Thinking Warm Thoughts

Imagine waking up in the morning after a nice long sleep, wrapped in a warm cozy blanket, with a soft pillow under your head and the smell of coffee drifting into your room. You get out of bed and into something cozy and warm. You sip and enjoy your sweet, sweet hot coffee. After a warm and relaxing shower, you slip into some thermal pants, a thermal top, another pair of pants, an extra sweater, wool socks, snow boots, a thick jacket, gloves and a toque, keeping that warm feeling you've felt all morning, close to your body. Then you open the door to -23 degree weather and the warmth gets sucked right outta you, the boogers in your nose freeze and the hairs from your head that didn't get dried from your shower, turn to ice. You turn to walk to your car and a freezing gust of wind slaps you in the face. You pry your car door open, having a fight with the ice to see who is stronger and pray that your car starts, at least by the third try. While the car attempts to warm up, you start brushing and scraping the snow and ice off your windows, hoping that the wind doesn't catch the snow coming off the car, giving you a face wash, again. Back in the car, you settle into your seat, placing your feet on the floor mat that is still covered in snow and ice from the day before. You start heading to your destination and just as you pull into the parking lot, the car finally starts to warm up but its time to face the cold again. You open your door, as another freezing gust of wind takes your breath away and you think to yourself, "why did we leave Vancouver again?"

Yes, so it's been a cold week! We were planning on going skating after church today, but even with several layers on, it was much to cold! Besides the cold, our week was somewhat exciting. On Monday our sink started backing up and filling with water again. As we were bailing it out so it didn't overflow (again), we called the building maintenance people to find out that this is a regular occurrence! They came and put a "rod" through the pipes which I guess clears it out for awhile but next time we hear the gurgling, we are to call them again!

I worked Wednesday, Thursday night at Starbucks and had my first opening shift on Saturday morning. I had forgotten what 5am was like and discovered that I am ok not seeing it again! On Saturday night Carl and I went to the Kingston Symphony. We were able to get cheap tickets and enjoyed watching "Broadway Beauties", a story of 3 Broadway singers at different stages in their careers. The whole storyline flowed with a compilation of different songs from different Broadway shows. We actually liked it more than we thought we would!

As for other news, I read in the local paper that there was a hoarding situation in town. The SPCA has taken over 77 rodents from a house and is now looking for homes for several rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, rats, etc. Let me know if you're interested!

I think that's it for this week! I'll leave you with some pictures that we took today as we risked our lives in the cold, for the sake of having pictures for this blog!

Looking down Lake Ontario - not sure what the smoke stack is from but the bumps on the side of the lake are ice chunks!

A closer look at the massive ice chunks! Ok, so they looked more interesting in real life!

Some cold blooded people going for a run...Well, they are either cold blooded or crazy?!

My intrigued husband who was experimenting to see if his spit would freeze before it hit the ground. His conclusion...No. So special!

P.S. I haven't gotten your picture for our wall yet so I'll just assume it's in the mail!

Bringing Home Here...

It's funny how when we went home for Christmas, it kind of felt like we had never left. And now that we are back in Kingston, it feels like we never left here either. It's been a week since we got back and we are right back into the swing of the things, me with my 2 jobs and Carl with a full schedule of classes and homework! On our time off, we are both studying! I can't wait to be done my mutual funds exam - what will I do with all my spare time?!

So, being back here, we not only miss our family and friends but we miss the Vancouver weather! It snowed all day yesterday so we now have about a foot of snow. It will snow for a day and then be sunny for a day and then snow again, and then be sunny. The snow never melts. It's beautiful but it's COLD! Today is a sunny day and even though it says it is only -10, with the wind chill it is about -18...But I still think it feels even colder than that! Carl walks to school and I walk to the bank so we make sure to wear our thermals and bundle up!

So since we've been here and over the holidays, we have accumulated a small collection of pictures from friends and family. Our fridge was starting to get full and I didn't want to throw the pictures out so I decided to use one of our empty walls and start a collage!

There is still a whole lotta room on this wall and my goal is to have it filled by the time we leave! I want to bring a little home here! So this is the challenge for YOU - If you don't see your picture on here (or if you want more of you on our wall - cuz we do), send us your picture! If you need our address, let me know and I can get it to you! If I find out that you read this blog and I don't have a picture of you on our wall ASAP, I am going to be very sad

Put a picture in the mail today and make me happy!

Looking forward to seeing your smiles!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

I am writing this while sitting in a train on our way from Ottawa to Kingston...A sad day to have to write about, leaving home and heading back to Onterrible, I mean Ontario. But before I get all gloomy and sad on you, let me tell you about our last few days a home! Once home from Whistler we had only a few days left to see some friends we hadn't seen yet and fit in some extra visits with others.

Over at Catherine and Anton's for dinner and a visit with the family

Out for sushi with a group of loved ones!

Out for brunch with family and friends!

Out for lunch with more family!

One last visit with family and friends!

I have never been away from home for this extended amount of time before and coming home for a visit made me realize truly how blessed we are to have such amazing friends and family. I know I've written about this before but it's something that has kept coming up during our visit. I guess I just realize how when I was living at home, I may not have appreciated my family and friends as much as I should or I just took for granted the people in my life...So to all our family friends, we love you guys and appreciate you and had an awesome time visiting with you!

So the dreaded day has come and we had to get up this morning at 4am to catch our flight in Abbotsford to Calgary. Not only was that alone upsetting, but leaving again is very hard! I find coming and going pretty emotionally draining for more reasons than one and am counting down the months until we are home again for good (about 17!). In Calgary we had a bit of a layover and then our flight was delayed about an hour. This meant that we wouldn't be able to catch the last bus from Ottawa to Kingston and had to say a few prayers that there would be room left on the train! We arrived in Ottawa, grabbed our bags, flagged down a taxi and had it take us to the train station! Our prayers were answered and we now sit on the train. Our friend Kris is going to pick us up from the train station and we will then, finally be at our destination! It's been a long day!

Tomorrow is going to start early as I have to get up for work at 7am which in B.C is 4am...Ugh! Carl doesn't have class tomorrow so he gets to do the grocery shopping! Kingston got there first big dump of snow a couple days ago, a welcome home gift? I think the average temperature is about -8, yippee...

Well, again we had an amazing visit and miss home and everyone there already :( Please keep in touch, we like seeing your comments on our blog, getting mail, emails, texts and any news from home!

Much love, Leah and Carl

Happy New Year!

Ohhh the time is going by to fast! I can't describe how much I have enjoyed our visit and the time we were able to spend with our family and friends! I guess thats a benefit to coming home for a visit - you have the time and try and make good use of it to see the people you love! After our Christmas festivities came to somewhat of an end, Carl and I headed up to Whistler to spend some time at his parents place! Mom and Dad Funk took the week off, Ryan, Alanna and Cody were able to be up there for the week, Ryan Funk had a few days off in the middle of the week and Brittany and Colin came up for the weekend! It was so nice to able to spend an extended amount of time with the whole family!

We worked on a few puzzles and played lots of games...

Carl and I tried skate skiing - kind of a mix between ice skating and cross country skiing. Carl got the hang of it...Me on the other hand, well I might be good at cross country skiing...?

I think Carl enjoys wearing his Dad's skate ski attire more than the skate skiing itself...

We went ice skating - not quite as nice as the outdoor rinks in kingston but still fun! We practiced our figure skating so we could show off to all our friends in Kingston when we get back!

We relaxed...

And we celebrated our Funk family Christmas on New Years Eve!

On New Years day we all went snowboarding - Ok, so most people were on ski's but Nick and I were really the only cool ones on the mountain :)

Ross, Dori, Ryan F, Nick DeRidder, Ryan K, Alanna, Carl, Leah, Brittany, Cody and Colin

Sisters! Leah, Brittany and Alanna

Carl, Leah, Nick

On our last run, we got to watch the sunset!

Overall, we had a relaxing and enjoyable week and I think all of us are looking forward to doing it again next year!