Christmas Decor

The day after our Thanksgiving party (which was actually a Saturday since most of our guests had classes on Thursday and Friday), we removed all the autumn decor and began to put up Christmas decor. I always used to dread the process itself, but I realize that in order to get the beautiful end-result and ambiance that I so LOVE this time of year, it is a necessary evil. :) So we made an event of it. We put on some Handel's Messiah and began to sort through boxes of evergreen garland, lights, a tree, and some bows (all that were made available to us by our landlord and/or previous renters who left stuff behind!), and got to work.
I love the feel of Christmas!

-JLR

American Thanksgiving

So much for "stay tuned for a bunch of posts"...

Three days after the turkey-toe fiasco, we celebrated American Thanksgiving. I hate having to specify which Thanksgiving, actually, since I used to only ever think there was one. :) But where was I... oh yes, the Thanksgiving get together. So much fun! We had I think nine people at our get-together. Food was the classic menu with a few special (though not exotic) dishes... turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, noodles (in a gravy for on top of the mpotatoes-- a kirksville thing), gravy, green bean casserole, garden corn, sweet potato casserole, cranberry jello salad (Tim's grandma's recipe), rolls, apple pie, pumpkin bars, peanut butter (and chocolate) pie, and ice cream. It was all so yummy!
We also had our Gratitude Garland displayed. It is a tradition we're hoping to make annual... you write things you're thankful for on autumn-colored paper leaves. Then you string them together and hang it as decor! We have so much to be thankful for, so it is a very good exercise to remember all the blessings God has given us over the past year.

-JLR

Incident

I have a lot to blog about-- the past week or so has been pretty busy around here. So stay tuned for more posts coming soon...

Ok. So the incident that has prompted this post is that on Wednesday of last week (the day before Thanksgiving), I needed to get our turkey out of the deep freezer. It was to spend a few days in our fridge before roasting it on Saturday. Well, anyway, I got it out of the freezer and brought it upstairs. As I was reaching down to get a pan from a lower cabinet, I lost my grip on the handle/tag and the turkey landed on the second and third toes of my right foot. Ouch! I'll spare you the details of my overreaction and frantic call to Tim, who thought I was DYING! Turns out the second toe is broken and the third toe is bruised. I spent a good part of Wed and Thurs with my foot up and iced. Thankfully by Friday I was able to start moving around a bit.

The good news is that it's my first broken bone in my whole life. Not bad, really, if you consider how accident-prone I am. :)

-JLR

Church Split

Over the past few months, one of our supporting churches has split. Well, perhaps 'split' isn't the right word... it's more 'exploded.' Only a core of people remain and the rest have been scattered to other churches in the area. I don't know which side is right (though I have my suspicions...) and quite frankly it isn't my issue to judge unless everyone wants to present evidence from both sides and have me judge for real once I have all of the unbiased facts... and sorry, but I don't see that happening. I love people on both sides, so what do I do? Tim and I have prayed a lot and have decided it is wise to stay out of it unless we are called in to be reconciliation facilitators (again, HIGHLY unlikely). We have loyalties on both sides and hope to uphold them all and love the Body of Christ (broken as it may be) as best we can.

-JLR

Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC

Today was a beautiful day. We've been in the Langley, BC, area for more than two months now and decided that a trip to Vancouver was finally in order. You know, after driving across the US, we just weren't in a hurry to get in the car and visit ANYWHERE! So today we took advantage of the fact that we had a rare opportunity-- no classes, no work, no other obligations AND the weather was good!

Stanley Park is in the downtown Vancouver area. In a lot of ways, the urban setting mixed with natural beauty reminded me of Forest Park in St Louis, but that's before you factor in that it's on the WATER and with MOUNTAINS in the distance!!! There is an amazing walking/biking trail that runs along the perimeter of the park, right along the ocean. Or maybe it's not technically the ocean there... maybe it's a bay or a gulf or whatever. It doesn't really matter for the purpose of this post. Anyway, it was cold and we had to bundle up, but managed to enjoy a brief picnic lunch (it was cold!) and some time at Prospect Point, which seems to be a fairly famous lookout point. We took Micaiah's bike and she definitely enjoyed the riding, the playground, and later the piggy-backs and shoulder rides as we walked along part of the sea wall.

These first 3 pics are from Prospect Point.

Micaiah got to ride her bike for part of the path.
The next 3 pics are ones we took along the sea wall bike/foot path and along the second beach area. I was feeling a little artsy today and got some good pics of the sun&reflection. Keep in mind it was only ~2:15pm when I took those!
All in all a good trip!

--JLR