* OK, I can't pretend I'm in summer any more. I drove here to Mammoth Lakes on Thursday 8th Feb via South Lake Tahoe - what a beautiful drive. It's amazing how quickly the scenery became moutainous. The above pix are my first view of South Lake Tahoe.

I'm staying in Crowley Lake (a bit of a lower elevation than Mammoth (Mammoth is where the skiing is) which is lovely. I'm staying in a lodge owned by the church that my friends Matt&Abby (and their gorgeous little 6 week old baby Nissi) go to.

I got to do a short amount of skiing (making sure I took it easy and didn't re-injure my knee) which is fine as my lift ticket was free (Matt does some volunteering ski instructing here) and the ski hire is pretty cheap and have also bought my first real north american winter jacket while shopping in Mammoth (while it was snowing outside!)

And last night it absolutely bucketed down snow in Crowley Lake (well, from my Australian perspective!). This was the balcony outside my room after all the snow overnight!

I walked to church (just a 5/10min walk) in light snow this morning which was gorgeous. It's been fantastic to see this beautiful part of God's creation in rain, snow and sunshine (the sunshine came during church).

Church was fantastic too - only one song I knew: 'How Great Is Our God' http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/c/christomlin5864/howgreatisourgod864975.html (which was the same 'one song' I knew at church last week in Davis - it's also one of my favourites (thanks Matt T from SGCS for teaching it to me!)) - it was great to worship with other christians and to be really challenged by the preaching to not have a hard heart - there was heaps more to it than just that one idea but I'm still processing.

Here's some more wintery pix: http://picasaweb.google.com/bec.kimpton/MammothCalifornia_8142_07