Sazzly

I got to go sledding today! It was a lot of fun. It wasn't *that* cold today, so it was nice to be outside in the bright sun and sail down the hill. I am thinking about investing in a nice inner tube--as much as the little sled I used was cute, it wasn't very cusiony. I was smiling afterwards, but I did fly through the air a bit after a bump at the bottom.

Here I go

After

I found some cool verses recently in Isaiah written as a warning to the 'women of Zion,' God's people. What amazes me about them is how much stuff they had to try to make themselves pretty. I've just cut my hair recently and am trying to figure out how to wear it, so I've been thinking about it. I was writing out these verses, and noticed how long the list was (I think 22 items). Sometimes it's easy to focus on these things and get consumed by them; you can just see how these women were striving for something they weren't getting, so they kept trying with more bangles. And God's like, 'Christ is beautiful and glorious, and you are as well in him.' Oh, I remind myself, it's about him, that's right.

I read Wild at Heart¹, and I enjoyed the chapter on women. It's very good. In short, without important context, he says women ask, 'Am I lovely? Worth fighting for?' first of their fathers and then of the other men in their lives. This seems to ring true especially with this passage.

¹ yes, it's a book for guys...anyway...I bet more women than men read it :P

p.s. Beck, I'm trying to get a good recent pic of Cocoa for you...she's so cute. And I saw a full grown chocolate Lab today at the sledding hill--the dog would run down the hill by its owner who was riding an inner tube down--so fun. Such a cool dog.

Here are some pictures to give you a view into what my area in Boston looks like right now. I thought I would take some pictures of my car, so if you haven't dug a car out of the snow, you can appreciate it a little more. Here is what my car looked like on Tuesday:

My Car!
I had to go to the store to get toothpaste since my luggage hadn't come yet (and of course chocolate chips for cookies). This time, thankfully the locks weren't frozen, neither was the handle or the door frozen, so entry into the car was okay. When I threw my backpack in and closed the door, all of the snow on the side windows fell off! Which wasn't bad. I'll have to remember that trick. The windshield was a little difficult due to the foot of snow on the hood, which had to be whisked to the side, because the snow was just as deep as the hood in front of the car. The windshield also had a lot of ice on it near the bottom. I was able to scrape some of it off with my nifty ice scraper (an essential like a squeegie in California), but I gave up on getting my windshield wipers out of the inch of ice that encased them.

After This is my handiwork!

Snow at Sunset Olin Balcony
Snow can be really pretty though, especially when it is deep, it just covers over the landscape so you forget what is there (and sometimes the snow plowers do too).

The previous two pictures were taken from inside a building, but for the following pictures, I took a walk into the forest that is nearby. I think it was about 16 degrees when I did, because I could only stay outside for about 20 minutes before everything mildly exposed started to hurt. To get to the forest I had to go over the snow that had been plowed to the side of the road that is there--which was about 3 feet tall--and I knew there was nothing underneath it, in fact the hill goes down there. Going up this mound was okay, but I sunk in on the way down. Then I walked in Ski or snowshoe tracks (I really don't know what snowshoes look like) because they were already a foot down into the snow, and only sometimes my boots would fall the other foot. So there you go :). There's some winter for all you in spring already.



Trees

Forest

Up

Here are my pictures from Vasquez Rocks! My Dad actually took the first two, but I really liked them. Look at that beatuful blue sky and all that green, *sigh.* I guess the beatuful 70 degree weather left even Southern California this week.



the Rocks! Taken by my Dad

Chasm - taken by my Dad

Tree

Creek

the View

my Throne This rock seems perfectly made for this!

Guess what? My flight got cancelled to go back to Boston! I am actually glad. I found out at 4am this morning when I got up to go to the airport. That meant more sleep immediately! I also got to go to Church--which I was glad to be able to attend here--it's different in Boston. It aslo meant another beautiful day in the sun, and a nice nap. I got a great send-off from everyone at Church -- the ones that are following the big storm in the Northeast were glad I'm not trying to travel over there right now. I think it'll be very pretty when I get there with a couple feet of snow on the ground. I sense some pictures perhaps--if I can get away.

I've gotten 4 e-mails now telling me not to come back to school until it's safe and all this is over. One of the e-mail said it was supposed to snow 8" per hour! They really don't need to twist MY arm quite so hard.

I did get to go to Vasquez Rocks and take lots of pictures! It was a beautiful day, and probably a rare day when everything was green around the rocks. We got to climb up the rocks as much as we wanted--which I didn't expect--but was a lot of fun. I learned that Vasquez was a 'bandito' whose hideout was in these rocks. He was caught and hung. The site is also the place where the Star Trek episode called Arena was filmed where Kirk fought the Gorn, among other movies and TV series. Quite the popular place! As soon as I get to school, I'll be able to post my pictures. For now I'm supposed to get back Monday night very late.

Untitled
Yay! I was able to figure out how to post these. These were all taken in the beautiful Mojave Desert, near the town of Mojave in fact. The sun was beginning to set, so I had to race the shaddows, but I like how they turned out. I put them on here on a small size--if you would like bigger ones, let me know.

Tomorrow I am leaving for Boston where it's supposed to get 20-30 inches of snow! Yikes! I have gotten three warnings from people about travelling tomorrow - one call and two e-mails, but there isn't much I can do about it now. I much prefer the 70 degree weather we've been having. It's better for taking pictures, taking hikes and reading good books in the sun.

Hopefully today my parents and I will be able to go to Vasquez Rocks - beautiful large rocks that come up at a 45 degree angle from the earth.

The woman 

That way 

Shaddow

Hey hey,
Just getting this up and running . . . **stares off to the right to think of what to say**. We'll see how this works, eh?

I am on vacation, and it was gorgeous weather so I got to ride my bike today. It's amazing how much you can feel the slightest hill on a bike. I huffed and I puffed up a hill--whose grade I could hardly see. And then I had to go on a dirt path next to the road, since the two inch shoulders on the 55 mph roads in this town are not quite ideal for bikes! The dirt road had a very noticable hill, but I learned the virtues of standing up and leaning forward on a bike. And the way down was glorious, let me tell you!

The other day I went to the Mojave area and took some pictures of Joshua Trees. I have been wanting to do this for a while! Just like I want to take pictures of good freeway overpasses. I'm trying to get some of my pics up here.