to say, since I'm talking about the weather. Tim and I are both sitting here typing away on our laptops while our parents are taking a nap. We had guests over for lunch. Nice family. Cute kids. Cuddly baby. I love being able to play with babies. :) I'm so excited about Josh and Jenna having their first baby next May. I got asked to teach sunday school next week. Should be fun. I will have 12 kids in my class. Kindergarten and Grade 1. Good age, but usually a bit rambunctious. I'll have to figure out some stuff to keep them interested. So..I want to move out in a few months. Anyone want to rent with me?? jk. Sounds stressful to move again so soon. I'm getting a little tired of organizing and reorganizing and moving boxes and my furniture. I have so much stuff! Well..it's getting dark. (As a friend would say when he's out of words.) Ciao...Mein Noodles. I know. I'm such a dork.

I know..it's been far too long..

Yeah, the last time I blogged I just got back from Ontario. It has now been a month and a half. My excuse is that I was working at Pembina Valley Bible Camp and didn't have a reliable internet connection. Every time I try to post something out there, I end up losing it. :) (in more ways than one) haha. So basically I have just been working like crazy at camp. Doing random things like cleaning cabins, cooking food, hosting rental groups, moving random pieces of wood, cutting down acres of bush, shovelling crushed rock...and many other things. Last weekend I cooked for a rental group. It was interesting to be in charge of the kitchen again. It was fun though. I definitely don't think I would like to be head cook for a long period of time though. So tiring! You take hours to prepare a good meal and it's all gone in less than a half hour. :( Then it's time to start all over again. It did give me good memories of my time in Austria though. :) So now I'm done at camp and am waiting for a job. I was approached by someone who offered me a job and now I just have to wait for confirmation and a starting date. I'll probably be working on a computer for an extended length of time. A bit different than what I've been doing for the past year. I also need to move all of my furniture again. I'm starting to lose track of how many times I've moved around in the last year. I am definitely tired of living out of a suitcase and a small space though. I look forward to the day when I can have my own space again. I'm starting to get involved here again. I am committed to two bible studies. One is every other week, and the other is out at camp whenever it works. Should be good though to be part of a group again. Today was an interesting day. I woke up with a headache at around 8:00 and decided to stay in bed. I was in bed till 12:00 before I felt like I could actually move normally again. I still have a touch of a headache, but I'm feeling much better. I think I have a touch of the flu, since my stomach is a little queasy too. I have only been up for 8 hours, but am already thinking of bedtime again. I cleaned the bathroom today though. Felt good to still get something accomplished. :) Tim is working now. He got a job with IDC communications and will be working at MTS Connect in the Southland Mall. He had to work late today. I wonder how today went. it was his first day of being able to sell product. I got a new cell phone the other day. :) Great price at MTS. $10.00 a month. A lot better than the 40 I was spending before. :) My Dad is sitting in his la-z-boy, studying Greek. Makes me tired, just thinking about staring at all sorts of strange symbols and characters. :) Anyway..that's what I'm doing in my life right now. Sorry about the bad English. Still getting used writing it again. :) Hope I'll be able to get back into a habit of writing on here again. Cheers!

Ok, so...a bit of an update.

I am currently at home for the weekend, but will be going back to camp tonight. I will be working at camp for the rest of this month and, depending on how much work there is, possibly for October as well. I got home from Ontario feeling pretty wiped out and spent a couple of days mainly sleeping and eating. :) Ontario was good, a bit fast, but good. We went down to Wawa for a couple of days and Mom and I spent some time with Aunt Myrna, while Dad went out to the bush to help Uncle Ron for a couple of days. On the way to drop Dad off in the bush, we saw 4 huge eagles right next to the car. Pretty spectacular. On the way back from dropping him off we stopped at Katherine Cove. Beautiful beach and a calm day. After Dad got back from the bush we went down to Sault Ste. Marie for a couple of days to visit my Brother and Sister-in-law, Josh and Jenna. We stayed at their little house and got to know their dog Bear. We had a great visit, but we had to leave after 2 days. We went back up to Wawa for a night and then on to Timmins the next day. We visited my Grandma and Grandpa Comtois, and stayed at their house for 2 nights. Then we went back to Wawa. Mom and I stayed and visited with Aunt Myrna and Uncle Ron for another couple of days, and Dad picked up Josh and they headed up to Thunder Bay to meet Nat and Tim for a camping weekend on the Sleeping Giant. Jenna came up from the Sault on Friday night and we headed up to Thunder Bay on Saturday morning. We stayed at the Landmark, and didn't have a great experience there, but oh well. Jenna and I had the hot tub to ourselves for a half an hour. We stayed up late watching movies, and finally went to sleep. The next day we headed out to meet the guys at Pass Lake. They were an hour and a half late, and we were starting to get antsy, but they finally made it. Josh and Jenna began their 8 hour trip home and Nat and Tim and I started our 8 hour trip home. Mom and Dad stayed in Thunder Bay for another night. We all eventually got home safe and tired. :)
This past week at camp I did a variety of work. Wednesday, when I got there, I cleaned out the shower house. Showers, sinks and toilets. It felt like cleaning at T-hof, but this was much dirtier, and I didn't know when it had been cleaned last. :) It took me a few hours to do that and then I had the evening off. Sherri and I spent over two hours talking in the Dining Hall after eating supper. :) The next day Miranda and I were going to start cleaning Saddles and Tack, but after we had moved a bunch of saddles, we were told that it was pointless, because they would get dirty on the Ride-a-thon. So..we put them all back. It was good to be lifting something again though. I hadn't done heavy work in a long time. :) We ended up cleaning the chalets instead. In the afternoon, we finished cleaning the chalets and then went and helped Demar (Dennis Martens) with clearing out the area for the wood stove. It was great fun. Cutting down trees, using gardening shears, chainsaw, machetes and other random tools. We cleared a lot of bush. Friday, I ended up calling over a hundred people to invite them to the supporters BBQ. I haven't spent that much time on a phone since my days at the Library, when i would call overdues. :) That was my week and now i'm resting up before another random work week. Looking forward to it. Today we have the Sunday School Picnic for church at 3:00 this afternoon. After that's finished I will head back to camp. Good fun. That's all for now.

Life as I Wander

Ok, so I have traveled again. I am currently in Wawa, Ontario. My home from when I was 1 1/2 years old until I was 7 years old. I love this place!! My parents and I are here visiting friends and family. Tomorrow we will head down to Sault Ste. Marie to visit my brother and sister-in-law. Yesterday we went to a beach called Katherine Cove. It was a beautiful warm calm day. I had fun taking pictures and dabbling my feet in Lake Superior. :) The sandy beach was amazing! Also..there was next to no one there. Only us and maybe two other people. So cool! How often do you get to go to an empty beach that's this perfect?

I miss living by Lake Superior. This is the first time in several years that I have been able to go to the beach here. The past few times I've visited have been the wrong time of year. Too cold!!

I love the sun sparkling off the water. I had fun trying to capture it with just the right angle. The water of Lake Superior is so clear. It is also cold, but Katherine Cove is fairly shallow and so it had a chance to warm up a bit. Definitely warmer than the river in Schladming.

So I spent 15 hours in a car to get here. Today we went to another beach called Sandy Beach which was also amazing. It was a windy day and so the waves were up. I was excited to rediscover the thrill of having a wall of water coming at you and dashing over my head. Some nice things about Sandy Beach is that it has awesome SAND, it's often fairly empty as well, and you can walk forever before it gets too deep. So much fun to swim there! The water is so clear and the sand goes on forever and you never have to worry about stepping on anything sharp or gross. :)

I guess you guys are wondering what I'll be doing after my little vacation. I have decided to go back to camp for another month or so to help with the weekend retreats and cleanup and maintenance. I'll be living with 3 other girls in a small duplex. Should be interesting. :) Fun! After that I have no idea what I'll be doing. I will need to find a job yet. Anywhoo..I'll be out here until the 10th or so. I will be visiting Josh and Jenna in the Sault tomorrow and then on Monday we'll go and visit Grandma and Granpa in Timmins. Then we'll come back here to Wawa for a couple of days while the boys go camping in Thunder Bay. Then we'll go and meet them and head home from there. Anyway.. here's some more pics.

This is the Ministry Training Team at the playground in Manitou with some kids. I was a counselor for the Ministry Training Team camp and we trained kids how to put on skits and puppet plays and do illusions and to share the gospel through that. We spent some time in Winnipeg and put on a program called Summer Bible Fun for kids who wanted to come. We played with them at the playground and did some skits and gave them snacks and eventually built relationships enough to give the kids Bibles. Awesome experience.

This is the MTT group by a Cobra Crane that was pulling a Combine off the bridge in the valley. We were down in the valley serving a neighbor by clearing some trails (hence the saws and machetes and hatchets) We begged the owner of the crane to get a picture of us by the crane. Good Times. :)

Anyway..that's all for now. I hope to get some pictures of Sandy Beach next week sometime when we're back here in Wawa again. Also I would like to get some of Wawa Lake too. :) I love this place and everytime I come back here it feels like home. I'd better get going now. My eyes are starting to close on me. LOL. I haven't caught up on my sleep after camp yet.

Sorry I've been so lax....

Hey everyone,
I haven't dropped off the face of the earth yet. :) My life is still pretty exciting with camp too, but I am always so zonked when I get home that all I do is read and sleep and play piano. So I'm down to my last week of camp. I am counseling a beginner horsemanship camp. Should be fun, but I'm pretty sore already. One of my knees is acting up from an old injury and so I will probably have to be really careful this week. It is already feeling better after this break, but being on a horse won't help it any. After camp I am planning on going to Ontario with my parents to visit friends and family. I will be exhausted, so I will appreciate prayers. ;) I am really looking forward to being back with campers this week. Last week I was in the kitchen all week and it was a bit of a hard week. I know I should be used to working in a kitchen by now, but the kitchen at camp is a bit frustrating. It's small and disorganized and hard to work in. We don't have good appliances to work with either. :( Suffice it to say...I got tired of it. I couldn't stand constant dirty dishes (no dishwashers) and no work space. Also we were often late in prepping and sometimes didn't have enough food. Really annoying!! I guess I am a bit of a perfectionist and so if I had to spend much more time in there i probably would have gone crazy! We also had longer days and i spent almost no time outside or with campers last week. It is getting closer and closer to a time when i have to find a job. Help!! I really don't know what to do, or even where to apply. Any ideas?? Anywhoo..it's time to be heading back to camp. Hopefully I'll be able to update this more fully when camp is over. I would really like to tell you about all the adventures I've had this summer! I would also really like to get caught up in my emailing. :s Catch ya'll later!

This is the view of the valley that we have from the deck at camp. Definitely one of the favorite places for chapel.

This is my sister-in-law Candice advertising for Ronnie's Sunflower Seeds. That's my older brother Josh in behind. We were having a fire in the backyard. It was great to have the whole family at home for a weekend.

I took this picture on the way home from Nat and Candice's one night. What an amazing view! Yes...I miss the mountains, but this is pretty awesome too.

This is my wonderful family. Everyone home. Josh and Jenna came out from Ontario for the wedding of some friends. Which explains why we are all dressed up. :) From the Left:

Tim, Me, Candice, Nat, Josh, Jenna, Mom and Dad.

Pictures from Camp

Ok, so these are my girls from the first week. From the left: Rebecca, Rachel, Colleen, Genny, Julie and in the front is Danielle. What a great bunch of girls!!

These kids are from my second week at camp. Teens camp. This was the afternoon Climbing skill that I was privileged to teach. I am definitely not able to remember all the names though. :)

This is the detested Ladder inside the climbing wall. I kind of have the same feeling for this ladder as I have for a cold cheeseburger from McD's. Not my favorite. It's just a pain to climb up and down. I would much rather climb the wall.

This is one of the kids conquering their fears on the log walk. Pretty awesome!

First day of camp. I am here on my break and am trying to stay awake after a sleepless night. So far it has been a good first day though. My kids are great and we have been having a blast. I was able to teach ropes at the climbing wall today. I really enjoy being there again. I am so hungry right now and am really excited for supper. It's a bit of a shock to be here again and to be senior counselling. I don't have a lot of time on here so this is just a short update. If you would like to keep me in your prayers I would appreciate that. I have six girls in my cabin and two other helpers. Hopefully we'll all sleep better tonight, since we have been running all day. It's been raining here all day as well so hopefully the weather will improve for tomorrow and the rest of the week. I started off today with a good habit and was able to go running. My cabin mates already think I'm crazy since I was up at 6:30. I think it will be good for me to start my day with time alone with God though and also keep up the habit of running. I was unsmart and didn't buy myself a watch before I came, and I also forgot my alarm clock. So, I'm the timeless counselor. Anywhoo..I'm going to go and write some letters. Catch ya'll later..

Quick Trip

Well everyone...nothing too exciting going on here right now. It is a blazing 36 degrees celsius outside today and I'm dying. I woke up at 4:30 this morning to take a quick trip to Munich with Mario. He's getting a visa so that he can work in Colorado. Well..I can now find my way around in one part of Munich. :) I did the navigating and we did pretty well. We even got back to T-hof on time. I spent 1 hour standing outside in the sun waiting for Mario to get done. Talk about high security at the US Consulate. It takes 5 minutes just to get inside the first door. Thankfully I didn't have to go through all of that to get my visa! This afternoon we're going swimming at a lake nearby. Should be nice to get cooled off. This evening we're going to eat at a hutte where we get to catch our supper. :) Fish, of course. kinda fun. These past few days have been a bit more relaxed with only 40 some people here instead of close to a hundred. I've been working on putting pictures and music together for some of my friends here for when I leave. There is a missions trip going on in Romania right now as well. A few students and staff. The two korean girls left on Monday to go to England Capernwray and so there were lots of tears. I am not looking forward to next week for me. :( pray for me! It's going to be very hard to leave my home here. I am hopefully going to be able to start packing tomorrow or this evening. I don't know how I'm going to fit it all in. I guess I'll have to weed out the stuff I don't absolutely need. I can't remember what I have at home anymore though. :) Oh well..we'll see how it works. I probably won't have time to post again before I come home..so I'll see you soon. ttfn

What's life without a few embarrassing pictures?

The girls are a bit bored. We went out for icecream together and it turned into a photo op.

This is still at the cafe where we had eis. They always have these decorations on top of the ice cream and Hilde was trying to experiment with taking pictures of them. Unfortunately it just makes me look like I have Walrus whiskers. :)

Ssoon wanted to make a funny picture. Interesting...

There is a huge trumpet in town and I wanted to see if I could get up inside of it. Unfortunately it's too high and there is nothing to grab hold of. Oh well..looks fun anyway. :)

Pictures of Mirror Lake Hike

This is my little Korean friend Ssoon Ja. She is really cute!

Mark, Hilde and Tina found a nice rock to enjoy the view.

Mark showing off. Smooth move. (the ground is about 2 inches beneath him, but at least it looks impressive. ;)

That speck in the distance is Mark being the center of attention again. This is Mirror lake, but unfortunately it wasn't a perfectly calm day and so it wasn't very Mirror like. I hope to get some good pictures there yet. Maybe on Sunday morning this week. :)

Ok, Ok, it's been far too long..again

I have to admit that it has been harder and harder for me to spend any time on here. I know you guys want to know what's going on out here, but I actually am finding much better uses of my time than trying to write stuff down. The time is moving too fast and I'm just trying to soak up as much as possible before I leave here. I am really enjoying the friendships here and am not looking forward to saying goodbye. I know..I'll get to say hello to all of you, but...:) I am definitely looking forward to seeing all the babies and how much all the kids have grown. It feels like I've been here forever, but not very long at all..if that makes sense. I am excited about what God has for me in the future, but impatient to see what it's going to be like. The last weeks here have been flying by. It is only a week left with the students. Crazy!! Last week I was feeling really good again, after struggling with tiredness for most of the beginning of Spring School. I was in charge of the kitchen and the house last weekend, since our head cook and housekeeper and another staff member were gone. It was a bit crazy, but we had a good time in the kitchen anyway. I asked for a few days off this week and have been enjoying them since Tuesday and will enjoy them till Saturday. That was a terrible English sentence, but get used to it, because I can hardly think in correct grammar anymore, nevermind get it out in words. Tuesday I spent most of the day just relaxing. I still got up a bit early, since I had staff devotion in the morning. I shared a bit about loving people unselfishly and how Christ's love was perfect. Also about having a broken heart for people and reaching out to people and not expecting fulfillment. Wednesday I spent the morning relaxing. I slept in until 8:30 and in the afternoon I went on a walk/hike with the students. After the hike I went out for coffee with Heidi (the housekeeper) and had a really nice heart to heart chat with her. She is a really special person and I love her to pieces! Today I slept in until 9:00 and then I went biking! I was so excited to get on a bike again! Mark, (dean of students) let me borrow his bike, and it's actually a pretty sweet ride. I rode for a couple of hours and took a bag lunch along. I definitely found out that I am not in very good shape for biking anymore. You should have heard me huffing and puffing. I'm looking forward to having my bike at home again. :) This afternoon I took an hour nap (still not feeling 100%) and then I helped Tina clean out her apartment. Tina is one of the girls I went to Venice with and the former receptionist here. A huge answer to prayer, she found another job in Germany, and will be starting there next week. She is moving out tomorrow. I'm sad that she's leaving before me, but I am so happy that she found a position where she'll be happy. :) Tomorrow..not sure what I'll do with myself all day, but I'm looking forward to whatever's in store. Saturday I'll make a day trip with the students. We're going to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. Should be interesting. That's all for now..

This duck was hungry enough to almost come up and nibble my toes.

Me standing on a bridge over the Riesachwasserfall. The way up the falls to the lake at the top is incredible. They built a lot of stairs going up. I climbed 700 stairs that day! I know it doesn't sound too strenuous, but some of the stairs were incredibly steep.

This is in Schladming again. Sorry. They got kinda mixed up. Oh well. :)

And the Talbach again. I am so privileged to live here!

Hallstatt is a really old town and they used to exhume the dead because they didn't have enough room to bury everyone. It was a tradition to paint the names on the skulls and also decorate the skulls. The last person to be exhumed and placed in this little chapel was a woman in 1993. Kind of weird. They have evidence that this town was inhabited all the way back 4000 years. They also found some old roman ruins underneath the town. Lots of history here. Also they have ice caves and a salt mine. Definitely a booming tourist town now, but it's still a little harder to get to and so it remains quiet and isolated during the winter months and the early spring months.

Another beautiful view in Hallstatt

Uli and Hilde near the water. The lake was really clear and not too cold either.

Another picture of the town

And More...

An idyllic view where the river is calm

Riesachsee

On Saturday we visited a place called Hallstatt which is a little town surrounded by the mountains. This is the view.

There's little Hallstatt

And More Pictures

Elizabeth at the Falls

It was raining and there was a lot of water coming down from everywhere to join the falls

Elizabeth on the way to the falls

A pretty hut on the way to the falls

Pictures

This is in Schladming on the Talbach River

This is on the way to Riesachwasserfall

This is Riesachwasserfall

On the way to the waterfall