Dark, cold mornings. Fog hanging low over the mountains. Pine trees lost in the rainclouds. Wood smoke curling lazily. Smells of coffee and cologne. My favorite person beside me, holding my hand. Comfortable silence while we look at the world. Golden leaves crunching. Keys clattering in the lock. Shouts of children greeting the day. My classroom comes alive.

Basically this sums it up. They’re getting shorter now, the days. Sometimes if I get up when I’m supposed to, it’s still dark outside and the lights of the town are scattered in the fog. We found bear poo the other night outside our back porch so that adds to the scenery as well. The snow is creeping closer, mountaintop by mountaintop. It’s even supposed to snow here this week. I catch myself spying for Christmas gifts when I walk through the stores and singing Christmas songs a lot. Before bed I look for the Northern Lights which we’ve seen a couple times the last month and they get more beautiful each time.

This week I had a “farewell fall” week at school. I had the students guess the weight of a pumpkin one day, guess mystery items in a box, and guess how many candies were in a jar. It was quite fun but I ran out of steam because my evenings are full of revivals so I ran out of time to continue coming up and organizing schoolwide projects. But I promised them a “winter week” after Christmas. We have talked about the Christmas program too so I feel quite in the spirit of things. Also I just have to say how much I love all of our students here at our little school. They come up with the craziest things and do things they shouldn’t but they are such a great group of kids. My class is planning parent projects for Christmas and I want to give my classroom Christmas vibes so I will be working on that soon.

For a couple Saturdays Morgan has gone to the range with Lance’s. I went the first Saturday but forfeited last time to get some shopping done. It is truly a trial to spend my Saturdays shopping, especially when there are friends and campfires to be with instead. Next Tuesday after school we teachers are leaving to drive to Crooked Creek for school meeting. It works out so well because Saturday is Kelsey&Jordyne’s wedding there also! It will be a very full week of people. Morgan and I are also staying with some people from that area, which feels weird because we are used to the bus and our space. The bus has been winterized and we will pull it out next spring, or sooner depending how much we miss it.

We have cruised all over for this last month. On our Thanksgiving weekend we made it as far as Abbotsford before we realized we couldn’t afford Vancouver Island on teacher wages, and also the ferries were booked up. So we spent the evening and next day in Abby, trying coffee shops and going into little shops and thrift stores. It was so cool. Then we headed home because we had been invited to Joe&Myrna for supper Saturday evening and it was quite a frolic. Scott&Mary were out so spent abit of time with them. For Thanksgiving dinner we went to Ken&Brenda with their fam whom we love so we had a wonderful time. Now its time to Christmas everything up. Lucky for us in Canada, Thanksgiving is over so we can decorate for Christmas already.

We have had lots of food invitations this month as well. Doug&Elaine for delicious steak grilled by Jake&LaNita, a pie fest at Carl&Nora’s, Anthony&Teresa, Kevin&Joyce, Cam&Heather, Ben&Penny (where we made chili rellenos, a first for me), Carlos&Jodi with William,Rosie,&Amy, to name a few. We also had Eric’s and Titus’ over for SmashBurgers one evening. Ben&Penny are school board and once a week one of the board couples brings snack after school which is just awesome so they brought snack Thursday. Teresa brought lunch for us one day this week which as you know is an answered prayer for teachers during revivals:) just writing all these names brings joy to me. We didn’t know these people two months ago and now they are just dear to me and I see all of their faces when I type. How fun.

I signed up for the Heart Sister thing here so I could maybe get to know the ladies more. I’ve had inspiration that the men should start a Heart Brethern side of things. They all seem to have so many “good” ideas for the ladies and think it’s so easy for the ladies to find things to give each other. Therefore I have challenged several of them to undertake it as well, although I haven’t seen much follow up.

Our Christmas plans fell through with my family because tickets are so so expensive. We are quite sad but there isn’t a lot anyone can do. So, Morgan and I are debating what we should do. I think it will be quite relaxing, and include a stop in Roblin for the Canada Bronson’s Christmas and maybe Pincher Creek. I’m scouting for tickets so we may end up in Hong Kong, or make it as far as Calgary. Who knows? I have had a tough day today, missing Dad, then in turn missing my family and Dan&Nat and our boys. Full headspace with school stuff and revivals so we didn’t do much. We went to a ski swap in Vernon this morning and then did some school shopping. Morgan ran a couple errands this afternoon and I got out my Christmas box which was a happy thing. Wishing you all a good upcoming week, and hope you can make sense of this post since it feels a little scattered today. Xo chey