Winter Fun

I finished out my first semester at UPS on December 18th and headed home for a nice long break. It's been so nice to have nothing that I must do each day besides practice. So I've had lots of time to catch up on my practicing which has been really good. It was very hard to find time to practice while school was in session.

I've been up to lots of fun things since I got home. Here are a few pictures that I've taken since I've been home on break.



We went skiing at Mt. Hood Meadows with Matthew, me, James, Christina, Josh, and Matthew (took the picture) Excellent powder ski conditions!

It started snowing at our house Christmas day!!! So I got to enjoy a white Christmas for the first time in years! That was awesome!!! We actually got quite a bit of snow this year...we've had at least a little snow on the ground since Christmas.


Cocoa and Mocha enjoying the snow.

A week after our first ski trip, we went back up to Mt. Hood, this time to Timberline, to go skiing with Sheri, her boyfriend Matthew, and several other people. It was great fun! Another night of great ski conditions. When we got back to the car, our doors were frozen shut. Thankfully, Matthew had thought to leave the thermos outside of the car, under the wheel so we had some warm water to use to try to defrost the doors. However, after much effort, Matthew and I were only able to get the very back door of the jeep to open. So, we piled our stuff in, climbed in through the back, and drove up to the lodge to pick up Sheri and her boyfriend. They started laughing when they realized the back was the only door we could open. Sheri climbed in, her boyfriend put their stuff in and was about to climb in but then we realized that someone had to shut the back door. He looked around outside for someone he could ask to close it behind him but there was no one around. So, he asked Matthew if he could roll his window down so he could climb in that way. Matthew worked at it a little bit and was able to get it to roll down. Matthew climbed out to make room for Sheri's boyfriend to climb in, then climbed back in and we headed for home. Here are a couple pictures of that excitement.








A few days later, my brother Matthew and I got an invitation to go White Water Rafting! Yippee! That was exciting! We had a great time rafting down a class 2 river. Now we're hoping it will work out for us to go down a class 3-4 river sometime in the near future. Yup, we needed one more outdoor activity to add to the list of things we like to do.



Matthew had a pretty hard time getting the rubber gasket on the drysuit to go over his head but he finally managed it with some help. Wow, that was tight. Once it was on it fit fine around his neck though. I had a little trouble getting mine on too but not a lot. It did pull my long hair quite a bit though.





Last Friday night we went skiing yet again. This time my brother and I went with 14 of our friends. It was such a blast! I only have a few pictures.



My friend Rachel is trying to learn to snowboard.



I decided to use Matthew's snowboard so I could keep up with Rachel. I did okay on it.



Matthew used my skiis in the mean time.



Rachel's brother, Matthew

Well, I guess that's about it for now. I'm really enjoy my month off of school. I'm sure I will be ready to start school again towards the end of the month though. Especially since I do get to come home on weekends. And I have several more students to teach here each weekend now too so that's another awesome thing the Lord has provided for me.