Happy Thanksgiving!

This years turkey king: Elias Benjamin Dryden
I hope you all had a nice thanksgiving and hope we can all remember to continue to be thankful throughout this next year!
Elias had his first few bites of rice cereal this Thanksgiving, and a taste of sweet potatoes. It was fun to watch him taste the potatoes, and try to eat the rice cereal, which of course ended up all over...I think I'm too lazy to introduce him to very much solid foods.
We spent thanksgiving lunch with the Hawthorne/Lee family eating chilaquiles, a Mexican breakfast food and then ate dinner with the Dryden family, eating turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes like good thankful Americans.

Tutoring

One night a week, Andy, Elias and I go and tutor a family from Burma. We do it through Catholic Charities Refugee mentoring program. It has been fun to get a taste of their life and keep my foot in the door of the ESL teaching world. Although the youngest (2 year old) boy of the family we tutor is quite jealous of Eli, I am sure some day they will turn out to be good friends.

Farm Part 3: family

We got to see Uncle Keith's new apartment and visit him at his new job. SouthHills Baptist Church! I guess my little brother is officially all grown up! Que Dios te bendiga tio!

Farm Part 2: Meeting Eva Jean

A highlight of going to the farm was meeting baby Eva Jean, who is now 2 months old.
She is my cousin Katie's 5th child... and 2nd girl! She is the sweetest little thing.

We also had a nice visit with Zack, Evas older brother, who will be a good friend to Eli some day.

Farm Part 1: Making Apple Cider

Last year our farm got a cider press, we have had some fun apple cider making parties. Saturday we had a few people over to make some cider in the pasture.

yes! The darker brown ring on the baby carrier is drool!


You can see it come out the bottom into my moms big pan. The whole process is rather labor intensive, it takes a few people to wash the apples, a few to cut, one to pour or throw the apples into the grinder, one to grind, one to turn the crank to press the apples, one to fill up the containers with the fresh cider, and of course one to drink it!

Scooting!

I put him down, leave the room, and he is somehow on the other side of the room when I come back.

Memorials etc.

So...we happened to be in DC the day of John Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity and Stephen Cobert's March to keep fear alive. Being the great sociologist I am, I thought it would be fun to stop be and observe some of the events....
well the rally to restore sanity was anything from sane! It started 20 minutes away from downtown at the metro stop near our hotel. The line to BUY a ticket to the metro was probably a half hour long, and then getting on the metro was a whole 'nother story! We were happy to have both a stroller and an aggressive baby loving women to protect Eli on the VERY crowded metro.
We couldn't even get near enough to see the stage, but we could hear it. Here is what we saw:


Library of Congress


Capital Building


Lincoln Memorial and World War 2 Memorial




Washington Monument

Jefferson Memorial- quite a walk to get to it!

Fresia

When I lived in Honduras fro 2004 to 2006 Fresia was one of my best Honduran friends. She was finishing up medical school in Tegucigalpa while I was living there. We met at the Mennonite Church. She is the smartest, sweetest, easy to relate to Honduran I have ever met.
She moved to Maryland in August 2006, a few weeks after I moved to Portland from Honduras. It was SOOO nice to have one good Honduran friend I could call and talk to whenever I wanted to. In June, she married a Gringo! Last week she spent one day with Elias and I while we were in Washington D.C. (Andy was in a work conference for two days).

Superman

I dont think there was ever any doubt about what Elias would be for his first Halloween...
we spent the day flying home from Washington DC so we proved that superman really does fly!