Snowy in the snow

Hi Everyone!

I can't believe that in such a short time I'm going to be able to hug and hold most of you! It's so exciting! You guys are all so important to me, and I'm overjoyed that I get to see you again so soon! YAY!

So my time here is winding down, sadly, in many respects! I've made such deep friends, especially with the gals in my house and some other people from church, that it's going to be tough to leave, but I have a sense that this is just the beginning of things for me and I'll either see these special people back here or at home when they come visit, so I don't have a huge feeling of loss!






I had the most AMAZING and special last weekend here, spending a day in the mountains, rolling around in the snow with Michelle and Erika, sinking waist deep into the snow every time you take a step (quite a workout I tell you) and it was just SO beautiful (check the pics)!













It was one of the only dry and clear days that we've had here this month, so that in itself was a miracle!! Then the next day Krystal and I set off for North West Trek, a kind of game reserve, which has a tram which goes through it and you can see all the animals and then another section with huge closed off areas for each other type of animals! So I had my first viewing of moose, beavers, skunks, bisen, elk (with their pretty antlers), bambis, cougars, lynx, bobcats, foxes, wolves, wolverines, and to top it off, we saw a porcupine dance just for us, was pretty cute! Krystal was so taken aback, because you don' t really ever see all the animals, some of them kind of hide in the back or don't come out during the tram ride, but we had all the animals practically in the tram they were so close. She kept on saying: 'Gaby, you just don't understand how weird this is!' What can I say, I'm blessed!

So, my last week of work too and I'm working on some uber cool projects, like doing a weight estimate for this one boat, which is similar to this picture, but we're remodeling it and improving the design. It's a psycho boat because it's used to pick up sand off the bottom of lakes, etc at one point, then carry it to another point and dump it. The cool part is that to dump it, the whole ship splits in two for the sand to get out. So it's a kind of engineering nightmare, so I'm working on part of the stability stuff to ensure the weight is cool, so it won't sink etc and so the centres of gravity are in the right place! Pretty sweet! My work people are so cool and they're having a party for me at lunch on Friday. One of the guys is making a cheesecake for me, isn't that just the sweetest thing! Plus, my boss and some of the people are taking me out to lunch on Thurs to say thank you! I feel so blessed, this time has been great, not quite what I want to be doing forever, bit too mechanical, but pretty cool nonetheless!

Well, I arrive home on Sunday night at 22:55 on klm597 and I'm so excited to see you guys!
Have a fabulous week, I know I will!

Lots and lots of love,
Gabs

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!)