New Year, New Look

In case you're reading this from Google Reader or another RSS feed, you may not be aware that I changed the masthead for our blog. It was overdue and feels good. In this case, I like change.

Pretty in Pink

Playing "dress up" one morning during Christmas in Illinois with the nieces...

New Year's Eve...

Here's a few photos from our New Year's Eve, playing Settlers of Catan. Mom is a big time gamer, in case you didn't know. Dad is not (hence he's not in any photos). I believe he was napping on the couch.

Sorry these photos are so yellow. I was experimenting with my camera's white balance (and shooting sans flash). Still thought the night was worth sharing, though.

Time Marches On...

My first bedroom doorknob

The first thing I did in 2010 was visit my past. Literally. Friday morning was bright and crisp as our family loaded up and drove a couple of miles from my grandparents' home place (where we were staying) to visit the house where I lived from birth until 1988. Fearing that it may not be standing too much longer, Dad graciously arranged to have it opened for a last walk through before we left Illinois. While I've driven by it numerous times since our family moved down the road to Green Valley (and a much newer home), I hadn't entered its premises in at least two decades.

Armed with cameras, it was oddly exciting to show this place to husbands and children who had never seen the site of so many home movies and many, many childhood stories. I thought it would be sad, but instead it was fun to see how little had remarkably not changed over the years while memory after memory flooded back. While the exterior had deteriorated considerably, much of what I remembered inside was still in tact.

(Above) Showing Els my first bedroom. As a child it had a tiny gold/cream floral striped wall paper. Yellow continues to be my mom's favorite color.

(Below) We opened the cupboards in Hannah's bedroom to find the same shelf paper and a small scrap roll of wall paper which Mom hung on one wall (the others she painted mint green) for Hannie's nursery.

Probably the best 'preserved' room was Dad's old office which he paneled in 1972 with reclaimed wood from an old barn. Those are feed sacks on the ceiling. Even the carpeting was the same! (As Nathan says, "Shag never dies.") In spite of how 'vintage?' this room was, this was were we kept our very progressive Apple II Plus, purchased in 1981. We were bemoaning how different our financial situation might be had Mom and Dad not invested the same amount of money in Apple itself!

Here we are in our living room. That wood stove changed the way we experienced cold winters in a house that seemed to have more holes than a screen door. We also fed it loads and loads and loads of firewood which we stacked in piles on the corn crib slab in the back yard.

I requested this repose of a similar photo we took the day after Hannah's birth in January 1984. While waiting for the school bus, we wrote her birthday in the snow and Dad took a photo of us by it. Funny how the view of this side of the driveway hasn't changed a bit!

Our home wasn't fancy, but my parents worked hard to make it as nice as they could and keep it tidy. It was the site of so many nice memories from searching for kittens in the haymow, to sledding in the pasture, to making up adventures down in the peat ditch. Looking out the laundry room window, I remembered mom's clothesline and how we would drape sheets anchored with old bricks to make tents. In the kitchen I remembered the unexpected Easter egg hunt that revealed not Easter eggs but long-desired Cabbage Patch dolls (I found mine sitting on top of the wastebasket in the tall cupboard by the fridge). In the front bedroom upstairs, I remembered laying on the floor and dropping missles (anything small from legos to scraps of paper) through the register vents to the living room below). While recalling these events from several hundred miles away, it seems like a long, long, time ago -- but while standing in the place where those memories took place, it seemed like just yesterday. I think that's why it will be sad when the house is really gone for good.

Unfortunately, the house was FREEZING so the little girls weren't good for long and our stay seemed too brief to capture all the photos I wanted, but there would probably never be enough time to revisit all the nooks and crannies of the place that's felt the most like HOME.

Christmas in Illinois Pt. 1

We arrived here on Saturday afternoon, December 26. It has been a white Christmas ever since! There are a lot of photos below, interspersed with text.
There are many things for which we'll remember this particular Christmas. One in particular was a special visit from our friend, Fredi. Fredi ministered in the villages with Planters back in the mid-to-late 90s. Six years ago he was hired to work in the Americ*n embassy in Tirana to translate for our nation's amb*ssador where he has worked ever since. This past fall he took a leave of absence to study two semesters at T*fts University in Boston and took up our invitation to spend Christmas with our family. Though he had visited America a couple of times before this time of study, we unintentionally provided him with his first opportunity to visit a 'drive-thru', a Super Wal Mart, and play Wii!

Gjyshe was a good grandpa and when it was apparent we would have a good window of time to play outdoors, he bought an overpriced sled at Ace Hardware. Here he is with Nathan trying to attach it to the 4-wheeler.

Ellie and "Uncle" Fredi. For a single guy, he was more than a good sport to hang out with a family of three small children!

(above) Tua turns three today! It's fun to get to be here for the celebration of her birthday. She just woke up from a hard nap in a not-so-pleasant mood. Apparently we are VERY similar in this regard. Proof that we're related!

A special treat has been getting to know our niece Pippa much better. She was only three months old at our last visit. She's a very cute and happy one-year-old -- I'm sorry this particular photo didn't capture her sweet 2-toothed smile!

Hannah's been doing a great job in the 'auntie' role, holding babies and playing toys with her nieces!

We're glad Seth and Bug braved the 22-hour drive from the Green Mountain state (VT) to be with us!

We got the girls matching jammies for Christmas. So glad we could get them to all smile at the same time!

Making special memories witih Gigi around the piano...

Gigi's new attic playroom came well equipped, including an awesome dress-up trunk. The girls loved 'clicking' around the kitchen floor in their heels!

One morning when we woke up, the world was covered in an amazing frost. I went outside and grabbed a few pics of the most amazing blue sky and white crystals! Within a few hours it was all gone!

Tonight is New Year's Eve and we're going to celebrate Tua's birthday as a family, along with some of my sister's friends from High School and their family. The time has gone fast and before we know it, we'll be on our way back to Kentucky!

Click here to view more photos from our Christmas travels on Facebook...

Christmas Eve at the Waggoners (Ohio)

(above) This fall Dad and Mom got a schnoodle puppy named Zoe... she's very photogenic, don't you think?

Rebecca recently acquired the little guy in her arms, Samson

(below) After family photos, we walked up and down Mom and Dad W's street delivering goodies to all the neighbors. The kids had fun taking turns handing the bags to the recipients with a Christmas greeting!

Merry Christmas!

Joy to the world, the Lord has come!

It's Starting to Look a Lot Like Christmas