Merry Christmas 2008!

Dear Friends,

We can’t believe that another Christmas is upon us and that 2008 is almost over! We pray that you have had a blessed year with new memories made and simple pleasures enjoyed. We certainly have.

As usual, some of our highlights this year have been spending time with loved ones. We enjoyed visits from both sides of our family here in Texas. May found us heading up to South Dakota for our annual visit. We were treated to a spring blizzard, which was quite novel to us since we don’t get snow in Houston! I enjoyed an extended stay and the blessedly cool weather, fitting in walks and hikes.

In June I did something I hadn’t done in seven years – boarded an airplane! It was scary, but worth it. We flew to Pennsylvania to see dear friends, who honored us with another godbaby. We had a truly delightful time visiting with them. David was able to see family in West Va. at this time as well, while I stayed behind for a workshop. I even flew again this fall for a shorter trip back to SD.

In July, we brought a fuzzy bundle of fun into our home, aka Shiloh, a wirehaired dachshund. He has been enormously entertaining and is quite popular with the neighbor kids.

David continues to work as an engineer, often putting in very long days but fortunately not having to travel as often this year. I keep busy taking icon painting workshops, doing a bit of writing and editing, and crafting whenever possible.

We pray that your Christmas is peaceful and joyous, and invite you to visit if you are ever in the area. We also wish a wonderful 2009 for you. As we proclaim in the Orthodox Church during this season, Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Hill Country Trip

A few photos from our early Christmas trip to Hill Country for the weekend. We rented an adorable cabin...


Took a warm, sunny hike through dry fields and prickly pear in Colorado Bend State Park to reach Gorman Falls...

Stopped at Inks Lake State Park to catch a beautiful sunset, photograph leaves on the water, and climb on the rocks...

We also popped into the quaint little town of Wimberley on the drive back to browse the shops. I brought a bunch of Christmas music along for the drive, so it was quite a merry time! We look forward to going back.

Thanksgiving Day Parade

We decided to brave the crowds and attend the big Thanksgiving Day parade in downtown Houston this year. There were tons of small children and huge cheers went up when Nemo, Barney, and Santa Claus passed by. We enjoyed it and celebrated the holiday later that day with friends from church, who made a delicious Mediterranean feast for us - turkey with grapeleaves, hummus, and tabouli! Hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Two Dog Night

We've had a boatload of entertainment while babysitting a neighbor's dog this last week. Shiloh has greatly enjoyed having someone to play with and chase around the house; both of them cuddle on my lap or at my feet on the sofa while David stays on the floor working on his projects. We're also watching their guinea pig, who is also entertaining in his own way. He makes very cute noises when I scratch his neck. I think what this has mostly taught us, though, is that we are not ready for a second dog! Perhaps when Shiloh is older and isn't so driven to play constantly...

Aunt Pam Visits Texas

David's Aunt Pam came out to visit for a week in Oct/Nov. We had a fun and busy visit. The highlight was attending the huge quilt festival held in Houston. Aunt Pam also showed me some sewing tips and whipped up a beautiful table runner for us.

She also taught me how to make grapeleaves, when she wasn't busy cooking other delicious meals for us and helping with dishes!

And she adored Shiloh, patiently putting up with his kisses during photo shoots!

Thanks for coming to visit, Aunt Pam! We enjoyed it. We welcome all of you to drop by if you're ever in the neighborhood!

Kristina's Trip to SD

I again braved my flight phobia - this time alone - to go home for 10 days during the glorious autumn season.

The flowers were still in bloom at Sioux Park:



I had an adventurous afternoon reaching Cement Ridge with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. Let's just say I'm glad that they were driving! It was a beautiful afternoon and lots of fun.

My sister Teri planned an India-themed engagement party for our good friend. I was given the task of painting henna designs on everyone's hands. It was fun and easier than I thought it would be.

Of course, I also enjoyed lots of time with Dad, Joyce, Teri, Doug, and little J. Here we are on an outing to Spearfish Canyon. It was so beautiful! Lots of many small details to find.

Spearfish Falls:

Roughlock Falls:

It was a busy and full trip! Lots of time with family and friends; lots of time enjoying the refreshing weather and outdoors. Thanks, everyone, for such a great visit!

Ike

This was our first hurricane experience. After losing power at 11:30 p.m. Friday, we huddled down in our interior bathroom with cushions, blankets, a battery powered radio, snacks, and our dog Shiloh (who slept through the entire storm.) The wind had been picking up and sounded like a winter blizzard to me before we went to our safe room. The room we were in was very quiet, although we could certainly tell that the wind became much worse than earlier in the night; we started hearing loud cracks from outside around 2 a.m. We listened to the radio all night and dozed from time to time. I certainly didn't know what to expect from a hurricane but felt safe and secure in our little room, so I didn't feel overly frightened.

When we finally emerged around 7:30 Saturday morning, however, I wondered if I should have felt a bit more scared!

This was the view from our upstairs window. All the Bradford pears that line the entrance to our little neighborhood had sustained heavy damage. Neighbors were already out there cleaning them off the road. David went and helped them.


After being cleaned up:

The pecan trees in the neighborhood park also lost a lost of limbs, although hopefully most of them will survive. I doubt that we will be gathering pecans this November as we have the last two years, however! Most of the green pods had been blown off.

More from the park:

This is the view from our bedroom. David made sure we took everything off the walls throughout the house and covered all the furniture in plastic, just in case any windows broke. As it turned out, no windows broke, but you can see that one of our nice shade trees came down. Look closely and you can see its upper branches resting on our window screens! That was a close one.

Here is the demise of our lovely Bradford pear, on the left. It had been as tall as the one on the right. I was sorry to see it go, although I will be able to plant more flowers there now that the shade is gone.

David insisted on sawing off the branches by hand. Hopefully he'll take my advice and find a chainsaw for the major limbs and the trunk!

Another small tree over our wall:

Surprise! The neighbor's banana tree has fruit hanging over our fence...David may be tempted to try it out.

Shiloh was happy to help by stripping leaves off of branches:

A lovely sunset and cool front had moved in by Saturday evening:

We were without power for 2.5 days, but it wasn't that bad. We'd frozen containers full of ice when we heard the storm was coming so we could save some of our food, and I'd baked a bunch of muffins the night before. We actually enjoyed the peaceful evenings reading by candlelight and slept quite well after all the yard cleanup we'd been doing!

When we got our power back, we headed over to the neighborhood grocery store for milk, and fortunately it was open and had power. A security guard was monitoring how many people entered the store, which kind of made us chuckle to see in our suburban neighborhood. The store was restocking their perishables but did have milk (something very important to David because of how much cereal he eats)!

We're thankful that God kept us safe in the storm and provided cool weather afterwards. We'r also praying for everyone else who was affected by the storm. Natural disasters seem so much more real now that we've gone through such a big one ourselves. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers and for checking in on us!