Week 22 - The Best Start to 2015!

I am becoming a bit disorientated due to the holidays. I can remember the day and the date, but remembering what we did on what day is a little harder.

Monday Pete had to go back to work. Here in Canada, you get 2 weeks leave per year. And we thought 4 weeks in New Zealand was rough. So as we are saving his time off for May next year as we are planning on crossing the border and heading to New York for a bit, Pete didn't get a lot of time off over the Christmas period. He got 4 days over Christmas, and 4 days over New Years.

Monday - Wednesday were fairly uneventful. Pete worked and I pottered around home. As I still wasn't feeling the best (the cold really hit me this time) I tended to stay indoors. However, I braved the elements (the weather was very tame - no snow even) to do the customary trip to the bank to bank Pete's cheque. As Wednesday was New Years Eve, we decided (stupidly I think) to food shop as the cupboards were bare. The supermarket wasn't as crazy as the night before where we drove in and around the car park finding no empty spaces and both decided to skip shopping that night and instead go to Target. A much better choice indeed!

Our New Years Eve was so low key. We were invited out, but I wanted a quiet one and so did Pete. We didn't expect to make it to midnight, but we did. Only just. On a side note, January is a month that is going to be a challenging but rewarding month. The reason I say that is we have decided to have a dry month. Dry meaning we are not spending money on unnecessary things. So gone are trips to thrift stores and my beloved Target. We are going to have to find other things to occupy our spare time. So, at quarter to midnight, I was frantically trying to order some muslin cloths on Amazon as I couldn't in the new year.

Thursday we were expecting a quiet one at home. However, we instead had the best start to 2015. We (along with 18 others) were treated to a day in Banff where we went on tubes down hills. (I will find out the technical term - Go figure, it's called tubing) We had never done this before, so we rugged up (yep, even Pete did) and headed off with friends. The day was amazing. We were also treated to lunch and a dinner of ribs at a restaurant in Banff. We were blown away by friends (Nicco and Zelda) who paid for everyone and everything. A perfect way to start our dry month I thought.

A shot I got of Pete tubing.

All rugged up.

The tubing lanes.

Beautiful Banff.

He was dressed sensibly people!

The scenery.

Tubing in action.

Friday was a day off for Pete. Well, sort of. We went into his work so he could spend some time working on Jelly. As we have no insurance and no registration, if we are caught, we can receive a fine up to $4000! So we have been super blessed as John (Pete's boss) offered us a spare car of his that is insured and registered which we can use for however long we need. We decided Friday would be a good day for working on Jelly as we could go home to do nothing as we had nothing on and we were busy both Saturday and Sunday. As we were having smoko (they think we are nuts for using the term smoko for a break here) we were contacted by friends inviting us over. As one of my goals is to step out of my comfort zone more this year and meet new people, I agreed to go. And I'm glad that I did. We battled the roads (and they were pretty treacherous) and had an awesome night.

Saturday we spent our day at home. As outside was a winter wonderland, we delighted in staying indoors in our cosy, warm apartment. We kept ourselves busy by watching TV and cleaning. As I had to be at church that night, we rugged up (well I say that, but Pete thought at -20 he could still wear shorts and a singlet) and made our way to church. As the roads were getting icy, we had a couple of close calls on the roads. We had a great time at church socializing over food. At the end of the message, we were encouraged to speak blessings over others. Zelda (our connect leader) came over to us to share what God had put on her heart for us. She said this year blessings will be poured out - far more than we expect. She saw us having a ministry here working together and individually. She also said she feels that we are not here in Canada only for the year. We were stoked with her words.

Sunday was another home day. Pete loves the days where we stay at home. We get up late, lounge around the place and generally enjoy each others company. We did enter into civilization eventually as I had a meeting to attend about being in Kids Ministry. So we headed to our pastors house for the meeting and stayed for South African pancakes and Monopoly with the young adults. I failed miserabley at the game, but had huge amounts of fun none the less.

So, overall, an awesome start to 2015. Life in Canada is definitely awesome. We are meeting new people constantly and are making firm friendships here. Even though we are missing out on Summer and having to endure seeing family in togs and having wet hair from swimming when we Facetime them - we wouldn't have it any other way!