Thanksgiving Weekend

On Thanksgiving, we met my grandmother for lunch at 11am at her nursing home. She was thrilled that we would come and have lunch with her that day. My mom is in Texas visiting my brother, Tommy, who is going to Texas A&M. Ryan's mom is in Wyoming. After visiting with my grandmother, we went south of Seattle to have another meal with Ryan's extended family. There were around 20+ people there. We had a nice time seeing them as we don't get to see them very often.


The day after Thanksgiving, Lighthouse Mission Ministries (a Christian homeless and recovery shelter) in Bellingham was having their community meal. Ryan and I were the dishwashers for the event. There were easily 500 people that came in between 11:30 and 2pm. Thankfully they used plastic ware and styrofoam (though that part's bad for the environment!). We were washing things like the pots and pans used for cooking and the serving trays that were getting messy, etc.

This is the gym where the meal was served.

Today we went to see the play "Bye, Bye Birdie". My former student works in the box office and had informed me that today's 2pm show was "buy your tickets for whatever you have". I had about $1.40 in cash on me so I got two tickets for that price! It was mostly a good show except for a few innuendos that could have been left out. We were hoping that a 1960's play would have been devoid of those things, but nope.

Now we're back home and back at the homework for the rest of the weekend.

Babies, Dancing, and Roses

On Saturday I finally had a social outing! Since we had Monday off for Veteran's Day, I was able to get out from under the books a bit! My friend Heather was having a baby shower for her 2nd son, baby number four. Whoever made the lunch was definitely a chef. Showers are always fun to get together and celebrate a new baby coming soon!

I enjoyed hearing birth stories and like to compare notes now to see who I'd maybe want for a midwife and whether to 'go natural' or epidural.

This is usually how we look. Here's Ryan studying at home, and then the next pic he's studying at a local coffee shop. I'm there studying right along with him. At least we are at the same place in life. We decided that if I thought I might want to get another degree, now was the time. It's working out well to be doing the same thing together.


These were a nice surprise from my husband. : D He knows that I love two-toned roses. These were beautiful because of their speckles and that the colored part was on the inside of the rose.


Last Saturday night we tried Argentine Tango for the first time. I enjoyed it more than Ryan, but he still had a good time. I pick up dancing quicker as I've danced a lot of my life. Ryan danced a few rounds and then took a break while I danced with the mostly gray-haired population there. I hope we'll go again sometime, but I still like swing dancing more (which I haven't done in a long time).

Well...it's a lot of the same news on this end at the moment! : ) Lots of homework and going to work. This past weekend Ryan had his drill weekend for the Navy reserves. We were able to meet up with some good friends on Friday night for dinner at their place, which was a joy as we hadn't seen them in awhile and I'd been craving some socializing! On Sat., my mom and I went to La Conner for a couple of hours to explore their Arts Alive event. We had a nice time walking around and exploring the shops and artwork there.

I've been subbing A LOT as the teacher who had the medical emergency with her son is not able to return this quarter. Therefore, a few of us have to cover her classes, which is more than I bargained for while doing my masters! I was just asked again today to sub for another that is sick. Phew! Ryan and I are both looking forward to December for a break in work and classes!!

This time last year Ryan was deployed to the Mid-East. As I'm driving around and looking at the changing leaves, I remember that he didn't get to see this change happening last year. I would mail him colorful leaves so that he could have "some fall" in the desert. I'm so grateful to have him home!!

I worked on Halloween but decided to wear my flamenco outfit from Spain to work. Since I haven't taken many pictures lately, I thought I'd reminisce with a few from when we lived in Spain and that way I can also share my flamenco dress. The dress was given to me by a lady in my dance class. It had been her daughter's. Of course girls/women there have to get a new dress every year!

While we were there, I was taking a Sevillana dance class. It's similar to flamenco, but more folk dance. Every year is a large horse fair where people dance this Sevillana in hundreds of open-air rooms/restaurants. My mom came for a visit during that time and had her birthday there.

Update and Final Maui Video

Things around here have mostly been school work and going to work. : P I have just finished a course on Linguistics (phonetics, phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax, etc.). Today I begin a course in Advanced Grammar. My courses are accelerated in that they are comparable to semester long courses crammed into 6 six weeks, hence, one course at a time is considered full-time. I will graduate in May of '09. I'm thinking of also doing a certificate in CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) so that I can teach English from home via internet with students all over the world someday when we have little ones. That would take another 6 months to complete.

Ryan has just begun meeting with two guys from Hong Kong once a week as language partners. He helps them with learning English. We'd like to take them around and show them some of American culture. I hope to invite some of my students too. I have a student from Thailand who is nannying here that doesn't get much interaction with other Americans her age.

Of course we're also trying to spend time with family and friends, and mostly planning quality time with one another so that our other commitments don't keep us away from each other. I don't have any new pictures as we haven't been out much lately! Last weekend, mostly all weekend, I was finishing a research paper on male-female discourse (how we differ in the ways that we talk). There were some surprising findings such as there are many situations in which men talk more. Anything in the public arena, men have been found to be the talkers!

For now, I hope you'll enjoy our final picture video from Maui.

It's Fall

These are some recent pictures of a couple outings that Ryan and I have had in between homework. Some of the pictures are from the recent "Festival of Family Farms". The others are from a walk we took in Bellingham yesterday to enjoy the fall leaves before heading to the Co-op to study for the evening. We had a refreshing time with God as we walked, enjoying the quiet beauty around us.

It's going to be a busy week for us with homework, as always. I've got a research paper to crank out this next week too. Plus, I'm subbing some (on top of my regular hours) for another teacher who is having a medical emergency with her son. My college classes are going well so far, thank God. Ryan is also doing very well over all. We are thankful to have this time in our lives for further education.