Made in Manitoba Fun

Elisha and I are enjoying our time in Canada and recently took the opportunity to have a night on our own at a resort in Riding Mountain National Park.  It was nice to leave Jakob with Grandma and Grandpa and enjoy some time relaxing. I went cross country skiing, while Elisha enjoyed a hot stone massage at the spa.  The temperatures were around -25C, and as a result, the skiing was arduous and slow because snow at that temperature has very little glide – the warmer the temp’s, the faster the snow.  Here’s my frost encrusted victory shot after my ski (sorry Jeff, but this will have to suffice for a ski shot!)

I also had the chance to take in a WHL hockey game with my dad-in-law and bro-in-law Jonathan. It was fun to go see a quality hockey game again – it’s been nearly 5 years since the last one.

(not my pic btw)

Old Man Winter’s Kicking Our Butts!

Seems like Old Man Winter is intent on squeezing in as much cold weather as possible into our visit to Canada.  The weather has turned downright FREEZING. 

True to form, the Canadian media is fear mongering and trying their utmost to convince people that they’ll drop dead in their tracks if they happen to venture outside. Pshaw. As long as you wear 10-20 layers of clothing and make sure there’s not a square inch of skin showing, you can last at least 30 seconds outside…yup, Saudi’s looking mighty fine these days!  Hey, on the bright side, it’s supposed to be sunny.

Jakob outside on one of the milder days. Getting a kid all bundled up sure takes a lot longer than slipping on sandals!

Why does my face sting???

SnowWashes are NOT fun!

Elisha, Jules and Natasha have been friends for a long time and had a chance to hang out for the first time in 4 years.

Well, that’s all.  Hope you are having a great Christmas season.  Despite the cold, we are enjoying our time reconnecting with family and friends.  I’ve also had time to ski and play hockey, so that’s good!

Kristkindel Markt in Frankfurt

On our recent journey home, Elisha, Jakob and I spent a night in Frankfurt as a way to break up our long trip. During our time there we booted into town and took in the Christmas Market. I have to say, nobody does the trappings of Christmas as well as the Germans! We thouroughly enjoyed all the sights, smells, and sounds of the market. There were open pit fires roasting piles of wurst (brats to you Yankees), Gluhwein stalls selling hot, spiced red wine that really hit the spot in the drizzly weather, as well as booths selling ornaments, chocolotes, German cookies, gingerbread, pork products and all sorts of other things. It was a refreshing blast of Christmas Kitsch! Unfortunately, it seems that Christmas in Germany remains largely Kitschy and misses the life changing message of Christ’s coming “to save us all from Satan’s power, when we were gone astray”, as the old carol goes…

Here’s a picture of a small portion of the market in the central square. I forgot my camera at the hotel, and so this is a scanned postcard…

I also bought 2 more postcards that may appeal to some of you history buffs. The pictures below show what Frankfurt’s central area looked like before and after WWII. Talk about devastation. It’s unbelievable, really. And to think that countries could rebound from this kind of catastrophe. It makes the economic meltdown of 2008 seem pretty insignificant.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Update at Last

I’ve been goaded into flinging up this haphazard post by comments that I’m slacking in my blogging responsibilities!  Ha ha.

Why, oh why have I been so negligent.  Let me count the reasons.

1. Nothing worth relating has happened.  No desert trips, no beach outings, no nothing.  Just plain ol’sunny days and highs of 35C.  Perfect.
2. I did take a road trip to the Persian Gulf side of the country with my MiddleSchool girls volleyball team.  It was fun, especially when we finished 3rd.  That’s a huge accomplishment because we are normally the weakest team at the tournament. Yay. However, coming home was horrible.  Our 6pm flight was delayed to 1am.  That got us into Jeddah at 3am.  Tack on a 4 hour bus ride and I got home at 8:30am.  That. Was. Horrible.
3. Our internet got cut off because we exceeded our 5GB monthly streaming limit.  Yeah.  A streaming limit – can you top that?  I could have gotten unlimited streaming, but that would cost 120US bucks a month.  However, seeing as I was billed for every Megabyte I went over, 120 would’ve been a bargain.  The amount I just paid to settle my overdraft would have paid 75% of my flight home this Christmas…not kidding.

Oh, but now that I’m writing, what else can I say???

• the political going’s on in Canada leave me wanting to throw up.
• we leave tonight on a 2:15am flight to Frankfurt where we’ll spend a day and night.  Hopefully we’ll make it downtown for the Christkindel Markt. Then we’re on our way to Canada for our 4 week vacation.  The journey is a long one. Can someone make sure there’s some mild weather waiting for us in Manitoba?
• Dec. 1st was contract decision day.  We had to decide if we were returning to Yanbu, or moving on to our next posting – likely in Canada. Well, we decided to…(is anyone still reading this???)***see below
• Right now I’m really looking forward to Canada and shooting the puck around at the local hockey rink, going for a xcountry ski, meeting old buddies, hanging out with family, giving Jakob some quality family time, and worshipping in church – we live in a desert in more ways than one!

till later.

***Due to Jim’s comment, I felt it only fair to update this post and state that we have signed another 1 year contract and will be staying in Yanbu for the 09/10 school year. Yay!