A funny thing happened on the way home!

So, on the way home from Sacramento Kent and I were "arguing" a bit about when we get in tonight. I was super confused how our flight would take 1 hour and 20 minutes from Portland to Seattle when it is normally just a 50 minute flight. Well, turns out he inadvertently booked himself on a following flight! Thankfully the flights leave about every 30 minutes so he's scheduled out on the next flight after us. For the most part, that gives Tiana and I time to get to the car and then we'll drive over and pick him up! Funny stuff!! Guess he felt he needed some "alone" time! Ha! Ha! Ha!!! Soon we're on our way, so better power this down so he can take it with him! Thought you could use a laugh!

And the Post Script: Kent ended up getting on the same flight as us anyway! Plan Foiled!! It was nice because our flight got in just a hair earlier so that means that we got our car just those moments earlier and now we can think about getting to bed!

Congratulations Kyla and Mark!

Today, Kent's niece got married in a beautiful ceremony near Sacramento.  It was a lovely day with just a few raindrops on their parade!  It was fun, too, because for the first time since Kent's dad passed away, the whole family was together.  Also, Mark's sister is named Kyla, too, and she has a daughter named Tiana!  We had to make sure to get photos of the two Kylas together with the two Tianas.  Wishing Mark and Kyla a lifetime of happiness!  More photos here.

Welcome 2010!

Good-Bye, So Long, GET OUTTA HERE 2009!!! It seems that everyone that we've talked to can hardly wait for 2009 to leave and so with hopeful expectation we prayerfully look forward to 2010!

HERE'S TO A HAPPY, HEALTHY, SUCCESSFUL

2010!!

Christmas

Here's our Christmas dinner! Homemade chicken fried steak, homemade biscuits, homemade hush puppies and homemade gravy over homemade mashed potatoes. Nothing fancy at all and not at all healthy. Thankfully I had worked super hard at work so I could make up for some of those greasy calories. At this point I'm extremely grateful that Christmas is behind us. Today we got up rather late, did a good house cleaning that was LONG overdue, cleaned out the car a bit, washed it, too, and now we just have a few more days until the start of a hopefully much happier, healthier 2010. Starting today clean should be a good start toward that!

Hanukkah celebration

Last night Tiana and I went to a friend's house where we were invited to join them in their Hanukkah celebration. Beyond being a GREAT learning experience to know about this Jewish holiday, over half of the people there were either deaf or hard-of-hearing -- one was even both deaf and blind! We were the second ones there and that means that at that point we were the only hearing people there. That means that we were relying solely on ASL. A bit later an interpreter and her hearing/non-signing husband showed up, but even so, as conversations do, we spent most of our time with the deaf with no real help from the interpreter! Tiana was particularly excited about her conversation with Ryan, the deaf-blind man! That was my first real experience talking with a deaf-blind person, too! We had some delicious chicken seasoned and cooked in olive oil, latkes (fried potato pancakes)and applesauce, green beans with a balsamic sauce, apple cider and strawberries. After dinner there was a white elephant gift exchange. Prior to the meal, the Shabbat (sabbath) candles were blessed and lit (both in Hebrew and then in English/ASL). After that, the men donned the yarmulke and a blessing again was recited in both Hebrew and English/ASL for the lighting of the Menorah. First the tallest candle was lit and then each of us was given the opportunity to take that tallest candle and light the next - right to left (as the Hebrew is read) until the whole Menorah was lit.


It was a very fun evening, although, both Tiana and I were getting pretty sleepy by the end, which is a very common phenomenon when using an unfamiliar language for an extended time! Thanks to Adam and Eric for offering us the opportunity to learn about Hanukkah and for Tiana, especially, to have an incredible experience using her ASL and expanding on it and experiencing, too, a "deaf" house -- the doorbell lights, the video phone message on the TV, the Blackberries, the language.

Die Bäckerei hat geöffnet!

It's that time of year! These are cookie type number 7 out of at least 10 types just before they went in the oven! These are probably my FAVORITE cookies of all time that I learned to love when I was in Germany! My host mom had to make several batches because between the two of us, we managed to eat most of them before Christmas rolled around! Believe me, I looked in more nooks and crannies to find these things than I really would otherwise have felt comfortable looking in -- like an addict I guess! These are Liebesgrübchen -- Love's dimples! A slightly vanilla-y sweet cookie bite filled with a tiny dollop of jam! YUM!!! Still to come; spritz, biscotti, Russian tea cakes, jamboree jumbles, peanut blossoms, coffee toffee cookies and who knows what else! Gotta get on it! Happy Baking (and eating!)

Kinda Quiet

Haven't really been in the mood to blog lately at all. Haven't really been in the mood for much. Short days, COLD weather -- kinda has me drained. We're all still here, though!