Christmas Time

I love food at Christmas time. Everyone does! We ate an Italian dinner on Christmas Eve. I love our Christmas tree and how it makes our home smell so good. And all the Christmas cards we get and new holiday pictures of families we get. But I really love the eating part of Christmas and the baking and the time off from work!
Steamed mussels to start. Mmm!
Spaghetti Vongole (clams) for dinner!
An Italian pastry for dessert! I found this pastry at the Italian deli near us and it suggested to add cream and berries after warming the pastry. So I did and it was yummy!
Stockings hung.
Our Chrismtas day picture.
Otis the Reindog so tired after lots to eat on Christmas day.

Merry Christmas!

Birds In The Air

I look forward to fall/winter in Houston. All the birds can now come out of the shadows and perch themselves on the power lines for everyone to see. It makes me really happy to see the birds while driving around. When I see a lot of birds perched on the wires, I smile and say, "Biirrrrddssss!" We get to see more hawks flying around, too, and it's a fun sighting...

The following pictures are from spotting birds up the Unalakleet River this past September. I like seeing them, too!He's got ruffled feathers...
Nice bird in flight.

Esther Pederson Print

We got a beautiful print from Esther Pederson of my favorite fireweed. It's finally framed and hanging in our bedroom. I love it.

It's a Girl!

We found out we're having a girl nearly two weeks ago on a Monday. The following day we both went to work and were so excited to tell co-workers. At the end of the day we compared stories of what people's reactions were.

James: People kept asking if that's why I wore pink today!

I laughed and said, "I wore all black."

Didn't even occur to me! Really, that day I wore what made me really happy even though it was all black.

Oh, and James didn't wear pink on purpose...just a happy coincidence. :)

When I wiggle, wiggle, wiggle...

On the boat ride back home, we were singing "When I wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, I just giggle, giggle giggle..." or something like that. There's dance moves that Ayuu was doing!


And she's done wiggling.
Really done.

Fishing for Silver Salmon

While Tera, Ayuu, and I picked berries, the boys went up a bend in the river to fish for silvers. They caught some nice ones in less than an hour!The bounty.
James and his real big silver. He was so excited and proud. :)

Berrypicking trip with Matt, Tera, and Ayuu

We picked the rainiest day to go for a boat ride with Tera and Matt and Ayuu. But we wanted blueberries and silver salmon! It rained our whole boat ride up, but it stopped when we stopped to pick berries. What a good day!Mmm, blueberries!
Ayuu, Tera, and I taking a break.
Ayuu and her berry bucket. :)
We all saw this animal in the distance across the lake. It looked huge from that far away! We thought it was some magical creature or a giant mammal...
It was a big swan after all.
see?

Trip back to Unalakleet

James and I got to go home in September. We were still on Houston time, so we'd wake up early in the morning when the house was still quiet and go for a walk around town. The first morning we walked on the beach and found some fun stuff...Jaw bone of something butchered on the beach.
Back bones of something butchered on the beach.
Bear tracks! They were going in the same direction as us on the beach, and after a while we thought, "Maybe we shouldn't be following bear tracks!" They were fairly fresh and were overlaying 4-wheeler tracks. We found out later the bear had walked through town just hours before we happened upon it's tracks.

Spain Part 5

Row, row, row your boat! James really wanted to take me to Parque del Retiro for a romantical boat ride on the lake there. He thought it would be so nice to row me around the lake. It really was a lovely day to stroll through the park and enjoy time on the water. We saw big fish and little fish and ducks.One of the many statues of men on their horses around Madrid. This one was on the edge of the lake.
Isn't he romantic?
The pretty monument on the lake.
Parque del Retiro

Spain Part 4

Delilah's Bar - it's one of Madrid's bars where famous people hang out. If we saw any famous people, we didn't know it. A lovely bar though.
James in Plaza Santa Ana - a square full of cafes and bars and their outdoor seating. It was very lively!
Maceira's, probably our favorite restaurant in Madrid. They serve seafood in the Gallaecian style...from the northwest part of Spain. The area is similar to Ireland in climate. Clams, mussels, and octopus were our favorite!
The Plaza Mayor at night. So lovely.
Inside Las Cuevas de Luis Candelas Restaurante - where we had another anniversary dinner. The restaurant is built into the ground like a cave and is the place Luis Candelas, a famous bandit, would go after his thefts. We ate so much meat here! We had serious meat comas that evening AND while we slept. Oh man, it's still hard to look at the pictures of the food we ate from there...which is why I didn't post any of the food. :)

First Sonogram

Aaahhhhh, little Kochuwa. :) Tera's girl, Ayuu, named the baby Kochuwa...some random name that popped in her little 2-year old head.

Weekend in Granada Part 2

We visited the Alhambra, a Muslim palace. It was amazing! Here are pictures from our tour.James relaxing at a typical outdoor cafe. This was after our tour of the Alhambra. Sorry for the out of order pictures!
James and the Sierra Nevada behind him. Hard to see with so much sunshine! There was snow on the mountains and it was 90 degrees in Granada.
One of the many ponds on the grounds. We were amazed at the structures for water running throughout the palace. Fountains, streams, ponds. Very nice to hear running water throughout the hot morning.
Lots of detail on a ceiling inside the palace. It was all carved! Amazing details.
There was a part with a circular courtyard. We climbed the stairs to be on the second floor of it. Here's the ceiling.
While we were there, a group of tourists stood in the center of the courtyard and sang a hymn. Made me cry! It sounded amazing with the acoustics of the courtyard. A hawk even flew above us while they were singing.
Me and Granada in the background.

Weekend in Granada Part 1

We celebrated our anniversary in Granada, Spain. A city in the south of Spain and home to one of my co-workers. He told us where to stay and where to eat our anniversary dinner. The hotel and restaurant were definitely two of our most favorite things we experienced in Spain! I highly recommend El Ladron De Agua Hotel and Las Tomasas Restaurante.View from our hotel room. The hotel was on a tiny street and next to a small stream. There were dozens of stray cats under a bridge on the stream that were exciting for tourists, including us.
Just down the street from our hotel there was a beautiful church.
James in the plaza by the church.
One of the main streets in Granada.
Catedral de Granada. Our camera battery died here and I left the charger in Madrid! So we bought throw-away cameras the next day.