oh what a feast...

we enjoyed a great day with our family, feasting on way too much food, laughing, sending the boys on scavenger hunt. i'm still full on the abundance of our blessings...

the boys searching for the treasure chest

drew spinning on the bat with uncle kiki

drew checking out the "treasure"... he looked at me with excitement and asked "can we keep these?!?!"

i love this kid!

michael and luke...too much fun!

luke LOVES cats so he was thrilled to meet our two cats...

"wine is bottled poetry"

the turkeys and chefs...i only had a few mishaps but the food got rave reviews!

family dinners...

tonight mike and i gathered with my RA staff from my last year at calvin for a "family dinner".  i look forward to this monthly gathering, to reconnect over great food and genuine community.

i love these people...i love them for how they make me laugh.  for how they've invited me to know their stories, struggles and dreams.  that they inspire me to grow.  

i feel grateful tonight for them and for the many other students i've been blessed to know and "do life" with over the years.   

i miss being involved with college life.  for almost ten years it was my area of vocation.  i don't feel discontent with my current season of life.  i love that i have space to pursue other passions and grow in new ways.  but i receive such life from working and developing relationships with college students.  i have to wonder if i will continue to serve college students 
or if that part of me has "retired"?

but for now i will look forward to future "family dinners" with my dear friends...

preparing for the feast...

i'm hosting thanksgiving this year. a first.

we're looking forward to having our new home bursting at the seams with our family for a day of thanks and feasting.

here are a few images from my favorite place to shop, the farmers market. sadly it's closing till next spring.

a little thing called facebook....

while working at calvin college i got some lessons on the world wide web. blogs, IMing, myspace and facebook were all means of community for my students.

over the years i've tried to maintain some traditional forms of communication. who doesn't love a hand-written letter? and isn't a chat over a cup of coffee more fulfilling than an e-mail? so i tended to stay away from newest technology.

i signed up for facebook as a way to connect with my students. facebook used to be just for college campuses. now it's a social network open to anyone. do i hate checking facebook? yes.

but with everything there comes good things too.

i've been able to "find" friends from college that i've disconnected with over time. i've been able to stay in contact with community that is separated by miles.

i still fear where our culture is going. are we losing the art of true, authentic communication? do we know how to offer each other our faces, our presence without the aid of a computer? are we lazy?

i do lament that i fall into the trap of writing an e-mail rather than calling. or that i can offer my reflections and thoughts freely on the screen but when face to face, i wonder if you will care to really listen.

my friend deanna took a blog fast for a week to reconnect with her family and friends, and not be a slave to the web. she's inspired me to take time each week to, instead of e-mailing or blogging, to write a letter or call a friend. to get back to the basics.

an onion...

as a little girl one of my favorite books was little house on the prairie (actually the whole series)  i loved the simplicity and community that these characters lived out.

so i had dreamy ideas of moving into our first home and neighborhood that we would experience the same "down-home" community.

well i couldn't be more delighted when our neighbor stopped by today to ask for an onion.

an onion!  i barely could contain my excitement that he came to ask for an onion...and that i had one to give to him.  i skipped through the house to our pantry, picked out our best onion, and with joy handed it over.  there really should have been some swelling music in the background, cause it felt like a musical moment.

i'm sure greg, our neighbor, had no clue what his request meant to me.  but it was the highlight of my day...

tricked...

i was pretty excited last night to pass out candy to our "first" trick-or-treaters. we've always lived in apartments so never got visitors. so i stocked up on candy (which i bought about a week early and proceeded to snack on all week) and waited to hear the chime of our doorbell.

while there were a few sightings of sweet and imaginative costumes (our friends' jj and tegan's kids issak and annika were the best...Rapunzel and a frog!) i had a lot of high schoolers that just demanded i hand over my treats, despite their lack of halloween attire.

and sadly i woke up this morning to see that my pumpkins were smashed...

so while in my head i had visions of a "charlie brown and the great pumpkin" holiday i got tricked!