Christmas 2008!

We had an amazing time at our house on Christmas Eve. We had fajitas. Everybody brought something. And it was simply awesome! Pics below.

We all exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve and it was an incredibly sweet time to be with all of our friends.

This is our amazing landlord! I took this picture mainly for Haley. (I wanted you to see that he actually came up and ate with us this year!) Also, it was his first fajita so his son made it for him and showed him how to eat it. And he liked it!

Diana and I with one of our precious national friends!

And that's a wrap for Christmas Eve 2008, and really Christmas 2008. On Christmas Day, we were traveling and, to be honest, it's a bit of a blessed blur! Let the countdown to Christmas 09 begin...

A Christmas Post (or two)

I'm not sure how to start this post, to be honest. I thought of starting with something profound, something to really get you thinking. But nothing came. So here I am. I have Christmas music going in the background as I write. While the pictures were loading, I was watching episodes of "The Office." You know the one where Michael Scott goes into the Pennsylvania "wilderness" and cuts his pants to form the kercheif for his neck? Steve Carrell is simply awesome. Anyway...Christmas. It seems like no matter how many Christmases come and go, the sense of awe and wonder I experience during this time is new every year. The very thought that the Story we tell, the Story that lights me up at this time, is real, is truly amazing. He came. He actually came. What a gift.

I was reminiscing about Christmases past and I thought I would put some pictures to take you back with me. Back to what I remember. My memories of Christmas are so rich, so full of the people I love. I am so blessed that this time of year holds memories of happiness and peace. The Cooper family of 3. Not really sure what year this is! The Casey side of the family grandchildren. Christmas in Englad 1996. We look like a very well-organized bunch.
And 11 years later, finally all back together for Chrismas. I think we've aged well.
Cooper side of the family grandchildren.

Jumping
The Cooper/Thompson/Todd Family

The Brook/Casey/Cooper/Yates Family
Cooper Family of 4
My hilariously awesome family with their Christmas crowns on. It cracks me up that we actually do this. Per our tradtion of cracking the poppers and trying to get the cool prizes out of them, we do, indeed, wear the paper crowns that come from the poppers. Wow.

Some artsy shots for thos who enjoy them...
Thanks for taking time out to go back with me. The next post will be Christmas present...a South Asian Christmas! Before I go, some music currents real quick, just because there's so much amazing Christmas music out there. Some of my favorites: Brad Paisley Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas (the Vince Guaraldi Trio is purely incredible), Comfort and Joy (Decemberadio), Holiday Spirits (Straight No Chaser- these are the guys who do the amazing and hilarious a capella version of "The 12 Days of Christmas"), The Hotel Cafe Presents Winter Songs, Joy (Allen Levi, Bebo Norman, Ed Cash), Let it Snow! (Michael Buble), The Living Room Sessions: Christmas (Chris Rice, nothing but piano, simple and awesome), and finally one of my new favorites, This Warm December (various artists including Jack Johnson and Zee Avi). Thanks for letting me share those. My ever-growing love/obsession with music is...ever-growing.

Happy Christmas!

Turban tying, fireworks, and other things over the last couple of months

They love fireworks here. Serioulsy. It borders on obsession. At least once a week, there are fireworks going off outside my house. So to celebrate our friends dedicated months of service in South Asia, we set off some fireworks of our own. Below are the pictures of the memorable evening, which were made that much more eventful by a spontaneous tutorial which I like to call: "How to Tie a Turban." Enjoy.

Apparently, my pose was not as Charlie's Angels "esque" as Haley would have liked. That is why she is laughing at me. And look at Tricky D over there, still in character.Trick D and I with our GIANT sparklers.Lighting them!
The beginning of the turban-tying tutorial. Brandon actually has the end of the turban in his mouth. (And, yes, that's really how you're supposed to do it.) And good job Hales holding that mirror.

Our Halloween was pretty uneventful and consisted of Diana and I dressing up in our geekiest garb ever and taking pictures. Above, I am decked out in a denim skirt with tennis shoes (which you can't see), collared shirt with the pocket filled with pens and a highlighter. All of the books I am reading are pictured behind me and on the computer is an article about quantum physics. OH and I have those sweet glasses...with tape.
This is D in her geeked out outfit. She has a little mixing of the patterns going on and some awesome socks with yellow moccasins. She, too, has those sweet glasses and she's getting ready for a day at school with her backpack and books handy.

This is my gingerbread running man, even though he isn't technically gingerbread. He has a green headband and red running shoes.

This cookie needs no explanation except to say: War Eagle.

We were all glad that Diana had been born and we got to celebrate with her by going to an amazing Italian restaurant in our city. This is D with her birthday dessert.
This is the dessert that I got for myself in celebration of D's birthday. This picture was taken before it exploded all over my plate. It was pretty much the joy of my life for the 7 minutes that followed while I destroyed it.
D and me!
And, finally, D with her "Happy 24" sign.

Forgive me for not posting these pics sooner. I'll try to be better in the future. Hope you enjoyed them!

Oh Spidey

The three of us headed north for a training a couple of weeks ago.  D and I had the privilege of staying at the YMCA for the few days that we were in the city.  The following story is what happened on our first night there:  We were trying to get settled, get our sleeping bags situated, have iPods and books by the bed, the whole nine.  As I was leaning back on the bed, getting ready to relax, I spotted out of the corner of my eye, quite possibly, the largest spider I had ever seen wandering free (ie. not it in a cage or on TV).  I jumped up with cat-like reflexes and began to shout something fairly indecipherable to D who was still on the bed.  Once she figured out why I was shouting, she was up pretty quick too.  The next ten minutes were spent trying to figure out what exactly to do.  Can we take care of this ourselves? (Obviously not).  Is it alive?  (Turned out to be a big YES after we shook the mattress and Spidey scurried up the wall, followed by our screams).  Should we call someone?  (Yes, absolutely).  So that's what we did and our Brother, Joey, came with one of the guys who worked at the YMCA and he took care of Spidey with a broom and a newspaper.  Here are the commemorative pictures of Spidey before his life tragically and necessarily ended. 

Where I first saw Spidey, right next to my mattress, concocting a plan, no doubt, to crawl into my ear and set up house. 

The close up shot, after we scared him and he crawled up on the wall. 

Our first and last shot together.  That may look like a smile on my face, but is really pure fear.

Hope you enjoyed him as much as we did.  More to come later...

What a Trip

A few weeks ago, Tricky D and I (that's what I like to call Diana) took a little trip.  Now, usually we organize most, if not all, of our travel.  For this journey, however, since it was a new place, our national friend organized one of the legs of our trip.  I wanted to recount the story for you.  Keep in mind, the only reason I would be recounting this story for you is because it is particularly recountable (and, yes, I know that is not a word...it's there for effect).  So, after the first leg of our trip, we spent the day in Delhi waiting for our evening train to depart.  When we get to the train station, our national friend tells us that our tickets are RAC.  RAC means reservation against cancellation.  Basically, only if someone else cancels do we have seats.  Just another little bit of information, this train is a sleeper train.  Remember those cots/ sleeping mats that you slept on in Kindergarten?  Remember how big they seemed when you were five?  Well, that is about the size of a sleeper berth.  And when you're 24...well, they're not so big anymore.  But I digress.  This train also happens to be non-AC.  I don't think anymore needs to be said about that.  Oh yeah, and because we are RAC, Tricky D and I end up having to share a berth.  Let me repeat that, we had to share a berth.  So here we are heading on sharing a berth on the non-AC train.  Whoot.  We arrive at around 7 the next morning.  I think I got about 2 hours of sleep.  Not the best journey, but we arrived and had a great week with our new friends.  The rest of our time is chronicled in pictures.  Enjoy!

                

Tricky D and I happy to be on the sleeper train...in our shared berth. 

    

Yay for mosquito nets!  It was our first time to sleep under one of these and, as you can see, we were both excited to have the opportunity to do such a thing.  Hence the picture. 

Our mosquito nets!

This is a family that we were able to visit and have lunch with.  They were wonderful.

So this is what happens when Tricky D gets the idea to do a crazy picture with a bunch of Indian men and I have the courage to ask our translator to make it happen.  I mean, c'mon, you can't beat this.  Look at these guys.  And those two crazy girls down front...wow. 

And then a serious one.  Because we are sophisticated ladies and we need to act as such.  

These little guys were hilarious.  No matter how many times we said, "I don't understand," or "I don't speak Hindi," they still talked our ears off.  But they were cute so we smiled, tried pick up words here and there and took a picture of them! 

And these are our guys acting out stories.  Yeeeeah. 

Still learning stories.  They were awesome!

So that was our week.  It was a wonderful time and we had fantastic students.  Hopefully we'll get to see some of these guys again! 

After Thailand

After Thailand, we headed to the mountains.  Haley had some friends from the States come over and we were able to show them a couple of our favorite places.  One of these cities is the current home of the Tibetan government, as you'll see reflected in the pictures.  I hope you'll see all that we see in these people and why we love them so much!  Happy viewing...

How can you not love this precious monk?  The majority of these next few pictures were actually taken in the monastery. 

These are women who are monks in this monastery. 

These are the prayer flags.  They each have prayers written on them and the belief is that every time the wind blows over the prayers on the flags, the prayers are lifted up.  It serves as a reminder to me about how continuous our prayers should be for these people. 

And these are the prayer wheels.  They spin these so that the prayers written on them will also be lifted up. 

Spinnin' wheels...

These are some of the prayer flags outside the monastery. 

Classic shot.  You just never know when you're walk down the road is going to include a cow. 

Thanks for checking these out.  More to come soon!