emily elizabeth

View from the deck
Originally uploaded by roverem.

Well, as I mentioned, we spent this Christmas in the Selkirk Mountains of Idaho at Schweitzer Mt. Resort. We rented a cabin called the Green Hornet 🙂 and spent the weekend eating, skiing, snowboarding, eating, walking, and a little bit of snowshoeing after we ate. We had a lot of fun and didn’t want to come home. It rained the first day or two making skiing conditions terrible at best. And then, late Monday night, it started snowing and snowed all night and almost all day on Tuesday. We decided to get up and spend the day skiing. It turned out to be a great day – we were able to ski runs that nobody else were on and with fresh snow. The best part was that we got to come home to a hot tub. We had such a great Christmas. I tried to post quite a few pictures from the weekend. Enjoy a little glimpse.

I know that this isn’t the first time this has been said this season, but I really can’t believe that Christmas is the day after tomorrow. It’s crazy! The weather has turned from freezing to mild and, well, it just doesn’t feel like christmas outside. My family is heading over to Spokane tomorrow and we’ll be heading up to Schweitzer to spend Christmas there. We’ve rented a cabin and will be there for the weekend and early part of next week. I’ve been working a lot and fulfilling an internship this last week and it’s kept me quite busy during what is supposed to be “winter break” so, nonetheless, this time of fun and relaxing is becoming more and more attractive. I hope that you all are able to enjoy the holidays without getting too wrapped up in the festivities. If you stop and think about it, Christmas really is a miracle. We’ve been talking about this idea at church lately, and in general Christmas is not exactly what you would have expected from a God who is in control of everything and has every resource at his finger tips. A supernatural God decided to enter the natural world. For instance, you would think that God’s own son would be born in a place of prominence, not Nazareth; perhaps a fancy hotel, but since there wasn’t any room in the Inn, a barn would have to suffice. Just thinking about these little details of Jesus’ birthday makes you wonder what’s really important. God’s own son was born to a couple of average people from a no-name town. Sometimes we strive for ease, comfort, and luxury, but really it’s the hard stuff that makes us great. It’s the hard stuff that makes you pray. It’s the hard stuff that accelerates growth and development and maturity. So as we unwrap presents or enjoy a holiday dinner or whatever traditions your family partakes of, remember that what we celebrate is really a miracle – this great supernatural God who lives in an infinite, undefined, limitless environment enters our natural world with all it limits and boundaries.

Yay! I wrote this new song … are you ready for it? Alright you must sing with me then – it goes “finals are over, finals are over, fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la.” You see it’s kind of in the Christmas spirit too. Can’t you just feel the freedom? I sure can. I finished on Tuesday of finals week – not too shabby eh? I think I was pretty fortunate. So now on to greener pastures. It will be nice to not have to come home from work and do homework. I have ambitious plans for break too, well not really I suppose. Practically speaking, I’ll be working at Starbucks (to make money and let’s face it, have fun) and then will start my internship at Merrill Lynch next Monday. It’s a “for credit” internship and requires that you have so many hours worked prior to the end of the semester in order to get credit(s). I’m taking it for Spring semester, but since I work as well, I thought it best to get hours in now so that I don’t have to do as much during the semester and completely burn myself out.

So that’s what I’ll be doing to keep me busy, but about the ambitious plans, I have high hopes. I’m going to try to get into a routine over break (which consequently is about an entire month) of exercise and study of God’s word. I want my life to be simple, at least while it can, and I figure that break is a good time to practice. I read this book a few months back, of which I would recommend to everyone, called In Praise of Slowness. It’s not a Christian book or anything, but reveals some principles and concepts to follow in life that can allow for simplicity and, ultimately, enjoyment. You see, I love adventure. I love spontaneity and all that comes with it. My sense of adventure often leads to a deficit in my capacity to remain attentive to my current situation, commonly diagnosed as ADD. Honestly though, sometimes I find that I have a difficult time enjoying the situation that I’m in because I’m always thinking of what I could be doing, how I could make it more fun. I need to not do this. Life is about enjoying exactly where you’re at, when you’re at it. It’s about finding pleasure in a good cup of coffee shared over a conversation friend. Cooking a meal that you love from scratch. Being engaged in life; a participant, not a spectator. Noticing and taking pleasure in the details. Someone told me a story a couple weeks back of a friend that was visiting from New Zealand. He took her around and showed her the local area, picking out the must-sees and unique aspects of the Inland Northwest. She asked as they drove by roadside trees and plants – “what’s that?” He had no response, he didn’t know the names of the trees and plants that he lived amongst everyday. He made a reciprocal trip to New Zealand and in her tour she pointed out every plant, flower, bird, and insect and knew details of their existence and features. Different cultures, I suppose, but the point is we get in such a hurry always thinking of what is next, where we’re headed that we forget to live now and experience now and really now is all we have. When we look back on our lives, our measuring stick won’t be how far we went, but how much we enjoyed our life and experiences. Sorry, that turned out to be kind of long. Toodles … good night.