Christmas Newsletter!

Hi y'all! So I'm trying this out as my new way of communicating with you guys! Let me know whether you like or not!

So... Christmas in Arizona! Christmas was such a blessed time for me, to be able to stay with a family who just loved me and accepted me as part of them for the time I was there was so special! So, I should explain, right? I went to Arizona to stay with Brian Watson and the family he's staying with(Susan, Jeff and the 5 kids, Zach, Gabe, Jael, Jake and Nat). If you don't know who Brian is, he's the dude posing to the left, what a cute little bracelet, don't ya think? So I got picked up from the airport by Bri and Ji, hahaha and got home to be greeted by a batch of rusks that Brian had made and some rooibos tea, which I, being the rooibos tea queen that I am, had brought along! Felt like home!

It was great just getting to hang out with Bri, to watch him in action at the chem labs at Arizona State University, even though he is doing nasty things to poor little mice(not Bri personally, of course). It's funny, cus we worked out that that's probably the most time we've ever spent solidly together and it happened to be on the other side of the world from home! Sometimes life is odd! We did an amazing sunset walk/hike up Squaw Peak (kind of equivalent to Lion's Head), and wow, what a sunset, it felt just like home, minus the water and add in a couple of cactii! See the pic! Other than that, Brian and I did some mall crawlin for last minute Christmas prezzies through Chandler fashion mall and Scottsdale fashion mall (we've decided to rename Cavendish as Cavendish fashion mall, as that seems the 'thing' to do), even Walmarts and Costco, too, some BIG shops, I tell you! I learned to appreciate Taco Bell, a mexican fast food place, who have pretty decent food for pretty decent prices, and we got to have lunch in this cute little park with ducks and stuff! I also learned to appreciate some heavier music, some good rock, and left there with many more cds than I came(and yes, I will be making all of you listen to it, it's really good stuff!)

Talking about music, I felt so blessed to be in such a musical family over in AZ. There was always some pretty good music coming out of the music room, whether it was Zach or Jeff on guitar or Jake or Bri on drums, it sounded pretty darn good! Jeff, the dad, has a cd out with some of his stuff on it, and Zach, the oldest son, a really cool guy, whose band has recently split up, has just joined Sanctus Real (a pretty popular christian rock band, for those of you who don't already have their cds, I know most of you do) as their guitarist, so it was pretty neat, hearing sanctus songs that haven't yet been released blasting out of the music room.

Brian and I went to a great candlelight Christmas Adam service (the night before Christmas eve, because Adam came before Eve, haha) that was held in a larny hotel! The service was great, with gentle worship songs and a time to just sit before the Lord and just remember what Christmas is about, the true meaning, you know! There is so much Christmas hype around here that I can imagine it must be pretty easy to just get so swept up in it, that you would totally forget what Christmas is all about, so it was good to just get some time of quiet and peace!

Then the Christmas rush! The whole family, including us, went to a Christmas eve program/service together, where Ji and another girl, were the opening act doing a ballet dance, and then we had some rousing Christmas carols, which kind of made you want to doosy do in the aisles(don't worry, I restrained myself). From there, it was to Jeff's parents house for that side of the family's christmas, so supper, gifts and games followed and it was tons of fun! Back home after that, for the late night present wrapping tradition and then an early start the next morning to go to Susans(the mom) mom's house for the day! What fun! Brian and I got our own specially made and embroidered-with-our-names-on-them-to-match-the-rest-of-the-family's stockings (a new tradition to start in ct) and I got presents from the whole family, something I really wasn't expecting, which kind of blew me away big time! I don't know, the sheer generosity and thoughtfulness of them was incredible, not just in the gifts, but just in sharing themselves with me, sharing their family, their time, with Susan checking up on me the whole time and making sure I was doing ok and just the huge amount of love lavished on me, by people who didn't know me at all, was so overwhelming, and was such a testament of God's love! It taught me a lot!

So, present opening was followed by american football in the garden (it was 26 degrees, which was fabulous), the watching basketball on tv, and then the famous Christmas lunch and an afternoon of chatting and playing games and watching movies, so all in all, a very all american Christmas, so great! ... And then home to Tacoma, where darling Carissa picked me up from the airport in the middle of the night!

So the Christmas season has ended, with me going to a total of 9 Christmas parties, quite insane, but loads of fun! Oooooo... before I forget, they held the New Song church(my church here)Christmas production here before I left and it was just incredible, they wrote new songs and the way they presented it was just so powerful, I've never seen anything like it! I'm going to try get a copy, so you guys can see it!

Well, lots of love to all of you, and drop me a line (via normal email) to tell me how you doing!
I have less than a month left here, isn't that wild!
See you soon,
Gabs/ Elle (a brief investigation into my american nickname, elle, revealed that it actually means foreigner(insane, hey), so it's decided: it's a keeper!)