after the lull in updating, here are some things that have brightened my days:

1. bowling! the bad part was that i now stink! barely breaking 100 isn't my idea of a good game...but hanging out w/ good friends and being able to laugh at our stances and low scores was fun.

2. joining my church. yup, i became a member. does that up my level of commitment? probably not since i was pretty committed already, but it was funny getting congratulatory messages after the service, like i got engaged or something.

3. snowboarding!!

my camera died just as we were about to take a whole grp shot. the pic above is of my small grp leader and her S.O. Sat's snow wasn't too nice (ouch!) but as you can see, it snowed & snowed on Sunday. though visibility at the top of the mtns was low, it was so much more fun b/c i wasn't scared to fall on powder. i'm still a slow-poke but i was really surprised at how much of my skillz i had maintained since last year.

4. these little guys:

apparently, one of my coworkers makes this dish every year sometime in January and everyone waits in anticipation for them to show in the faculty room. look at how CUTE they are!! olive penguins... wow, almost makes me want to throw a party just so i can make them too!

5. and these little guys:

my 5th graders had to do an Animal Adaptations project in which they chose one of 4 different planets and created a new organism to be perfectly adapted to its environment. for extra credit, they could turn in a 3-D model. they got pretty creative.

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i've been thinking about love a lot lately. not b/c vday is on the horizon, but b/c i've been studying Corinthians during my devos. the commentaries i'm reading give so much insight, and though i want to save some of the meat of what i learned for my up and coming China orphan camp testimony, i do want to share that God's love is so amazing. we love the lovely, He loves the unlovely...us. to be KNOWN & LOVED...ahhh, how wonderful!