January 2013

Pretty exciting title, eh?! I guess I couldn't come with anything more exciting for the dreary month of January. It started off very cold around here. Felt like we brought some of that SD type weather back with temps dipping below zero. After a week of lounging around,baking,

playing games

and recovering from Christmas,

Jay had to get back to work and Penny back to her weekly home school enrichment group that meets every Friday morning. She'll be practicing an extra half hour each week from now until April, when they'll be putting on the grand musical production of Esther. She'd been saying before we moved to Denver how much she wanted to get involved in drama. Well, while she has no speaking parts in this production, she'll get to dance and sing and learn that not everything involved in drama is always so thrilling. I think she's already learning how much work it is and how there are long periods where she has to be patient while others work on their parts. A good lesson to learn.

We also enjoyed going to the National Stock Show in Denver. But, it was FREEZING! So, we tried to stay in the indoors sections as much as possible.

With the new year comes setting goals. We have the goal of getting to know more people. So, Jay and I joined a small group bible study that meets during the sunday school hour at our new church. We've enjoyed that so far, but Jay had to miss the last couple of weeks, because he was sick. Penny and I are now trying to recover from the same virus that Jay passed on to us. I have, personally, set the goal of trying to repaint several rooms in our new house.

I've been working on a couple of walls and a piece of furniture in the living room, so far. Also, one day when Penny was sleeping off her illness and I had a little more energy I finally took it upon myself to really clean, organize, and decorate our office/homeschool room.

I have to laugh at how the cat knocked the lamp shade over right when I was taking photos of my room after just cleaning it. Nothing stays perfect for too long around here! It felt so good to finally empty the last of the moving boxes in there and sort through the mountains of letters that had accumulated. We also enjoyed meeting some friends to watch the disappointing loss of the Broncos to the Ravens. And we got depressing news that we owe a large amount to the IRS for the first time, this year. Jay worked at getting used to his new school. With his new teaching job, he is required to stay at one elementary school in the Fall and switch to another one in the middle of January. It's been a bit of a tough transition, since he got sick right about that time. But, we're so thankful that he still only has about a 10 minute commute with no highway driving. A fun thing that he did at the end of his time at the first school, was to have Penny come in and perform for the kids, by playing her Thai hammered dulcimer (a khim).

A couple of highlights for January was celebrating Jay's birthday

and also the fact that we've now been in America, as a family of three, for four years, as of January 10th.

To celebrate, I made some Thai curry and sticky rice. But, I think that I enjoyed it more than Penny did. Mom can't cook the authentic food that she is used to, even if seems like Thai food to me. Hope that you are all doing well and wishing you a very blessed Happy New Year!

Christmas Blessings 2012

Having only moved three months before Christmas, and knowing that we would be spending Christmas with family, back in South Dakota, I kept things simple in our household this year. Since I felt like I had just found space in our new house for all of our earthly belongings, I didn't really want to dig out more boxes and have more things to put away. So, I put a few decorations outside and one small tree in the bay window. One little decoration that I actually purchased was special, because it was hand-made by the mom of someone who goes to our previous church. It's a beautiful glass box with lights inside, decorated with a bow and flowers. The couple who were selling them are using the proceeds as a fundraiser to adopt their first child. So, I bought one for both myself and my mom.

For Jay's last holiday concert at his new school they truly thanked him for the great job he did with getting the kids to sing their hearts out. I was really impressed with how he got the kindergartners to memorize several songs, in English, with motions. The reason this was so amazing is because 90 percent of the kids in his school start without knowing English. Most are Spanish speaking with a few speaking other languages, such as Hmong or Vietnamese. We'll always remember their resilience and growth as we watch the tree, that Jay was given after the concert, grow.

This was the first year that I tried something new. I had always received these kinds of homemade gifts when I was a teacher and always loved them. So, this year I finally made some homemade cookie dough gifts in mason jars. It was really fun and I hope that everyone will enjoy them the way I've enjoyed other's gifts which they have generously given to us over the years.

One of the best gifts we received this year was the addition of a new sister-in-law into our family. My brother, Bradley, got married to his beautiful bride, April. And she asked me if the "something borrowed" thing that she should wear could be my wedding dress. It was a special sister-bonding experience to see April wear my dress, which I had just worn nine and half years ago. I can't believe that Jay and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in 2013! Seeing them exchange their vows reminded us of our own vows and renewed our love for each other. We both feel like we've grown even closer, especially through this past year of so many changes.

My mom did a great job with the dresses, flowers and the cake.

After the wedding, we all enjoyed celebrating Christmas together. We had fun by playing games together, having sleepovers for the cousins at Grandma's house, opening Christmas gifts and watching Brad & April open their wedding gifts. Jay and I also enjoyed getting a little alone time and went to watch the Hobbit. Here are a few pics from our Christmas gatherings.

Penny's favorite gifts, by far, were her I-tunes gift cards. She had been telling me for months that that was what she wanted. So, she wasn't too surprised when she got that from us. But, when she opened up a card from Brad & April and found a second one, she let out a big hoot and holler. She likes finding Korean, Japanese and Thai music to download from i-tunes. She was very excited, when she got home and already used up her first gift card.

We were very blessed to have safe travels in between a few different snow storms that passed through.

We were also totally blessed to have some new friends in Arvada who were willing to come over to our house every day for a week to check on our kitty cat.

They even shoveled the driveway when it snowed here for Christmas eve. What a gift to have already found some new and trusted friends who willingly reached out to us! We feel very cared for and loved by God!