holiday in the snow :)

i don't think i've ever been so excited to spend a couple weeks at home! it was a super nice holiday, and i thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed it! it also hasn't snowed so much in vancouver in 12 years... which made for a lot of fun snowy sledding, snowboarding, snowshoe frolicking with friends and family...


Christmas day snowshoe!

up at big white for our annual family holiday (crumpled over attempt at a handstand!)

big white in all its glorious beauty! :)

always time for a little silly with chocolate mudmasks in the evenings! :) we also had a private outdoor hot tub to soak in apres-ski and watched the Canada-Sweden juniors hockey game one night with the TV pushed up to the window!

well this picture may or may not be from this year, but ashley & chris who've now moved down to California since getting their engineering iron rings and have gotten great jobs were back for a couple days and we had a great little trip up to Grouse mountain and the snow was sooo amazingly good we thought we took a shortcut to whistler! (and joffe wasn't here this time... but he was snowboarding in the swiss alps!!)


my driveway that grew walls taller than me!


debbie that i studied with in norway and lived in france with (2 years ago now?!) so good catching up on the many lives we've lived since we've last seen each other! (between us, ghana, nepal, uganda & costa rica & more norway & canada!)


meredith & jacopo, andrew & his lovely new wife colleen and debbie... some of the wonderful people that made my norwegian experience so awesome! and here we are, the whole vancouverite norwegian crew on the rare chance we are all or will ever be actually in vancouver at the same time! :)



getting my dose of asian yummies with jess & debbie! :)


and me and my awesome UBC Bible study gals having our classic reunion 9" pancake breakfast, catching up and sending each other off for the coming year with prayer! (we missed you Nat!)


i also got to stop in and visit my awesome boss from last summer working with the Youth Peace Network and the other staff at the YMCA... all the participants in the program are back home all over the world now but it was great to chat with Karena about all these wonderful people and get excited for this year's program coming up!

and missing some other pictures, but one in particular... congrats to the newly engaged Leanne soon-to-be-Sawatski!! :) so good to see you guys! and i guess next time i see you, you'll be married!!

some of the favourite things i was looking forward to coming home to - and definitely a refreshing 3 weeks before heading back to Costa Rica! i can't really say exactly that i'm super excited for it just yet, but i'm ready at least after having the break! i was getting pretty burnt out before Christmas. it'll be an intense coming 6 months left of my program, but it'll be good! i'm in LA and going to be hopping on a plane in 20 minutes, so i'll get going for for now!

hope you guys all had a wonderful holiday! a verrry merry Christmas and happy new year! lotsa love and have an awesome start to the year!!

xo
rainbow =)