Christmas in the Mountains

We made it without (major) incident to Idaho, in spite of the snow (v. thankful for a long layover and a tortured decision months ago to fly out of Dulles instead of Reagan National, which didn't reopen on Sunday). From the moment we arrived, Christmas was in full swing, fat goose and all. We celebrated with the Idaho gang of Bunns, had lunch with Alison and Amanda, and did a lot of grocery shopping and packing before heading up to the mountains first thing on Wednesday.

This is about as good a picture of the three boys together that we could get.

The snow in McCall was sparkly and the weather was frigid--we woke up to -6 (Fahrenheit) some days, and it never got above freezing the entire time we were there (somehow, -6 didn't keep us from sliding out to the hot tub in the mornings, where our hair frosted over). Because of the snow, we weren't able to drive all the way to the cabin and had to snowmobile in--I stupidly neglected to put my goggles on before the snowmobile took off and literally thought my nose would be frostbit by the time we got there!

Sledding is 15 times more fun when you can hitch a ride back up the mountain from Cole and Papa.

Long train!

The cold kept us inside for a couple of days, where we played games, ate an obscene amount of food, watched hours of special features from Lord of the Rings, and played Guitar Hero incessantly. On Saturday, though, we all bundled up for some sledding and snowmobiling--our first time down the hill, Shaanti and I almost hit a tree and ended up laughing so hard we fogged up our goggles. Good, good times, especially when they end with hot chocolate and apple pie by the roaring fire!

I especially love how Shaanti's small child is clinging to her leg...completely ignored...

Christmas Eve and Christmas were great fun, too. Auntie Fay, Uncle Charley, Katie, David, and their friend Jeannette spend the week with us. We had our traditional Christmas Eve seafood feast on Thursday night, which gets better every time (Jenny and Chad's coconut shrimp took the cake this year).

Uncle Charley, Auntie Fay, and Jeannette

The Feast

Mom gave us each this year's ornament and a Bible verse she had for us, and Jason read the Christmas story from Luke. Dad read The Littlest Angel before we opened our stockings (Santa comes early at the Johnsons'), and on Christmas morning, Cole was overjoyed to find that Santa had brought him the bow and arrow for which he'd been fervently asking.

Mason's ornament and verse

Someone is definitely going to get their eye poked out.

Here were a couple more of my favorite moments: Cole opening his prize from Santa, and Mason...well, being Mason. "Maam!" is his favorite word.

Cole sang us a lovely song called "We're at Granny's Cabin for Christmas," and I think the sentiment was shared across the board. After a wonderful week together, we headed back to an almost-snowless DC, where our last week off is going far too quickly! As Dad said, it's nice when you look forward to something so much and it is exactly what you hoped it would be, and that's how I feel about our Christmas in the mountains.

Into every situation, a "little" snow must fall

...but the fire is so delightful...

I'm sitting by the fire with my third mug of Twinings Christmas tea, and I think it is snowing even harder than it was when we got up this morning and Jason shoveled the driveway. I know it's a good idea to get ahead of the snow as much as you can, but shoveling seems a bit like an exercise in futility right now--when we measured it then with a 12 inch ruler, it was almost completely covered, and I think six more inches have fallen since then!

It's really the nicest kind of day to be snowed in (you know, apart from the fact that we're supposed to be flying out tomorrow afternoon...). The only plan we had to cancel was lunch with Dawn, which is rescheduled for when we get back. Otherwise we've been drinking warm beverages and listening to Christmas music and opening our Christmas presents from each other (there's already enough to pack for Idaho without lugging our gifts from each other there and back again). It's a white Christmas after all!
I think, to celebrate, we will go ahead and watch White Christmas and eat Thai food at home (since we most certainly can't follow through with our plans to go out to our favorite Thai place). Then we'll pack up all our bags and keep our fingers crossed that, unlike many of our friends who were forced to abandon their travel plans for the holiday, we make it off the ground tomorrow!

Resurfacing

It seems a little ironic to post a blog titled "resurfacing" when we are about to be buried in snow. Wednesday it was "chance of snow," yesterday the prediction was 5 inches, and now that the flakes are falling, there's been a run on the grocery stores and tomorrow's flights to the West Coast have already been cancelled. I'm all for bundling up and hunkering down tomorrow...just as long as OUR west-bound flight can get off the ground on Sunday afternoon!

I do feel like I've resurfaced into my life, though. For the past three weeks I've been working on a term paper. Between cranking out the novel-sized paper and a mad rush to write innumerable constituent letters before leaving the office for two weeks, I feel like I've spent nearly every waking in front of a computer! Tonight Jason and I came home, and I immediately turned the Christmas tree lights and curled up on the chair with both the November (which was sadly neglected) and December issues of Bon Appetit. Seriously, it feels like I'm waking up to the world around me again, where apparently all my plants have died from lack of attention and I don't remember where things are in my kitchen.

This is where Christmas begins. The presents are under the tree, the Christmas letters are in the mail (finally!), and the only thing standing between me and seven glorious days in the mountains with my family (which my sibs and I have literally been talking about since September) is a quiet day with a crackling fire and 24 hours of snow. I know it is going to be a nightmare to make it to Boise in any semblance of on-timeness, but until then...ahhhhh.

Jason with Mr. Lewis, Ranking Member of the Appropriations Committee

As my semester came to an end, so did Jason's year on the Hill --today was his last day in his fellowship, and in January he goes back to the State Department. I can hardly believe that his time there is over. I will now admit that I approached our year of work cohabitation with some trepidation, but it has turned out to be such a blessing. Jason had a great experience with the Appropriations Committee, both personally and professionally. In addition, Jason's presence made my transition to my new responsibilities so much smoother than it could have been, and it was really nice to speak the same language for a year. He's really looking forward to starting his new job, but I know I will miss having him on my side of the city--and not only so that he can bring me my lunch when I leave it on the counter in the morning!

on top of the dome

Before he left, my Chief of Staff offered to take him on a tour of the Capitol Dome. So, I know that I've reported at least twice on this blog about my trips up to the top of the dome (this was my fourth), but really, it's a pretty swank tour that is hardly available to anyone, and Jason had never been before. Very cool, and a good way to end the week.

It's snowing out the window while I'm sitting here typing. Jason just braved the weather to head off to play hockey, and I think I might finish reading about Thanksgiving side-dishes before settling in for the night. It's going to be a white day tomorrow!

The Run-up to Christmas

If last weekend was as gentle as a soft snowfall, this weekend was a frenzied flurry of activity! We rushed home from work on Friday night to get gussied up and head to the Gambills for dinner with them and the Kings before heading downtown to see A Christmas Carol at Ford's Theatre. Tilly made some delicious vegetable lasagne, and we brought dessert--fresh ginger cake with caramelized pears, a recipe I discovered in Molly Wizenberg's book A Homemade Life, which I read over Thanksgiving. It was definitely a team effort to get it all put together in time, and it was a rousing success. Yay.

The play was just wonderful. This was our third time to see the Christmas ghost story at Ford's Theatre, and I tell you, nothing puts you in the mood for Christmas like Dickens. The play was peppered with Christmas carols, and when we walked out I was fully expecting snow and English jollyness. Instead it was just bitingly cold, but we were warm and joyful inside.

Saturday morning the girls from Book Club came over for Christmas tea and brunch. Book Club has possibly been my favorite thing about 2009. I love-surrounded-by-hearts it. This month we read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which I adored.

And in case we hadn't spent enough time together, our Sunday school class had our Christmas party on Sunday night. Last year's party was so much fun that I basically decided to recreate it--we had a soup bar (I ate, like, four bowls of soup, mmm) and played Loaded Questions. Tasty and hilarious. We seriously like the people in our Sunday school class. I can't believe it took me eight years here to discover them.

And now Christmas is a week and a half away. More importantly, it is only a few days until we head to Idaho. I keep thinking there is another week in here somewhere, and I am constantly surprised when I realize that at this time next week we will be buried in snow at the cabin. Until then, I am frantically writing constituent mail and making never ending edits to my now 34-page term paper (which is finally due on Thursday, or I might go a wee bit crazy) and trying to get the Christmas cards out before New Year's (or, more accurately, Jason has been forced to take over the whole production). So tired. Ah, Christmastime. God bless us, every one.

One Year Old!

Okay, so in my fervor to find the end of my term paper (don't worry folks, this one will resurface soon as the first draft of my thesis), I neglected to post a happy birthday to Mason on time. I did get to talk to him on the phone, however. He is very chatty. I wonder where he gets that (big brother, big brother...). I can't wait to see him in all his big-boy cuteness oh-so-soon!

Snow!

(Erm, this post is a week late... I blame computer problems. And school.)

I know the title looks like I'm exclaiming "snow!" but really I am trying to sing the song "Snow" from White Christmas...but once you get past all the "snows," the title line is totally filled up and it's not anymore recognizable than it was with just one word. But that was the song I was singing around the kitchen on Saturday when we woke up to big, puffy flakes of snow coming down.

Somehow, it officially feels like Christmas now. The rush to get to the end of the year--especially since classes go right up until the week before Christmas this semester--made me feel like Christmas was coming almost against my will. Plus, the weather was in the 70s, so every time I tried to play Christmas music I got that jarring feeling of listening to Christmas music in August. But the snow--and the down coat and warm boots--has sort of made everything fall into place.

We had such a delightful weekend. A relaxing weekend is, unfortunately, an unusual event, but somehow we managed to have no plans the entire weekend except a little Christmas party on Saturday evening. In fact, I got up in the morning, padded downstairs to work on the grocery list, then decided I wasn't read to get up yet and crawled back in bed! We had breakfast in front of the Christmas tree, built a blazing fire, and pretty much watched the snow come down.

After our party, Jason and I went to Carlyle in Shirlington for a late dinner. It was the first date we'd had in a while, and we got to sit upstairs near a window. The street in Shirlington is lined with trees that are full of twinkle lights, and from the top floor the twinkling trees fill the picture windows. It was a perfect place to celebrate the snow.

Plus, our house looks really cute dressed in snow. We had spent the previous Saturday (wearing short sleeves and sunglasses) putting lights up on our house, and it has been sooooooo worth the frustration--Monday night I had a long day at work and came home sort of discouraged, but Jason had turned on the lights and I pulled into a wintry fairyland when I turned into the driveway. I think more people need wintry fairylands in their lives. Next weekend is packed with activity--of the basically two full weekends between getting home from Thanksgiving and leaving for Christmas, we apparently decided to take one off and then have three Christmas parties the next--but I'm now going into it feeling all festive and Joy to the World-y, so yay for snow!

Happy Birthday, Justin!

Thanksgiving this year took us to visit Mom, Dad, Justin, Grammy and Grandmom in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Mom surprised us with a gathering of friends from MVNU one evening. Paul and Ruth Mayle, who I haven't seen since graduation, led a Spring Break trip to Hungary my senior year, a trip that played an important role in my decision to study foreign policy. It was also good to see Eric and Crystal Browning, especially their kids who have grown so much since I last saw them (it doesn't seem that long ago that Crystal was pregnant with William). Family friends and close neighbors, the Woods, also stopped by. They told us of their plans to visit their kids in Kurdistan (in northern Iraq) for the holidays -- including a stopover in a place we recently visited. I always enjoy introducing Missy to the people and places that played a role in my formative years. It made me start planning in my head a trip to Hungary for Missy.

Turkey Day met all the standards I remember from growing up -- roasted turkey, delicious rolls, mashed potatoes, all smothered in gravy. Mom also made me a raspberry pie (one of my favorites) for dessert. After lunch, a few of us fled to the basement to watch a movie -- and I finally got to see one of Clint Eastwood's great films from last year. We planned to head to the movie theater that evening -- but between the rainy weather and long lines, we decided to abandon that idea.


After a stop at Walmart to pick-up a few items on Black Friday (we keep a running list for Walmart, since we don't have a store nearby), we headed east to Millersburg, OH -- the self-professed center of Ohio Amish country. We stopped at a Amish furniture store -- completely powered with natural gas (no electricity), and then toured a Victorian home decorated for Christmas. We also stopped by the Smuckers factory and, Missy's favorite, Lehman's non-electric supply store, which provides merchandise for the Amish...and anyone else interested in canning, using kerosene, or planting a garden (I'm afraid Missy is considering taking up canning next year in addition to planting a garden. Yikes.). It was quite a day.


Every few years, Thanksgiving is close in date to my brother Justin's birthday -- so this year we were present to celebrate his 26th. He had his favorite -- ice cream cake! -- and we all relived the good ole days as we looked through family photos and shared a few laughs. Just can also be a bit expressive in his reaction to gifts. This photo is priceless. Happy halfway to 52, Justin! We're looking forward to your potential visit in 2010!


P.S. There was also an impromptu talent show -- enjoy!

November

In the phase of my life when all I wanted to be was Anne Shirley, I struggled a bit with the idea that Anne thought November was the worst month of the year. I couldn't disagree more. The leaves are almost as pretty on the ground as in the trees (and with Jason's new leaf blower, not a bit of a problem), there's that nice nip in the air, the panic of not having finished my Christmas shopping hasn't hit yet, and all we can talk about is food. Yummm... Plus, to add to the niceness, the weather this month has been just about perfect.

So, apart from randomly heading to Asia Minor, what have we been doing this month? Well, we've been:

Hay Wagoning with our friends from church, all bundled up and armed with hot dogs and s'mores stuff. Mmm. Serious good times.

Rocking out with the David Crowder Band at GW on Tuesday. We are serious DCB grouppies and knew every single song they sang. What is better, it was like an awesome fabulous worship session, which you can get a teeny taste of by watching this video.

Turkeying up by hosting a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner with friends. It just seemed like a shame to let my china and cute turkey plates gather dust for one more year. I made some pretty amazing stuffing and my first batch of cranberry sauce, and our southern friends gave us a crash course in dumplings and the difference between stuffing and dressing (apparently the latter has cornbread?).

Lacing up my new running shoes. Not to go running, of course, but to make sure they were the ones I wanted to buy (they are very pink...). The sore knees and achy hips that resulted from my old shoes made me feel older than 30. Besides, I just joined a workout competition with Kaylyn (think am losing already), and our office is planning to sign up for the Cherry Blossom 5K. In, um, April. Gotta get ready...

And tomorrow we're off to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with Jason's family. Let the season of celebration begin!

Turkish Delight

Actually, for most of our time in Turkey we thought Turkish Delight was borderline disgusting and instead ate baklava at an alarming rate. It turns out, though, that only the cheap Turkish Delight is semi-nasty—if you’re willing to pay, you can get Turkish Delight that is positively delightful. Needless to say, between the pastries and the sweets (and the kebabs and the hummus and the lentil soup), we ate remarkably well in Turkey.

Jet lag has me up really early for a Saturday and I just finished weeding out some of the bad pictures from our trip, so a good time for blogging. We cashed in some of our large pile of frequent flier miles this week and spent three days in Turkey. I’m not really prepared to provide you with a complete history of Istanbul (Constantine and the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, 1500 years of history, etc.), fascinating though it is. Our knowledge of Istanbul comes primarily from Wikipedia, our guide book, and The Historian, which, being about Dracula, is of course completely historically accurate.

We arrived Monday evening and ate dinner at the Oriental Express, a nice restaurant in the train station (which, incidentally, is the end of the Oriental Express). We had the most amazing lamb we have ever tasted. Seriously. Then we started out Monday morning at Hagia Sophia, a basillica (and you thought Music and Art of the Western World was a waste of time!) that was built 1500 years ago after Constantine (first Christian Roman Emperor) moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople (now Istanbul). Seriously amazing. The church was turned into a mosque when the Ottomans took over, so it has a crazy mix of Christian and Islamic art and symbolism inside. Kind of amazing.

Inside Hagia Sophia

Mosaics in Hagia Sophia

Afterwards we crossed the street and headed toward Sultan Ahmed Mosque, more commonly known as the Blue Mosque because of all the blue tiles inside, where we took off our shoes and covered our heads (me) to the Islamic singing and look at the goregous blue tiles that lined the entire dome. As we left the call to prayer rang out over the city.

Inside the Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque

We walked around the park that was once the Hippodrome, then went underground to explore the Basilica Cisterns, an amazing underground water structure that was built during the Roman period. We both thought it seemed a little Phantom of the Opera-esque.

After some fresh-squeezed orange and pomegranate juice (which was amazing, by the way), we took a boat cruise down the Bosphoros, checking out both the European and Asian sides of Istanbul, which set us up nicely for our day in Asia.

View of Istanbul from the Bosphoros

Wednesday we took a flight down to Izmir and got a tour guide to take us to Ephesus. There are lots and lots of reasons to visit Ephesus—largest archeological site in the world, walking the streets where Paul walked, my never ending fascination with Greek and Roman mythology. Our tour guide hurried us along inexplicably (later we discovered he wanted to take us to a rug shop where he got a bit of commission), which was kind of a downer, but Ephesus was seriously so cool. We got to sit in the theatre where Paul was supposed to speak to the Ephesians (read about it in Acts 19) and then saw the prison where Paul was held for his own protection.

At the Library at Ephesus

Ephesus Theatre

The area around Ephesus was absolutely beautiful. The weather was perfect and sunny, the Aegean Sea was shining, and there were fruit trees—oranges, pomegranates, olives—along the road. We also stopped briefly by St. John’s Basilica, where the Apostle John is buried, the House of the Virgin Mary (which is apparently one of two pilgrimage sites), and what is left of Artemis’s Temple (the rest, incidentally, is in the British Museum, which you can see here).

Statue of Artemis

On the Aegean Sea

Roadside Orange Stand

Thursday was the day for rain, and also for spending the morning in the Topkapi Palace, where we saw what it was like to live as a sultan. Then we spent the afternoon at the Grand Bazaar, where Jason brushed up his haggling skills (for the record, I like haggling with Kenyans much better than Turks. We laughed a lot more with the Kenyans.).

It was three days of go-go-going, and by dinner time, we were almost magnetically drawn to a restaurant that had cushions instead of chairs so that we could lounge a bit. Two last pieces of baklava and glasses of tea from the curvy Turkish teacups (my mom has had one of these in our house my whole life, and I only now know what it is!), and we headed home!

Note: I had a miserable time trying to choose which pictures to share, so to see more, head to the Flickr link on the side of the blog...