merry christmas! ... or at least that's how it feels

we've just had a huge half metre dump of snow today, and a power cut all day long. we woke this morning to about 40cm of snow which continued all day til 4pm. of course we made the most of it and went out to play in the snow. the huge drifts were excellent for power tackles with soft landings ;) fran however managed to miss his target with a snowball that smacked me right in the face and now I have a sore nose and some idea of what it's like a get punched! we're lucky to have bottled gas where we're staying for hot water & heating as many NZ homes just have electric power. hopefully my pics will turn out well, but it'll be a while til you see them as we have the slowest dial up in the world where we're currently residing.

on the housing front, we moved out of the lodge ok and are staying with ian (instructor on the course) and seb (his fiancee) in their great house. they're welsh and my accent's already going a bit odd, so who know what I'll sound like by the end of the week. I thought I might have picked up a kiwi accent by now, but I'm still trying to figure out what it is! we're hoping the snow will clear by saturday or we might have to drive the long way round to get to queenstown. when we get there we'll still have to find a place to live and a job for me so it's still a little unsettling not knowing exactly where we'll be living or what I'll be doing, but I'm sure god does so I'm happy.