Urpin

This weekend we went exploring!

We went up the "hill" called Urpin to the chapel and for a hike. It turned into a much more intense walk than I expected. We went all the way to the observatory.  I don't think I'll ever take that route to the observatory EVER again. 

The Chapel

The Observatory

If you look really close you can see students behind the trees!

I also had a chance to take pictures in town. So here is one the I got the other day just as the lights were turning on and the sun setting. I really like this building. 

Tomorrow our speaker is Reona, an original YWAM-er. She spoke last year and I'm so excited for her to be here again!  She challenges me to be a stronger woman of God.

On Our Way

Well the trip has begun!  Shay can't change his mind anymore. (Well, actually he probably could until we step onto that airplane. But he's through security so chances are he won't)

I had a fabulous week in Mission with Shay and his family. We helped his mom prepare for her wedding and I was so blessed to be included in their celebration. It was a beautiful wedding in the most amazing setting. Heritage Park in Mission is home to the Blackberry Kitchen. Shay's mom and her new husband are running the restaurant. I'm sure they won't mind this shameless plug... because their place is amazing. Not only amazing food but a beautiful setting in the park and a fabulous view!  It was an amazing venue for their wedding.  

Shay also treated me to a day out to Lynn Canyon and with their help it included a picnic basket that he produced quite to my surprise.  They actually do that at the restaurant: call ahead and order a picnic basket for you and your sweetheart, family, or even a group of friends to enjoy in the park. Shay got special permission to leave the park, but there has to be some perks to being the son!  

Anyways, I was totally surprised and overwhelmed that he actually put that much effort in to make sure I didn't know that they had snuck it into his Jeep that morning.  And of course Lynn Canyon is beautiful. It was nice to get to see the mountains and ocean before we left Canada for 8 months.

So now there is 10 mins till boarding... EXCITING!  Keep checking back for the next bit of news!

DSLR Buying

When you decide to spend alot of money on something... you really need to think about what you are getting. And when it comes to DSLR cameras, I'm clueless. Well, maybe that is an exaggeration. All I know is that I have no clue if I'd rather have a Canon or Nikon. I've seen the specs, heard the stories, talked to many, seen many floating around, but I still don't know.

So these are my trial pictures from my mom's Nikon.  I realized after that I had it on a weird setting. Which is fine, but I wanted to see what it could do on auto. Oh well. the pictures still look nice.

This is my first lens flare.. I think that is what it is called. And I LOVE IT! 

Slovakian Countryside

So this weekend we went on a beautiful drive to get to the Oravsky Hrad (Castle). And Orava is one of the most traditional regions of Slovakia. Very religious and seemingly very agricultural.  So I saw some pretty cool things.

First though, we had to go through Donovaly (which is a beautiful ski resort town).  So we had mountains, and ski lifts and cool chalet's.

Then we saw cows. Which i hadn't seen in Slovakia yet.  So this was exciting. The owner was even out with them with his dog.

We saw a couple tractors out in the fields.

But mostly we saw older men and women out in fields doing work by hand. One guy was spreading manure by hand. He had it in a trailer but he was spreading it on this field using a shovel (keep in mind this field was not very big... Maybe double my Grandma Nawrot's front lawn? But that is still alot of work!) There was a cute old lady with a hoe in one field.  But I think the most amazing moment was when we saw this:

Yes, this is two men ploughing a field using a horse drawn plow. I really wanted to stop and talk with these people. But we were on a schedule... I don't think I'll ever forget this though.

There also was hay drying on these racks that are kinda triangular?  We saw one guy putting the hay on it, and yes this is another job done entirely by hand. I'm guessing it will go on a hay stack somewhere when it is dry.  

So all these farm things made me think of how hard it used to be to be a farmer.  I don't even know if my grandparents plowed with a horse... maybe on their parents' farm?  

But the last cool thing we saw totally could still happen on my farm.  HONEY!  They were selling honey on the side of the road.  But the coolest stuff was hazelnuts in honey... the idea sounds good... and they looked good... but I didn't buy them.

So that is all for the Slovakian countryside for now.  I'm sure there will be alot more to come.

Lots of Work

So work has kept me busy busy busy.  Tonight i finally had a chance to go out and check out a new path I heard about nearby. It goes through an undeveloped area that I'm sure has a story behind it.  There is a street that goes up halfway... and stops with a little spot where I'm sure some kids have been having a nice illegal time.  Along the way though there were tons of daisy's (or maybe they are the camomile stuff that is a horrible weed in Alberta?) And I found a rose plant that looked very out of place in the undergrowth but was beautiful. I'm wondering if they didn't start development and that is how rose got there?

It's going to be an interesting week. I start one day job and end up working a double shift.  But if I've done my calculations right working graveyard shifts for the next two weeks is going to make me $1000.  I think loosing a bit of sleep now won't seem like such a big deal when I'm in Slovakia at YWAM.  

Lastly, we also watched Book of Eli this weekend.. and I didn't get to watch the end of it, but the part I watched was really good.  If you can stomach alot of hand to hand combat and bloody grossness you will really like this movie.  It has an interesting story line (although I'm not sure if the ending makes up for the number of heads I saw looped off).  And we ate cinnamon buns with chocolate chips in them. It was amazing!

A Good Day

I worked again this morning, and I think this job will get better with time.  I cleaned much faster than the last two times I worked and it is getting much easier.  And I've started settling into this job just in time.  I got an email and a call from two other places that wanted me to come in for interviews.  I could confidently say no, I have a job already.

The bad part of this job is that I sleep through the sun.  It actually was nice today and I slept right through it. So I went for a walk this evening to the new little trail I found and took the pictures you will see below.  Then at midnight I'm off to work again and then again tomorrow.  I actually work 5 days this week

Apparently these are Salmonberries. I didn't taste them because I wasn't sure if they were edible when I saw them. Maybe I'll taste one next time I go for a walk.   (I'm not sure if the flowers are actually for these berries but they are pretty) 

Mountain scenery

We went 4x4ing yesterday. Beautiful views.

We also stopped to visit some neighbors. They were very friendly!

Mini Mini Donkeys! 

Trip to "The Cabin"

I finally have had a normal May Long Weekend! A weekend of camping and fun with super friends.
Seven of us drove five hours to 100 Mile House. Out of cell phone reception, and into a camping paradise.

The top of a beautiful waterfall! I'm ten feet from the edge and then we have the river continuing below.

The actual drop of the waterfall.

Us at the bottom. 

After a very very long hike to get to the bottom. 

And it was so very wet!

Flash Hail Storm

There has been pretty good weather most of the time I've been here.  But its rained and been pretty overcast for the last couple.  So today when it wasn't raining in the morning I was pretty happy.  BUT this afternoon there was a flash hail storm!  It was my first of the season and I thought it was pretty cool.  So although the hail is small and over fast, here are the pictures:

A Job!

I saw this little work on the beach this weekend. I thought it was pretty great.  A good reminder.
And today I had a reminder about his provision.  I had an interview that I was pretty worried about, and they pretty much gave me the job. I just have a whole bunch of hoops to jump through.  Some of them are pretty expensive too.  Now I've sent off a resume to a research summer job that would be great... I'm hoping that one goes through, but it leaves me in a difficult position.  God is going to have to help me through this too.

Archie Comic Weekend

So I'm calling this weekend Archie Comic Weekend because it is the stuff of Archie Comics.  We played frisbee (my team won, no thanks to me). Sat, we went to the beach, and hung out just like our favorite Riverdale residents! It was super beautiful, with beautiful people!

Then a Sunday of all you can eat sushi and sun. We walked around a little lake in the city and enjoyed the ducks and geese.  Finish it off with a half price Starbucks frap and its summer in May!

This was the second order of food of three in our sushi feast. 

It doesn't do it justice. 

This guy got super close, I bet that other people feed him. I just took a picture that I think is cute.

We needed to take a picture of our three sizes of fraps. Don't worry, mine was soy!

ABBOTSFORD!

I'm finally here!  And I finally have something worth blogging about!  God is so good!  I drove to Edmonton on Tuesday to cut a couple hours off the trip and although it had dumped 4-6 cm of snow on the city earlier in the day, the roads were pretty good all the way in. Wed I left bright and early to get on the road but checked weather forecasts before I left. Just before Jasper and between Kamloops and Hope wasn't looking to hot. But it ended up being dry highway most of the drive anyway!  God totally cleared out the bad weather.  I even had sun from the BC border to practically Kamloops.  It was beautiful. I even got to see the top of Mount Robson (and that is something that even in the middle of summer can be touch and go).

After that I headed south.  I don't know if I have ever driven that way before, but I really enjoyed myself.  Mountains and trees is enough to make me excited as an Alberta girl but I saw elk, sheep, and a coyote in Jasper.  And seeing a townsite where I'm fairly certain there was a forest fire in the last few years was very interesting.  The bad part is you barely can look at most of the scenery when you are driving. I was careful to pay attention to the road even though I wanted to look at waterfalls and such.

The coolest part of the trip for me was between Kamloops and Hope.  The Coquihalla is beautiful!  It was the only place I had wet roads but I didn't mind slowing down because it is so pretty!  I felt like I drove into Narnia as I ascended the mountains to find a huge dump of snow on the trees.  It was gorgeous.  And coming down into Merritt was so cool because it was spring there, and then coming down into Hope was amazing because it seemed like full blown summer!  Now I know for all you seasoned travelers this is no big deal, but I thought it was so cool that God could have such opposite beauty (winter and summer) so seemingly close to each other!

The drive took me longer than I was told, but I'm not upset about that because I probably stopped more than other people do. I got to Abby after dinner and promptly got lost on the way to some relatives house.  I think I will need to get a detailed map of Abby if I want to do well driving here!  So now that I'm here, the job search will begin!  Since God was so faithful with my road trip yesterday I'm sure he will provide a job as well.  But I can't wait for it to knock on my door.. so off I go to polish resumes and research where all these places actually are!

ps. feel free to comment on these posts, it lets me know someone is reading them. :)