BARBADOS!!!

In seven hours I will be on a plane headed to Toronto which will then bed off to Barbados! And tomorrow at 3pm (11am your time) I will be meeting Lindie at the airport! Yay for Barbados and Yay for friends! I will for sure have some exciting pics when I return, so be sure to stay tuned! I will probably not post for a week, but when I return it will be excitement to the max. :)

My exams both went well yesterday. Funny story actually (good stress reliever). Some friends and I went for dinner at Montana's at four as a going away dinner for one of them. Anyway, I guess we did not leave that much time to get back to school for our six o'clock exam.. I told them they could go to the bathroom at school, so we all got into the car already needing to pee quite badly. So we're cruising along, trying to get back to school and we're coming up to a red light when suddenly we hear the dreaded sound of the train... uh oh... so we're sitting there laughing at the irony of it all about to pee our pants, hoping the light turns green before the train comes! It doesn't and we're stuck behind this train, making us late for the exam.. haha.. But it was a very funny moment as we all needed to pee and we were all splitting a gut laughing so hard. We made it to the exam four minutes late, but they started late anyway so it was all good. All in all quite an adventure!

Now I must go and shower and finish packing and then I'm off!! Feel free to leave me comments in my absence so I have something to read upon my return!! have a good week all!!

One down, one to go!

So, my sociology exam is over and I just have on left! The one this morning went relaly well and I think I did all right. Glad to have it over! Now the big essay one is coming up this evening,b ut i'm not too worried about it, because I think I have a fairly good grasp on the material, so I guess I'll just start writing ad hope that it makes sense to whoever is listening. So yes, tonight i have a dinner with some friends and then the exam! woo hoo! should be fun. i'm looking forward to it.


I got all my shopping done for all the stuff I have to bring, so now I just need to pack everything together and I will be good to go! Tomorrow night Sandy and I are going for dinner and then she's dropping me off at the airport-hope I can sleep on the red eye flight! And I'm goign out for lunch with Bobbi tomorrow for her birthday! Fun times! So I'm feeling a little less overwhelmed-thanks all for your prayers, I appreciate it! And only 34 more hours until I will be on a plane to Barbados!! woo hoo!

One down, one to go!

So, my sociology exam is over and I just have on left! The one this morning went relaly well and I think I did all right. Glad to have it over! Now the big essay one is coming up this evening,b ut i'm not too worried about it, because I think I have a fairly good grasp on the material, so I guess I'll just start writing ad hope that it makes sense to whoever is listening. So yes, tonight i have a dinner with some friends and then the exam! woo hoo! should be fun. i'm looking forward to it.


I got all my shopping done for all the stuff I have to bring, so now I just need to pack everything together and I will be good to go! Tomorrow night Sandy and I are going for dinner and then she's dropping me off at the airport-hope I can sleep on the red eye flight! And I'm goign out for lunch with Bobbi tomorrow for her birthday! Fun times! So I'm feeling a little less overwhelmed-thanks all for your prayers, I appreciate it! And only 34 more hours until I will be on a plane to Barbados!! woo hoo!

end of my rope

Somehow, right before I go away, things go absolutely insane and there is far too much to do! That is how I am feeling right about now! I have a midterm in sociology tomorrow morning and a final tomorrow night and I don't have much time in there to study! Plus somehow I have ten million things I have to do before I leave and things just mount in insanity! Plus I have to pack! haha! Needless to say, I would appreciate your prayers as I feel kind of overwhelmed! Maybe I should just stop thinking about it all together! But only three more days until I leave and I am super excited! I am just excited for Thursday to be over!!!

words

Saw this on some of my friend's blogs and it is a picture of all the words on my blog. very interesting. i was glad to see that "haha" and "yay" made it in! :)

changes

As I have been putting more time into prayer and intentionally spending the beginning of my day with God, it has been absolutely amazing how much my day and mood/attitude is affected. I don't say this to say, 'wow, i've been praying', but moreso that we serve an amazing God who is incredible. As I start my morning with a newfound focus on God, I find that all the other little things that I made a big deal of before begin to fade away as my eyesight is adjusted. Suddenly I realize that I really have no right or reason to be in a bad mood when I truly look at everything around me. It's just been interesting to see how I have acted differently this past week in such a good way.

Tonight in church we sang a new song I had never heard before. I wanted to post the words of the chorus here, because I found them really encouraging:
You, You are my wholeness
You are my completeness
My soul, my thirsty soul can
Rest in the depths of Your love

Just a good reminder for me of who/what truly completes me and that I can truly find rest daily in the great depths of God's love.

Hope you're all having a splendid weekend!

ironic

Every morning I grow more and more to dislike big trucks (semis and dump trucks) on the freeway. They cut you off, spit rocks on your car (my windshield has two big cracks in it now!) and they always swerve over the lanes.. sigh. i think i will have to get over it though! have to remind myself about love and patience!

So lately I have been really been feeling the urge to pray more and to devote more time in my day to intentional prayer. One of the ways in which to do this is to take the cds out of my car and rather than singing mindlessly, to pray and worship God every day as I drive the half hour to school and back. I have felt convicted of this for about two weeks now but I always forget to take the cds out when I leave the car. Every time I get in and hear the music, I am reminded, but then I think "well, today will be my last day and I will really enjoy it and THEN i'll take them out." right. like that'll happen. so anyway, last night i got home and remembered and decided that i really needed to do that, because it was something that I really wanted to be intentional about and to have my time in my car be time with God spent in silence, talking and singing (without cds). So I grudgingly took them all out. This morning as I started driving, i was going batty with the silence.. so i decided I would ease my way into it by listening to the radio. HA! well, i turn on the radio and it's on 106.5 (Christian radio station) and there is a guy talking on it and he is talking about how we need to make prayer more of a priority in our lives. HAHAHA.. Okay, you got me God! So I laughed to myself at the blatant truth staring me in the face and turned off the radio. Good reminders. :) It's funny, because I keep automatically turning up the volume after I get off the phone, etc. and I realize what a habit it has become. So for now I am driving in silence (I could actually hear the sound of the rain against my car today!) and so far it's been fairly hard, but good at the same time!!

I just finished working out and should head to the shower before an exciting day at school tomorrow. (no sarcasm in there at all.. hehe)

bats

Upon reading my title, hopefully you all thought those were bats in the picture! haha.. they're only crows! the other day i was sitting in my room and suddenly all these crows landed on the lawn. every time a car drove by, they would all fly around in circles. I was trying to avoid doing homework, so I decided to count them and stopped when I got to 100. The picture doesn't do the number of crows justice, but I thought it was a cool picture as they were all flying away. I was going to go downstairs and open the door to take a picture, but I was too lazy and you never know when they might attack. haha

Fun times at the zoo!!

Today Chrystal and I went to the zoo after I got off work at 2:30. I havent' been in forever and it's always fun to be outside and look at animals (even though often they're sleeping or hiding!! haha) But it was a beautiful sunny day and a great time!

Haha.. this camel was getting fairly frothy and I figured out that I should back off before it spat on me. haha.. but i did make chrystal go pose by it. i think it would have been funny had it spat on her (don't tell her that.. haha) but luckily it didn't and we got a nice picture with her and the camel (although she looks a bit apprehensive to be standing beside mr. frothy mouth..)

Chrystal and I were planning on going to a late movie after church tonight, but then we realized that would be really late and the only reason we truly wanted to go was to get the popcorn. So we went to Towne Cinema (which you technically have to pay to get into) and asked at the box office if we could just go buy popcorn, went in and bought some popcorn and pop and then went back to Chrystal's house with Kaeli to watch a movie! haha.. we were laughing quite a bit at the fact that we were actually doing that!

We watched Chronicles of Narnia tonight. I hadn't seen it since when it first came out in theatres. It's such a grand story and watching the kids I would think in my own fantasy imagination land of how grand it would be to have been a part of something like that. Then I realize that hey! I am part of it! some good thoughts. Lucy's character always inspires me. I am challenged as I see her childlike faith and her trusting heart. I love that when Edmund returns to them (after having betrayed them), she is the first to go up to him with a smile and give him a giant hug. I need to do that more in my daily interactions rather than hold grudges over stupid little things. Anyway, good movie and good reminders.

Church was really good too. It was a sharing/praise weekend where people got up and shared from their lives significant moments when God touched them in their lives. It was a way of remembering corporately, as Israel did in Joshua, what God has done lest we forget. Very encouraging and made me think of some of my own stories and moments I can remember in my own life that were really significant and impacting. Always good to think about. And now I'm off to bed so that I can get up and work eight hours tomorrow! Yippee! Have a wonderful Sunday everyone!

Exciting Purchase!

Now you're all thinking I'm a bit strange because I wrote exciting purchase as my title, yet i post a picture of a stapler. haha. well i'm a bit of an organizing freak and I love stapling things together (especially completed assignments!!) My poor little faithful stapler sadly broke last night and so today I set out to the office store in a trek to find a replacement. I got home tonight excited to staple together a paper I had written. I opened the stapler to put in staples and parts went flying everywhere! so much for that idea! haha..

In other exciting purchase news, I bought a new bathing suit today for my trip to barbados along with a couple of tops! The store was having fifty percent off already reduced merchandise so I got some great deals! And I bought about ten highlighters from the office store because once again, I'm slightly strange. So exciting though!

FRIDAY!

The other day my friend Mandeep and I went to her favorite Mexican restaurant in Sumas called El Nopal-so good! Especially their homemade salsa!

Yesterday was crazy day at school, but I had a group presentation and midterm that went off quite well and things are going good! For once in my life I'm actually ahead of the game for my schoolwork and it's such an amazing feeling! Normally I'm a last minute person, but I'm switching it up and it's so much more relaxing and nice. Changes everything. I highly recommend it! Amazing how much more time you have in the end (and you don't have to worry about all the stuff you have to do within that time!)

Our yard has becomet he home to two squirrels. They're cute, but annoying and they do strange things. They make a lot of noise on the roof as well.

Today is friday and that excites me!! Only two weeks until I go to Barbados to see Lindie! SO excited! I will for sure have a bunch of fresh pictures to post then to liven things up a little. I think fridays are my new favorite day of the week! I don't work, only have one class and it's a good relaxing/catch up day. What's your favorite day of the week and why?

studying

I am studying for an upcoming midterm in my theories of personality class (well obviously i am distracting myself from studying.. haha) when i study i write out all my notes to make it go in my head and then i'm good to go. looking at my paper however i thought it was funny, because i really can't read a word!! haha.. so i thought i'd scan a page of my notes to share with you all! Okay now i'm going out for dinner with a friend! hopefully i'll have some pics to post later!

quote

Another quote from some of the readings I have been doing. These are from Tring, Herts and Walsh and Middleton:
"Evangelicals in this century have a history of going along with culture on the big issues and taking their stands on the smaller issues."
"If the biblical worldview is unique, and if it is radically different from the dominant worldview in our secularized culture, then why do Christians fit so well into our culture?"

Interesting food for thought...

Snowshoeing Adventure

Today, Tami and I decided to venture out to Grouse Mountain and try out snowshoeing up there! It was so much fun! And it was beautiful! The weather wasn't great, but we didn't actually notice that we were wet until we got inside the lodge. It was totally serene up there too and just nice to stop every once in a while and take in the silence and the beauty all around! I didn't take many pictures because I didn't have my SLR, but I did bring my little digital and snapped a few shots while trying not to get the camera wet!!