Christmas, and another video clip with some news you probably already know...

A Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy New Year to all! We've had a wonderful holidays thus far and are still enjoying another week of break. Some of our neighbors have already tossed out their trees, but ours still looks lovely in the corner of the living room. I decorated it a few days before Christmas, only to have it tip to a lovely 45 degree angle when I had seven or eight ornaments on. Fortunately, Megan and Brian came over to help me right it in the stand (Nick was off butchering and Holiday Night-ing at the Village).

I also had a fun afternoon cookie baking with my mom and Andrea. I decided to make candy cane cookies (I remember making them as a kid). My dad volunteered to crush the peppermint candy that would go on top. After deciding that a rolling pin just wasn't good enough, my mom suggested a hammer. His hammer was in the car, so he opted for the sledgehammer in the garage. Definitely one of my favorite moments of this Christmas.

We each spent a few chilly nights working Holiday Nights at the Village, and are going to a concert later this week (BNL on New Year's Eve - yay!!). Christmas Eve and Christmas were both lovely - we managed to stay awake through Midnight Mass (I had not taken a nap that day, so I was worried about dozing off).

The video I'm posting today is from our trip to Florida last month. It's about 90 seconds long, but has a little bit of everything - drama, comedy, spectacular double takes, and an expert tackle by my sister. The Lions really ought to scout her for next season. Hopefully the Wildcats will fare better than the Lions in tonight's Alamo bowl (it's tied in the 3rd quarter as I'm writing). This coming Sunday is also Annie Christmas - Anne finally comes home on Thursday!!

The Trip to Florida...

I'm afraid this post might drift into a vague homage to my cousin Rob's trip reports, but not be as cool. Here goes anyway...

After hardly any sleep on Tuesday night, we were up at 4:15 on the day before Thanksgiving, ready to go. We drove all day (and night) finally arriving in Florida at about 2 in the morning. I drove for a few hours in Tennessee, and we watched a lot of movies.

By about midnight, Anne called us about every half-hour for a progress report. When we arrived, she was on the curb waiting for us to get out of the car. We said hello to Angie, Melissa and Uncle Paul, then off to bed - exhausted!

Later that morning, we had a good time visiting and getting a yummy Thanksgiving dinner in order. Melissa and Amine's house is adorable, and they were very gracious hosts. The Thanksgiving spread was awesome - Melissa's first turkey came out great! That evening, we went to the Grand Floridian to check out the Christmas decorations, see Annie's restaurant, and see the fireworks from Magic Kingdom. All in all, a wonderful evening.

The next day, we decided to go to the Hollywood Studios for the day. We were there first thing, and hoofed it right to Toy Story Mania - this was my favorite ride of the day. It's a carnival-style game, and so much fun. I beat Nick's score, and thought mine was pretty good, until we compared with the rest of the fam. We also got to see another of my favorites, MuppetVision 3D. In the evening, we saw Fantasmic, then went over to see the first night of the Christmas lights. The "New York" block of the park is completely covered with lights that are cued to music, and there's fake snow. It's pretty much awesome. The best part for me, though, is seeing how much my dad loves this. It's seriously one of his favorite things ever.

The next morning, a little visiting with Melissa and Angie, then we took Annie back to her apartment, and hopped back in the car. Yikes. The driving wasn't bad, but I think it wouldn't have been so crazy if we hadn't been in Florida for just two days. Oh well - seeing Anne was worth it. Enjoy the video.

Chris Blitz, this one's for you...

So, the past couple of days have been pretty whirlwind-y (if that's a word). Nick was on Kairos, and I was trying to finish things up at school and get ourselves packed for Thanksgiving. We get to see Anne in about 24 hours!!!!

I was at school late, then met Nick and the other Kairos adults for dinner at a Korean restaurant in Clawson. The food was good, but I really wasn't feeling sushi tonight - Mac and Cheese would have hit the spot. Then it was back home to finish packing and off to my folks. Tomorrow we're hitting the road by 5. We've got plenty of dvds and an entire crate of snacks, so we should be good to go. I had promised some people (Chris Blitz...) that I'd send some e-mail and post some pictures, but that would require getting out my computer. To reference one of my favorite Far Side cartoons, it was late, and I was tired. So, Chris Blitz, this post's for you. Happy Thanksgiving. :-)

Run... Run...

I suppose that title would make more sense if you'd been sitting in Michigan Stadium Saturday, listening to a pretty drunk guy shout play advice to Rich Rodriguez from his seat in the 60th row of the end zone.

In any case, we braved the elements to watch NU-U of M in football. It was cold and wet (which is a little bit of an understatement - we were soaked through!), but we had fun tailgating, and I (at least) had fun watching the 'Cats rack up another victory for the season. The only downer, though, is that now they've probably won enough bowl games to get invited to a bowl somewhere warm, rather than the Motor City Bowl, which I'd actually get to go see.

We've got a picture or two to prove how silly we were for sitting in the cold rain for hours - I'll post later this week.

"I swear I've seen a lot of stuff in my life, but that was...awesome"

A nod to another Chicagoan for the title to that post. We're tired today after staying up to watch election returns. It was a good day at school - my sophomores (many of whom are taking government) had lots of questions about how voting works, and I zipped home after school to try to avoid the really long lines that were out in the morning. I got to our polling place at about 3:30, and got right in to vote. We've got about 1700 registered in our precinct, and I was number 1047 - yay for voter turnout!

In between participating in an online chat for homework, we watched returns come in on a couple of different channels, comparing green screens and holograms. I went to bed after Ohio was called, and Nick woke me up when Obama was declared the winner. We watched a very gracious concession speech by John McCain (well spoken, and I hope that he can be a positive force in the Senate during the next administration) and saw some partying in Grant Park before I finally fell asleep - way past my bedtime! All in all, though, a great day. I was proud to vote, and truly excited to cast my ballot for a candidate I really support, instead of voting against someone I didn't. And how cool was it to see all of those people gathering peacefully and celebrating...an election.

Go 'Cats!

So, my friend Jimmy figured out that when he's not worn his Tyrell Sutton jersey, the 'Cats have lost this year. Good thing he was wearing it on Saturday - it was the first Saturday this season that Nick and I had competing games - both on at noon, instead of one at noon and one at 3:30. I flipped back and forth to see both Michigan/Purdue and Northwestern/Minnesota, but fell asleep at halftime, only to wake up for the last minute of the game. Yay! One of us (guess who?) is definitely looking forward to Northwestern-Michigan on November 15!

We're not your friends.

Dear John McCain - Thanks for the fake familiarity, but we're not your friends. We don't want to be your friends. Please stop calling us your friends. To summarize: we're not friends.
Thanks.

What color are their hands now?

Well, I wasn't caught red-handed. Blue-handed was more like it. While Nick was off at Homecoming this weekend, I was finishing a couple of knitting projects, including winding a skein of yarn I bought in New Zealand. Turns out that the handpainted yarn turned my hands a peculiar shade of blue. Oops.

This evening, we're trying to be informed voters by watching the presidential debate and trying not to yell at John McCain too much. In a happier note, my 'Cats are currently 5-0, and are getting ready to beat Michigan State this Saturday. Go 'Cats!

And how does your garden grow?

Ours grows pretty well! We've had a wonderful summer eating yummy organic veggies right from the backyard - lettuce and spinach, carrots, onions, tomatoes and squash! We even got more than 9 pounds of potatoes after planting some leftovers from the store. We combined our tomato haul from home with tomatoes from our Canadian garden, and have canned the past two weeks - sauces, salsa, and even a couple jars of pickles. We had a nice afternoon apple picking yesterday, so applesauce is the plan for this Saturday.

All hands on deck, part 2!

Well, now we're both back at school, but here's an update on how we spent the last days of our freedom (er, summer...). The deck is finished, and we've already used it 2000% more than we used the porch shell - we've had several nice dinners outside, and I've discovered that our wireless network extends to the porch. Now, all we need is a nice lounge chair for next summer! We also spent one afternoon changing out the address numbers on the front - a job which should have been fairly straightforward, but ended up necessitating retouching paint (which, of course, included a shopping trip to buy new paint that matched the faded siding color).

All hands on deck...

Hi there - a quick progress update on our deck. Nick spent a day sodbusting and digging holes for footings. Wednesday, he and his dad poured the concrete footings and did the framing for the deck. Work continues (weather permitting) tomorrow. We also happened upon a great bargain - we passed a house with a set of patio furniture for sale (they're moving), so we have a table and chairs just waiting for their finished deck!

This is the greatest sight these eyes have ever seen...

Ok, that may be a bit of an overstatement, but not by much. We've been back from our trip for almost two weeks now. Jet lag ruled the first week - we'd be tired at 10 or 11, but be unable to sleep until 2 or 3. It turns out you can watch a lot of House Hunters at 2 in the morning. We're both feeling much better now, and today was a day I've hoped for for nearly two years. Nick made headway in the past week with dismantling the porch shell, and today, with his dad's help, the porch is no more! They've outlined the deck, and plan to install footings today. Yay!

Kia Ora!

Hi - Kia Ora is Maori, a greeting that means good health, hello, goodbye, etc. I'm bummed because I had quite a long post from Tuesday that apparently got deleted, so let me summarize that first.

We had an awesome time at the Vigil. We walked several kilometers to Randwick Racecourse, the site of the Papal Mass. Our assigned space was right next to the dirt race path. We had a very cold, but good campout, and enjoyed the candlelight vigil. On Sunday, the Pope did a lap of the race track in the Popemobile, so we were about 10 feet away from him! Mass was good, but long. Nick and I did Sydney Bridgeclimb later that night as well! On Monday, we went for a day tour of the Blue Mountains, and visited a Wildlife Park where we got to pet koalas and kangaroos. We also went on a Harbour dinner cruise.

On Tuesday, we flew to Auckland, New Zealand. Yesterday, (Wednesday) we drove down to Rotorua. We saw the amazingly beautiful countryside, and got to take a gondola to Skyway rides - we got to luge down a mountainside. Very cold, but very, very fun. That night, we went to a traditional Maori dinner, called a hangi, and saw traditional dancing. Today we continued in Rotorua, with visits to a cultural village and thermal springs, then back to Auckland.

Tomorrow's our last day in Auckland, we leave for the airport tomorrow night!

Well, just use your imagination...

Photos aren't uploading right now, so I'll add them later. You'll just have to sit by your computer with bated breath.

We saw the Pope, and he was this big...

Hello all! We are having a great experience here in Sydney. World Youth Day officially opened with a Mass by the water on Tuesday. We went to catechesis sessions Wednesday, and had a gathering with other pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Detroit. We both saw several students there, which was a lot of fun. On Thursday, we went to a ceremony welcoming Pope Benedict. He traveled by "boat-a-cade" to Barangaroo (the ceremony site). There were lots of flags waving, and people from all over the place. We were pretty far back, but if you stood on your tiptoes, and looked in just the right spot, you could see...a dot. On Friday, we went to catechesis run by L'Arche in Australia - truly amazing. L'Arche houses are all over the world - they're communities of people with visible mental disabilities, and those without visible disabilities living together in community. The picture I've posted is the woman who did the first reading at Mass that day - in Braille. The bishop who did the catechesis that day was a very powerful speaker, and spoke to the group of such a wonderful vision of what it means to be church, missioned to the world. In the evening, we went to Taize prayer, which was just awesome. Today we're getting ready to leave for our pilgrimage walk to Randwick Racecourse, the site of tomorrow's papal Mass. We'll be camping out, which will be an adventure. It's been about 70 degrees Farenheit during the day, but it gets very chilly when the sun goes down. I've been under the weather the past couple of days (I think my body thinks it's fall, so I have my annual fall sinus problems and cough, but things are looking up - Australians have good drugs.) The last picture is just for smiles - when I looked at this sign quickly, it looked like it was advertising for the "Internation Wang Chung Academy" -Love and prayers to all!

We blog from a land down under...

Where women go and men plunder... Now that that's in your head, hello from Australia! We had good flights (very, very long, but good), and are in the middle of our first full day (Monday) in Sydney. The weather is beautiful-chilly in the morning, but once the sun really comes out, it's very pleasant. There are lots of groups here for World Youth Day from all sorts of places. As we waited for our credentials this morning, the kids sang and cheered with groups from Spain and New Zealand. World Youth Day events get started officially tomorrow (Tuesday). Continue to keep us in prayer, as we continue to pray for all of you! Love, Alison :-)

Really?

So, I just got off the phone with a pleasant woman from Air New Zealand. I guess it's better that we had this conversation tonight instead of in LAX on Friday, but they don't allow knitting needles in carry-on luggage at all. The ones that I'm using for my current baby blanket project (for a friend, not for me!) are the same size as the middle ones in the photo. Completely terrifying and dangerous, right?

Peoples is peoples...

Nick and I went with Andrea to see "Muppets Take Manhattan" at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. Very cool to see a movie I've been able to practically recite for 15 years on the big screen. My favorite part (still): the movie theater in Ohio, with Swedish Chef and the 3D popcorn, and Lew Zealand with his boomerang fish...

VIEW THIS. It's good. Seriously.

I got this video forwarded to me in an e-mail. Normally, I don't go for that sort of thing, but this was definitely worth it. Please watch and learn!