Why I love Fall.

I just love fall. A LOT. It is, without a doubt, my favourite season. Look at these pictures I took and tell me that fall is not amazing!

August in Pictures

As promised, here is a photo-journey through the month of August.
And remember, I'm facebook friendly so check out more pictures there!

The first thing I did in August was head to "The Shuswap" (pronounced Shoe-SHwap) with my almost sisters Tiersa, Laura and Jenny. We did a LOT of this:


A little bit of this:


A bit of this:


And for those of you who watch Canadian Idol, I was at the family reunion for this top 10 singer:


Next the vacation continued. I took some much needed time off from work. My sisters Bethany and Vanessa and I, drove to Panorama BC - in the heart of the Rockies, to visit my sister Esther who lives there. On the way we went white water rafting. We also spent some time in hot springs as well as Lake Louise. Very relaxing, very fun. I love white water rafting. I think maybe I'll be a teacher by winter, a professional white water rafter by summer. Yeah?



Shortly after returning from my adventures in Panorama (and by shortly I mean two days later) my friend Erik and I headed to Penticton BC for 'summer friend' Lillian's 24th Birthday party. I met Lillian in a parking lot in June and we've been friends ever since.





Then a week later it was my birthday.
I went to a concert with my family and then out for dinner in my new birthday outfit. Not to be confused with my birthday suit. Sunday was a big lunch with friends and then the closer friends headed to the beach. This is me and the almost-sisters. So pretty eh?








Tom brought out his super powerful telescope and we spied on the people across the lake.



Then my little friend Gracie came over for a Highschool Musical party.



The next weekend, Tiersa, Bethany, Laura, Jenny and I headed to the IPE (interior Provincial Exibition) aka Rodeo and sketchy midway.





Where I saw a lumberjack show. Cheesy and entertaining.



After my birthday came Bethany's birthday.
Which I gave her, ahem US, season 2 of Prison Break.



2 Days after Bethany's birthday, and in the middle of our obsessed Prison Break marathon. (we had 10 days to watch them all before season 3 started) It was Ferin's fantastically 80's birthday party.



Mike and Ferin


Classic 80's feet.


And last but not least, this post would not be complete without a shout out to my summer friends. Bo, Erik and Deborah.

Jobs

I was thinking today about how my friends have a LOT of different jobs. Cool Jobs, random jobs, fun jobs. And NONE of them work in a field even remotly related to mine.

Nikki: I'm a teacher. I teach fifth graders about spelling and try to make them love reading books as much as me. As a bonus I can infiltrate them with Dr. Quinn stories unntil they are as passionate about it as I am.

Bethany: Is an Out-tripper. She takes people rock climbing, and camping in the bush, and kyaking and white water rafting, and caveing. Her bonus is that she gets to be all buff and pretty.

Tiersa: Is an Administrative Assistant for the Continental Singers. She does paperwork and books hotels and flights and makes posters and brochures and gets to do awesome things on the computer. Her bonus is that she gets to live in California part of the year.

Tom: Is a fish wrangler. He wrestles fish out of the water in rivers all over BC so that the gov't can know what types of fish are in what rivers and in what quantity. His bonus is that... he gets to play with fish all day.

Mike: Walks around the bush (and there is a lot of it here) and maps out cut-blocks for logging companies. His bonus is that he gets to be as back-woodsmany as he wants to be and no one can say anything. And he gets to take his dog to work with him.

Ferin: Is a clothing store manager. She gets a sweet discount.

Bowen: Is a miner. I don't know exactly what he does. But neither does he half the time. His bonus is that he gets paid a lot.

Erik: Works Rockey Mountaineer Vacations. He serves and is in a musical. His bonus is that He is in a musical!

My Inspiration

Yesterday was an awesome awesome day. My sister Bethany and I headed to the Shuswap with her friend Rita for a day on her boat on the lake. (Side note, where do British Columbians go to trade their shoes??? the Shuswap)

We boated on her speed boat in 37 degree weather with no clouds and a bright sun. We stopped on a random beach for lunch, stopped at a store that floated in the middle of the water so you could only get their by boat, we found an awesome swimming beach. We boated some more and then swam off the boat with a waterfall tumbling down the mountain on my left, and a view of the coastal mountains and rocky mountains on my left. Amazing. We boated some more and then went over to Copper Island in the middle of the lake where people often cliff jump. I hummed and hawed about doing it, because it was really high and dangerous and you had to free rock climb to get to the cliff. But then I thought to myself "You just swam at the base of a waterfall looking at the Rockies. You have to do this! You are in BC. This is an awesome opportunity that might not come along again."

So I jumped out of the boat and swam toward the rock cliffs jutting out of the water. I climbed to the top of the cliff very carefully, knowing that a) i was wet and b) the crevaces in the the rocks would mean broken bones for sure if I slipped. Very treacherous. I got to the cliff and stood there looking out over the lake and the mountains and then I looked down. And it was VERY high. Very high. I stood there for a few minutes getting my courage up and the yelled to my sister that it was too high and I couldn't do it. i climbed down a bit. Bethany started heckling me. "Nikki, theres 10 year olds jumping off the cliff. You are a teacher you should be the example DO IT!"

Her pressure made me climb back up. I looked down. It was too high. I climbed down again. Bethany continued heckling me. I climbed back up. It was freaking high. VERY high. I climbed down again. This time Bethany said something that really stuck with me:

"NIKKI! IF DR. QUINN CAN DO IT SO CAN YOU. SHE JUMPED OFF A CLIFF THAT WAS WAY HIGHER THAN THIS ONE."

It was so true.

"You're right!" I yelled back. "She did! I'm doing it!" Seriously, if Dr. Quinn could do it, so could I. I climbed back up and jumped realizing on the way down that Dr. Quinn jumped off a cliff because some crazy renegade Indians were trying to kill her AND Sully held her hand the whole time. I had a) no indians chasing me and b) no handsome backwoodsman holding my hand. Even ONE of those would have been a better reason for jumping than just doing it for 'fun'.

But I did it. I can officially call myself a cliff jumper.

Seriously, Dr. Quinn IS my inspiration. Time and time again she inspires me to do different things, move west, jump off cliffs, have crushes on boys with tight deerskin pants, just wonderful wonderful things.

I feel bad because I totally have sucked at blogging this summer. I know facebook has taken over my personal internet life, and I know that other blogs have fallen by the wayside in the wake of this new fad, but I have to remember that there are people out there who do not have facebook and want to read my oh-so-amusing stories. (Seriously though, doesn't everyone have facebook now?)

AND SO, lucky you, I am blogging 2 times in less than 24 hours.

I feel the need to share something a little more serious today. But joyful too. I've been thinking over the past few weeks about how incredibly filled with joy I am. I just have joy bubbling up inside of me. I love to laugh, and smile and have fun and be friendly and live the life here in Kamloops that God has called me to live. I like my jobs (all three of them) love my family, am appreciating more and more my good friends, and am growing very attached to my church. I am relaxed (usually), busy and serving the Lord in ministry and it has blessed me abundantly.

Today I sat beside a pool on the banks of the South Thompson River (don't ask me why you put a pool beside a body of water - but it was super nice), Anyways, I was sitting by the pool with a couple of friends just talking and swimming, and reading and discussing and as I sat there in the glorious sunshine I thought to myself that this is fully, without a doubt, where I am supposed to be. I looked at my life and realized that I am a fun, mid-20's, single female with a good job, great family, friends, social life, ministry and a nice car. Am I living the all-canadian single girl dream? Yes. I am. And it makes me happy. It makes me happy that I know that it is a gift that HE has given me. It fills me with joy knowing that this is just another great section in my life that God has blessed me with.

Serving and following Christ is not a barter system - I'm not working in a church or Christian school because I want Him to bless me. I'm doing it because I am called to - and some days it is really really hard. Some days I can't understand for the life of me why I am working in ministry. The by product of the work I try to do for the kingdom is that I am generiously and graciously blessed.

My Summer Thus Far - In Photos.

Karmyn and Ben came for a visit. I took them ALL over Kamloops.




And we had a bonfire at Kamloops lake.





Then I went camping with my friends at Isobel Lake





This is me learning how to fish:


This is me not catching anything:


Then I went camping again with my friends a few weeks later at Knuff Lake.
This is our SUPER awesome dinner the last night that is becoming a tradition. Everybody brings stuff, then we share it all and have a great big dinner.


This is me with my real sister Bethany, and my almost-sisters Laura and Jenny.


This is a picture of Jenny playing "tinfoil triangle Square ball" Its like baseball only with a triangle instead of a diamond and a square ball of tinfoil instead of a baseball. And a lawn chair instead of a catchers glove.


Then it was Canada Day (Oh yes, we haven't even hit July yet!)






The Alieda came to visit.


We went on a train and were robbed by bandits on horseback!




We played with their horses after the show




We went hiking in the mountains and climbed to the top of the world.





Then we went to the creeeeeeepiest place in the world. An old abandoned mental institution. It was FREAKY FREAKY FREAKY. This is Alieda being freaked out.





And we went to a random inn and pretended that we were guests and had every right to swim in their pool.


Then I made a new friend named Lillian and we spent the weekend together.
This is us with our friend Mike jumping into the pool at the Inn where I work.


This is me being cute


I had a housewarming party and saw went to see an excellent fantastic movie with Tiersa, Esther and Bethany:



Then Sandy, Ray, Curtis, Brianna and Chelsea came to visit. We had SO much fun with them.


Then I went camping again in Enderby. This time with my extended Gerrits Family.








And then I came back to Kamloops and floated down the river.




NOW it is July 31. Still to come this summer: Shuswap x 2, Lillian's Birthday party in Penticton, My Birthday.