i really needed to take one more flight to get my MVP gold elite status with alaskan airlines (sounds dumb but i swear it’s worth it!), so one random afternoon i thought i would book a flight to missoula montana the following week to see my best friend jackie. for some reason it never even crossed my mind how freaking COLD it could be in montana in december, i think i kind of forgot about winter. sure enough, the day before my flight i checked the weather and it said – 26 and snowing… ha!! growing up outside of calgary had me used to this kind of weather years ago, but i haven’t even seen SNOW in over 2 years! i was, for the first time in my life, soooo excited to experience that again. i love endless summer and i wouldn’t trade kauai for anything, but there are days where i just wish i could feel cold and cozy at the same time, to drink hot coffees snuggled up in blankets with nothing to do outside. thanks to montana’s cold snap i was in luck.

i didn’t have any winter shoes except some old boots i found in my closet that were minutes away from falling apart, jackies daughter told me i should maybe think about getting some new shoes the minute she saw me (haha!). luckily jackie had winter gear for me and i managed to keep warm. the snow was sooo beautiful and i was quickly reminded how short the days are in the winter. on my first day, despite the snowy roads and flurries we decided to take a road trip to glacier national park since i had never been before, so we drove real slow (and real careful) and talked and sang the whole way there:). we were the only people in the park so we looked for good photo spots and danced around on the snowy road;) i was sooo happy, and coming from the most ‘anti-winter’ person you can be, i think i may even love winter now!

we walked around the town of whitefish and visited a local coffee shop that was opened by photographers, and we sat by the fire and drank holiday drinks:). it finally felt like christmas! the rest of the trip was so good. even when we didn’t do anything, jackie and i always have the most inspiring conversations. i left montana feeling motivated and alive. we talked a lot about how important it is to be reflective in life and how if you’re not, you run the risk of being what i like to call “a floater”, where you don’t let yourself feel anything good or bad, you just kind of … exist. jackie is always reminding me to take risks especially with my heart, and it always feels so rejuvenating to be reminded of that. we also talked a lot about business and she inspired me to create a new website… so naturally i didn’t really sleep while i was there and when she went to bed, i got to work… a few days later and wallah! i just launched my first showit5 website last night! (to check it out, click here!)

so, cheers to the holiday weekend, to being cozied up with people you love infront of fireplaces and christmas lights, to great friendships and to the winter solace! for those of us back here in hawaii, believe it or not we’ll be dreaming of these snow covered trees! <3