Let's hear it for the Girls!

We just finished up Girls Week in Banff, BC and it was a BLAST!  We painted our nails and watched chick flicks and went to the spa... joking!

We had a fun-packed, adventurous week in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.  I've never seen the Rockies before and they just took my breath away.  I had seriously resented having to drive, because I just wanted to look out the windows.  Some of my girls got quite a chuckle out of the gasps and near falling over.

One of the adventures we went on was a hike at Lake Louise... and my goodness, the pictures don't even do it justice.

sitting by the Chateau

We were blessed with a fabulously warm and sunny day - perfect for hiking, but first!  A group shot by that turquoise lake.

Site 2!

Up we went, marvelling at the beautiful trees and the colour of the water whenever we caught a glimpse of it.  There were many stops for pictures, one here by Mirror Lake with the Big Beehive in the background.

Fearless Site 2 leaders

The whole group went up to Lake Agnes together and then had a brief break, and of course everyone went a little snap-happy.  But when it's that beautiful, can you blame us?  Not that the pictures do it any sort of justice!

Sandy & Allison

Here are all of the fearless leaders hanging out in God's beautiful outdoors

Natalie, Sandy, Myrielle, J-Fo & Ruth

Afterwards, we split into two groups - one went back down to the Chateau and the other continued to hike up to the top of the Big Beehive for a view out over Lake Louise.  Here we are hiking around the back of Lake Agnes

It was a much more intense hike, but the view from the top was TOTALLY worth it.  I have never seen water that colour before.  Stunning.

up on the Big Beehive

Our other big adventure was travelling over to the Colombia Ice Fields to take a tour on the Athabasca Glacier.  It was a bit of a drive - a good 2.5 hours, and we weren't sure if it was worth it, seeing as how we'd all done a 16 hour day just driving from Winnipeg out to Banff.  But National Geographic has the route out there listed on it's top 10 most beautiful drives in the world.  So we thought we'd give it a chance.

It was so worth it.

We stopped at Bow Lake along the way to allow everyone to get out and stretch their legs and take some pictures because it was just breathtaking.  See what I mean?

Christine, Allison, Aly, Sandy, Tessa, Melissa, Caity, Kate, Laura

We hit a bad patch of weather on the way out (and I was super un-impressed with the guy who was tailgating me) and when we got to CIF we found out that our tour had been cancelled.  I couldn't believe it.  I have wanted to visit a glacier since I was 13... and it wasn't working out.  But, as luck would have it, we waited around for 30 minutes and managed to get on another tour later that day when the snow had cleared up. 

Again, SO worth the drive out there.

hanging out on the glacier

The busses that drive you out onto the ice are crazy... they each cost a million dollars and can drive down an incline of 32 degrees.  I totally felt like I was on a really slow rollercoaster.  And the wheels are huge...

Sandy & Allison

This glacier is apparently thicker than the Eiffel Tower is tall... wowsers!

yay!  I'm on a glacier!

I totally almost bailed on the landing though...

Here's the group again!

Sandy, Myrielle, Natalie, J-Fo

Now, the drive back was a bit of a gong show to say the least.  The brakes on the van overheated on one of the long mountain roads and we had to stop to let them cool down.  Which meant that I also got to set out road flares...  that was a first, and I was so surprised when they turned out to be triangular!  Oh dear...

But everything worked out in the end and we made it safely home.  No worries.

the girls heading back to the van after we tested the brakes

All I've got to say, is if your car ever breaks down, there's no better place for it than the Rockies.  The view was fantastic!

I also stopped by the Banff Springs Hotel, because how can you leave Banff without taking a picture of it?!

That night we went to the community centre and went 'Zumba-ing'.  It's a great workout/dance, although my hips certainly weren't used to moving like that!  (there's a strong flavour of Latin dancing working it's way through it).  But we just had a blast, and got all dressed up for the occasion!

On the last day of the week, we went over to Canmore for an afternoon of hanging out and wandering around the shops.  Us leaders went out for a nice, relaxing lunch (I had one fabulous burger!) with the most spectacular view of the 'Three Sisters'.

Sandy, Natalie, Sharon, Ruth, J-Fo & Myrielle

It was a great (albeit exhausting) week, but we sure missed the guys.  It's great to be back together as full Site and heading off to Vancouver for another Urban Plunge this week.  

I'll keep you posted as my internet access allows.  

Cheers y'all!

Sandy

xox

Survey says, 6 out of 7 dwarves not Happy

Not that that has much of anything to do with my life, other than it made me chuckle.  And that's worthy of sharing isn't it?

Well, it's our last day in Winnipeg - we're meeting up bright and early tomorrow morning to drive over to Banff.  And when I say bright and early I mean it... we're meeting up at 5:30 am tomorrow.  Although, I'm not gonna lie, I do enjoy driving into the sunrise!  Unfortunately we're driving west, which means the sunrise will be behind us.  Shoot.

As to what's been happening over the last week... not too much really.  It's been super relaxing and full of laughs (as you'll see when we get to the photo section of this post... which will be, now!)

Raf, Sandy, Myrielle, Steve

We had a coffee house and it was just hilarious!  Us leaders got the ball rolling with that age-old "Is it time yet?" skit... Thank-you Town Family Reunion!

Raf, Myrielle, Joseph

Along with the funniest "Jebi Fight" I've ever seen (starting right off the bat with a typo - he meant to write 'Jedi' haha), we managed to trick a couple of guys in the second leader skit, who unknowingly got their toenails painted hot pink.  The double takes when they actually caught sight of their toes just made my day!

We've also spent some time just playing.  Ultimate Frisbee and Rugby have been the popular choices.  I have also discovered that I bruise really really really easily... I looked slightly battered at the end of the rugby game, but it was so worth it.  It's such a fantastic sport.

the boys hauling brush into the woods

Part of the deal with the camp we were at included us working with the maintenance crew for a couple service days.  We grabbed our work gloves and (well I guess I can't say this for everyone) had an absolute blast!  I just loved being outside and working hard and I even got to use a chainsaw at the end of the day!  Woohoo!

Nadine, Christine, Aly and Allison splitting firewood

We threw a couple dress-up days in there for a laugh, and I decided to show you a picture or two from "Twin Day", since I don't think the boys would have appreciated the pictures from our "Dress up as someone else" day...

Joshua, Caity, Tessa and Jake

I think the best part of this shot is that Jake taped... well I'm actually not too sure what that is, but he taped twigs (?) to his chin to make a goatee

Raf and Mimi might have won the day though...

The next entertaining event was our synchronized swimming competition... I nearly died of asphyxiation at the poolside because I was laughing SO hard!

Once again, we leaders started things off with a routine to the BeeGee's famous "Staying Alive", complete with the Dead Man's Float during the chorus.

the girls showing off their mad skills

Mike diving... I believe his sternum was the first thing to enter the water...

But the highlight of the night was the last group of boys - they spent 5 hours practising and making their own song!  It was totally weird, but just hysterical.  

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Needless to say, we all just had a blast.

group synchro shot!

And the winners got a fantastic prize: brownies and ice cream by the fire at our place!

Lots of love
Sandy

I took the Plunge...

Last week Outtatown headed into the North End of Winnipeg for our Urban Plunge.  It was one of the most challenging weeks of my life.  While in Winnipeg we stayed at a church in the downtown core, with the purpose of learning about life on the streets; issues of poverty and homelessness and how we fit into them.

The first day was fantastic.  The students went on a "Learning Tour" - they were split up into groups of 3 or 4 and walked around to different locations in the city to learn about they myriad issues going on in the city: community living, gangs, child prostitution, how shelters work.  They were also challenged to invite someone out for coffee and chat with them.  I'm not gonna lie, I was rather jealous - having never worked in an inner city situation before, I too wanted to learn about these issues first hand.  But this year is not about me, and as a staff member I sat at a shelter downtown from 11:30 til 5:00 signing in students.  This actually turned out to be a blast.

Not 10 minutes after sitting down, I had made two friends - their bantering just had me in stitches all day long.  Those hours just flew by.  It was incredible how my expectations for the day were turned completely upside-down.  My ideas about the homeless at the beginning of the day were rather stereotypical - those sad, down-on-their-luck characters we see on tv.  I expected to bring a smile and maybe even a bit of joy into the lives of the people I talked to that day.  Instead Ray and Keith spent the whole day making me laugh - an that made them happy.  The entire shelter was filled with laughter and  jokes - the sense of camaraderie there blew me away.

I left that day marvelling at the brightness of the human spirit.  The following day rocked me to my very core.

That evening, the pastor of the church we were staying in brought in a woman who was so drunk, that she couldn't even walk straight.  She had fallen over on the sidewalk, and he wanted to make sure that she was ok, maybe offer her a place at the church to crash for the night.  I was there as he was talking to her and it broke my heart.  For, as we chatted, we learned that she was also 9 weeks pregnant and in an abusive relationship that she was afraid to leave because her boyfriend was threatening to kill her.  So many things in that just left me reeling.  Here was a woman who was so desperate to escape the pain in her life she was drinking while pregnant - and might not even know that was a bad idea.  She also came from a situation where a pastor had to explain that he wasn't hitting on her, he was just trying to love her as a brother; he wanted to make sure she wasn't getting beaten, or was going to sleep on a sidewalk.  Here was a woman who had so little love in her life.  I was crying so hard at this point in time that I had to leave the office (luckily my colleague had joined us in comforting this woman, which left me free to leave).  I ended up sitting on the floor, sobbing, and crying out "why?!" over and over again.  How could something like this exist?  How could I reconcile that sort of pain with the loving God I believe in?

Luckily - and I truly mean that - I was surrounded by a group of people who were all too willing to carry me when I was broken.  I had people to give me a hug, to cry to on the phone to, to bring me a plate of dinner because I just needed to sit in silence and to pray for me.  It seems a little ridiculous, but the hardest part of my night was being brought a plate of food from one of my students - he had put extra cheese on it because he remembered how much I love cheese.  It was such a little thing, but after meeting someone who had probably never seen kindness like that before, it meant the world to me.  I'm not gonna lie, I burst into tears again when it happened.  

That night was one of the most challenging nights of my life.  And yet, I am so thankful that it happened.  One of my friends even went so far as to say she was excited that I went through it.  It sounds funny, but I agree.  I had my eyes opened to the reality of what goes on in our world - just how broken it can sometimes be.  I had my heart broken for the pain some people feel.  But I know that I will heal stronger than ever before - I know that I will never again be able to turn my face away from the people who need me.  I know that God is shaping me through all the experiences He's throwing my way this year.

And the best part of it all?  After all this craziness went down, I woke up the following morning to watch our 32 students go out into the city to bring love to those who need it.  They volunteered in shelters, handed out food hampers, baked cookies for a community and played with children who just wanted a friend.  I watched them go out and change the world and I knew that the situation wasn't hopeless.

making thank-you cards

serving lunch at the shelter

baking cookies for the community