Indoor Ski World in Shao Xing

In November Callie, Michael Rowland and I hit the indoor ski world in Shao Xing; it's an hour away from Hangzhou. It's the first time I've snow boarded since Brian and I had our first year anniversary in Pine Top, AZ. That would be 12 years ago! And snowboarding is one of my passions. Between pregnancies, nursing babies and not living near the slopes, too many seasons have slipped by. So it was really fun to get some time on the slopes. I love jumps and learning new tricks. This was Callie's first time on the slopes and I put her on skis. She's so fun. During the Winter Break I took Callie, Brock and friends Thijn and Maes snowboarding. They did awesome! Brock took off immediately and stood up the whole way down on his first go. Nice crash land at the end. They all did so well and I was so proud of them! 

In college I shared pretty much everything with my roommates. Food, car, clothes, you name it. There was however, one thing I decided I was going to be the only one to use--and it was my snow board. It makes me laugh thinking about it. I just wanted to be the one to put it's thrash marks on it. I'm not sure that was the best decision or not and I remember how shocked (upset!) one of my roommates was who wanted to borrow it back in the day when I told her no. Maybe I should have said yes. Not sure. But that beautiful board has been sitting in Brian's brother's garage for over 11 years now. And somehow it managed to survive the fire. His brother's house burnt down the weekend before Thanksgiving where my snowboard is stored. It's a blessing that they are all okay physically. It's traumatic to lose your home and everything in it. We have a few boxes stored in their garage that suffered water damage. All of Brian's missionary journals, my journals and our childhood through collage photo albums were in there. But that there snow board survived. Steve and Rachelle fortunately had insurance and will rebuild. We'll help them procure furniture and send a container. They felt an out pouring of love from those around them and it brought a new meaning to our Thanksgiving and I'm sure there's as well. We're grateful for each other, the relationships we have and God's hand in our lives. We look to Him in all things.