We spent an awesome Thanksgiving Day with Pastor Doug and his extended family. Since I come from a big family (five siblings, assorted spouses and numerous kids and grandkids), we felt right at home with the steady stream of little ones parading through the house, and snacks and food and drink everywhere. We had a wonderful time meeting his and Mona Beth’s family. Not only was the food delicious and plentiful, we got a great big to-go plate of leftovers. Mmmm…
We started in the day after Thanksgiving writing our first book about our adventures. I spent almost a week sorting my notes and typing them up, and then started the writing in earnest. In order to concentrate on the writing, we dropped out of life, spending six to seven days a week writing, eight to fifteen hours a day.
Our life has been quiet, very quiet. So quiet that Chelsea heard some scrabbling sounds one night just I had gotten settled into my sleeping bag. What should she see but a small mouse, calmly scaling the spokes of my bicycle, heading for my front pack. After it disappeared inside, she tiptoed over, carefully undid the Velcro attaching the bag to the bike, and tiptoed to the front door.
Opening the door, she tiptoed out, cautiously setting the bag down on the front porch. After a few minutes pause, out scrambled the mouse, heading off into the bushes. We knew enough to set the traps again, and sure enough, the very next night we heard the loud snap of the trap. No more mouse in the house!
During the Thanksgiving to Christmas season we did do a few “Christmasy” things. Chelsea helped our neighbor Pastor Doug decorate their tree – Mona Beth has quite a collection of ornaments from all her students over the years, and we helped Mona Beth out one evening by tying ribbons through bells for the Christmas party for her grade school class.
After another trip to the bone heap to collect teeth, Chelsea made alligator teeth earrings as gifts – she did a great job! We still have to figure out a way to seal them, but they’ll be ready to go as soon as we do.
A break with Erika
A few days before Christmas we had a really nice break and got to see some new territory. Erika, Kenneth and Heuetta’s daughter, took us over to Lake Charles for a quick visit to a hobby store. We’d been chatting about making gator teeth jewelry, and before we got too much into it we wanted to see what parts were available and what the costs would be.
We saw the hobby store and stopped by the Iowa Mall (pronounced eye-oh-way). It felt so adventurous having lunch at the Christmas Market food counter with “the girls”! We even sneaked in a trip to get supplies at Wal-Mart. Erika is very soft-spoken, and it was a very peaceful morning spent with her.
In Iowa Mall Chelsea spotted a leopard print scarf to match my leopard print cotton leggings. At only $4 we couldn’t resist. We’ve cut it in half lengthwise, and now Chelsea and I each have our own leopard skin scarves…too funny…now we just need a place to wear them.
Alex and our package
We’d been harassing Alex for a few weeks about sending us our winter things, and we begged him to stop by Costco and get a bag of pecans – they make it so much easier to get our morning oatmeal down! I also threw out the suggestion that he stop by a certain local liquor store and see if they carried Becherovka, our beloved Czech herbal liqueur (a once-every-few-years treat now that we’re back in the US).
Alex gave us a hard time about it for weeks, and then told us he couldn’t find anything I asked for – the liquor store didn’t carry Becherovka, he couldn’t find anything in storage…I was so discouraged. We really needed our jackets and winter scarves, and I very much wanted my red Keen shoes – I needed something red for the Christmas season!
On Saturday he texted me and said he was at storage, but couldn’t find anything. He committed to continuing to look, but then he wouldn’t answer my texts over the next two days. My discouragement deepened by the day.
We pulled up to the house on Monday after our adventure with Erika, and a package awaited us on the porch – a package from Alex! After checking the postmark, we realized he’d mailed it the prior Thursday, so he’d simply been giving me a hard time for the last few days!
We ripped it open immediately, and he’d found almost everything – our scarves, gloves, jackets – he’d even found the Becherovka, and had gone to Costco to get us the pecans, and best yet, he’d sent my red shoes. Isn’t it wonderful to have somebody love you as much as that? He made our whole Christmas…
I was so excited about my red shoes that we made a quick bike trip to Marceaux’s to get food, wearing my red shoes of course. Who cares that it was 34 degrees with a real feel of 22 degrees?
Christmas
Chelsea wrapped all the items that Alex sent, us so we’d have presents to put under our tree. We celebrated Christmas Eve by doing yoga, then having dinner and a movie, postponing our opening of “presents” until Christmas Day.
Christmas Day was a peaceful oasis in the midst of our orgy of work. We had a wonderful dinner next door with Pastor Doug and Mona Beth and their extended family, and no sooner were we home than Heuetta called, inviting us over for a few hours. We closed out Christmas Day of 2008 by hanging out with Heuetta and Kenneth and Peggy (Heuetta’s cousin from Lafayette).