christmas with the kooks

we had a great christmas with n's sister the feebird visiting us. hils wanted to greet her with a prisitine, little tree nesting a few vintage ornaments. ha! look what i talked her into! victory! i don't have a photo of my jimi hendrix outdoor tree, but just try to imagine it glowing in our snowy front yard. what would i do were i left alone to decorate?

next photo: wally has some problems with her ACL in her back legs so fee came up with this nifty idea for hiking. clearly we did not go with her plan, but we were impressed with her ability to get flora into the living room.

here is our kiva fireplace decorated with mini-luminarias (paper bags with sand and candles- they also have plastic electric ones) which people love and hate here. they are beautiful, but not many people put them up because they are a lot of trouble. you do get the craving for some fun Christmas lights twinkling up and down the streets, but hardly anyone does that either. but nothing, nothing is like tacoma with its inflatable elves, snowmen, revolving santa sleighs and reindeer, carols pumping from loudspeakers, and whatever else you can fit onto a roof above a manger scene. when i lived there i even bought a giant frosty at a lawn ornament garage sale once with the hopes of eventually leaving it on tim and abby's lawn, but it never happened. yes, meag. you can most certainly mark the holidays in t-town. franco (my momma) made these stockings.

our tree on Christmas morning.

n opening his gift from fee- a book about an irish country doctor. excellent choice, lassie!

materialism takes over...

....followed by a feast: when fee was 4 years old she attended a dinner at a friend's home and when served her plate she promptly asked, "where's the sauce?" we had a christmas dinner potluck at our neighbors' richard's and stacey's house, and when richard, who roasted the turkey, was asked by fee about the gravey he said he was over it. well, she wasn't. stacey tossed her an apron and she got right to work separating fat and reducing stock. she is her mother's daughter after all. you can't escape those norman bloodlines no matter what they tell you!

after christmas day, fee and i went on a beautiful hike in glorieta which is about 20 minutes from lamy. the snow was deep so we pooped out quickly, but the highlight was stumbling upon a clearing with horses feeding without the fences which normally hedge them in.

it was wonderful to pet these majestic creatures and run our fingers through their wiry winter coats. it was sad at the same time because they obviously associated us with treats of which we had none, and they were all out of food. i will definitely go back to check on them... with a backpack full of carrots to be sure!

here is fee bird with, yolanda (our pick), the pony who wanted to adopt us. at first we thought she was a boy and named her alfonso. she ran right up to us when we first came into the clearing and tried to eat our coats, pants and even slurped up my backpack string which i had to pop out of her chomping horse teeth. we were cracking up. on our way back she was very excited to see us again and tried the same antics. we were so touched by her we were giving her kisses and i reached up under her perfectly colored, femme fatal bangs and did some massage on her forehead and around her ears. well, after that she proceeded to follow us down the trail. fee had to push her back 3 times and the last time she stood at the edge of the clearing and watched us until we were out of sight. and my camera battery was dead! you know i'm going back to see her! God's creatures are exceedingly special and i can't wait for a day when they are all treated right!

therapy pool and other rejoicable things

here are some pictures of n in the therapy pool with his physical therapist, donna. nathanael is a water person and i love to see him move around in a setting so comfortable for him. these pictures are precious to me.

n's blood pressure got low after a few exercises. the pool is 95 degrees so he has to be careful as his b.p. runs low in general. i opened some windows and doors to let in some snowy air and donna led him in a break doing some acupressure on wrists which helped.

i absolutely love the way donna works with n. she has a gentle voice interrupted by a contagious, bellowy laugh which errupts at anytime. however, when she does watsu she looks like a serious mother lullabying her son.

there is grief in these photos, too. hilary always said that one of her worst fears was to be in the place of one of those all-too-common african mothers we see photographed cradling a gaunt and starving child in a refugee camp. when we look at the pudgy, baby pictures of n on the fridge in her arms with carrot juice all over his face, we can't believe how things have turned out.

even our most wonderful african friend, damaris, who has seen such things in africa as described above, burst into tears upon meeting hilary (having known our story beforehand). she was as shocked and upset as we have ever been about nathanael's condition.

thankfully we are not in a famined state in africa. we have above and beyond our share of comfort and privilege in this trial. this we have in terms of physical and heavenly provisions. but nonetheless, there is heartbreak about nathanael's ongoing condition, and damaris, who has seen the real thing, weeps with us as do many of you. especially all of n's mothers and fathers and aunties and uncles out there.

n turned 31 this month and we rejoice! moreover we rejoice in knowing the source of eternal life, JESUS, whom God sent into the world, "not to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." John 3:17. wow. Jesus said that to nicodemus, a jewish leader. it's certainly something to think about this week and beyond.

MERRY CHRISTMERRY!

let it snow!

i woke up early to take johnny to the airport shuttle. and being the non-coherent morning person that i am, i didn't think clearly about how he was going to get to albuquerque, let alone how we were going to make it to town to catch the shuttle. i did see a flurry of white rushing horizontally past every window and piling up on the porch and sticking to the windows, but was still stunned when he said to me, "you know i'm not going home today." "what? huh?" duh. of course not. i happily went back to my cozy rollaway bed in my walk-in closet (that is another story) and lay in smiling semi-conciousness for another 2 hours. then i awoke to hilary folding egg whites into a small batch of batter ... "i'm making lemon ricotta pancakes." olympic cheer! score. try to remain calm. this is after she made morning stir fries for her, johnny and n and before cooking a chicken dinner later on. maybe it was the relief of having j.d. around for a few more days because this doesn't happen everyday, folks. i was in momentary...the recipe calls for honey on top, but dude, pancakes without syrup?! and all we had was this specialty stuff aged for years in bourbon casks etc. um... incredible... yes, you can taste the liquor though none is in there. yummmmmm. and it went, perfect with the lemon zest ricotta flavor rolling all over your tongue with a side of bacon. as lauren would say: i was jealous of myself!

they don't look like much, but that is hardly the case!

kimmie, do you like my hat?

it's beginning to feel a lot like christmas. i can't wait to see fee! i will try to put my inordinate love of food aside for a few days and derive outdoor adventures for our beloved sister in the new mexican tundra... just give me a good meal and i can do almost anything.

wally power! isn't she a fierce, winter beauty?

celebramos

this past week i had the pleasure of taking my conversation class on a field trip to the state capitol. the halls were full of beautiful, new mexican art while behind closed doors legislative committees were busy trying to figure out our state budget crisis, i presume.

here i am with 6 of my 10 "lucky ladies" as one student has called our all female conversation class. these women were all very shy 12 weeks ago. each week i had the honor of watching their timidity unravel as they bravely shared stories of survival from their homelands, confessed their loneliness and problems in the u.s., and cracked jokes about themselves and each other. we discussed everything from politics to homemade noodles. it was such a joy to meet with them twice a week. here we are learning about how a bill becomes a law in the land of enchantment. it seemed frightenly/delightfully simple???

here is the final celebration with my other class. we always tie up our semesters with a no boundaries pot luck filled to the walls with posole, tamales, taquitos, pasta salads, pizza hut boxes, sushi, gallons of sunny d and fresca, costco sized, but local tres leches cakes that are gone in an hour etc. this prefaces an informal ceremony of shaking hands and rowdy applause as completion certificates are handed out one by one to all of the classes in each section.

here i am with my life skills 4 class. they are intermediate students who are waiting to see if they will move up to the next session of esl classes...grammar classes. i can't even express what a delight it was to teach this marvellous group. this job is truly a blessing to come to each day. it's just what my family and i needed.

here i am with hector who was very appreciative of our class and my teaching. our class was very bonded, but i was shocked in one of the last classes when he came to the front of the room and they all raised one hand and said in deep voices: "how." thankfully he smiled right back and raised his hand: "how." this led to a great student led talk about first impressions, native cultures and families. it's so refreshing to forget political correctness and get to the point:)!

adios, kimosabes!