Happy Anniversary!!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, SHAR AND BEN!!
Keep up the good work!

Great Portraits

Christmas With the Mathews' Family

Adopted Family for Christmas

If I don't fly on Christmas day, this is the family I'll be spending Christmas with. I'll fit right in, don't you think???

A Successful Christmas Party

Tonight I hosted a Christmas party for my past roommate, Emily, who is here for Christmas from Brazil.

Although there were only a few at first. . . . . .we ended up with quite a few! It was nice.

Chance Encounter

Every once in a while, God surprises me with a chance encounter. This time, I met the cousin of my former roommate from San Francisco. I had heard about her ever since I started with United, and knew she was based here in D.C. But, even though we were both qualified German speakers, I had yet to meet her. FINALLY on my last flight to Zurich, I met her! So, here's the proof!

Christmas in a Tent

Successful St. Nikolaus Tag

I'm spending my "Christmas" in Seattle this week. Today we celebrated "St. Nikolaus Tag", which is a holiday in Germany honoring the REAL St. Nikolaus. The tradition is to leave your shoes outside the door the night before, and in the morning, it will be full of good treats or bad treats, depending on how you behaved. So, Coco set things up last night for us all.This morning, there were gifts in each shoe, but I forgot to take a picture of them. So, here's the hair ribbon to prove it.

Well, the ribbon inspired us to have a little decoration of our own in our hair today. (Coco is SUCH a good photographer!! ;o )

Tante and Twin.

One of the gifts in the shoes this morning was a special movie about St. Nikolaus, so the 3 of us got in our PJ's this evening and watched it as a bedtime story in Shawntante's bed. It was fun!

Definitely a successful day!

My Thanksgiving Project

It is finished!! I started this on Thanksgiving day and finished it last night.
(Special thanks to Emily for gifting this to me!!)

Things I'm Thankful For

1. A GODLY HERITAGE. God took my Gram home this fall, but the hardest part about losing her has been losing her prayer cover. She prayed for us every single day by name. I'm trying to keep up with that wonderful act of love by praying for each family one day a week.

2. FAMILY. Although it's never a delight to be together for a funeral, I was blessed to be surrounded by many of my family members. God worked the timing and travel out for that trip like no one else could.

3. MY SMALL GROUP. I have been blessed over and over again by these ladies, and they are so great to have in my life. I thank God for them.

4. MY NIECES!!!!! These two ladies hold a huge chunk of their Shawntante's heart!
(Photo by Sharla)

5. MY JOBS. This past week, I've been on call for United, but working in the bookstore again after a 6 month United-imposed sabbatical. That just means they flew me a ton of hours this summer, so much so that I didn't have time to work at the store. I also haven't had a roommate since August 15th. But considering that my church delivered 7,100 Thanksgiving meal boxes to 71,000 people last Saturday in our area just so they could celebrate Thanksgiving with plenty of food, it could be WAY worse.

Graci: Star Extraordinaire

Graci was quite the little performer while I was there this time.

In fact, she had been watching a home movie I had made of her sister, and she decided she, too needed to stand on a chair and perform for the camera (and any neighbors who cared to look in the front window).

Another Trip to the Middle East

I got to go to the Middle East again on a working trip, and caught some of the local sights. This is the suk (market) we went to.I'm not exactly sure what this guy was making (yufka?) but it was a fun process to watch!

This was the sunset on the way to our next destination. . .

. . .and the hotel we stayed in at night. Looks like a resort, huh?

Dinner Prep Theatre

After visiting with the nieces (and fam) for this past week, I admire my sister, who has to figure out a way to keep two little ones occupied while she tries to provide them with a nourishing meal. Well, this is the idea I came up with, and Coco took it from here!

Quite clever, if you ask me!

Back in Seattle Again

Yet another day of dress-up divas.

Coco wrote me a birthday card. . .we played birthday party a lot today.

Awful picture, but awesome smile. Thus, it made the cut!