Small Christmas

Christmas in Nevada this year was small! With seven children in Scott's family and six in mine, the idea of a "small Christmas" was like speaking in a foreign language. Luckily we had Gary's new Playstation 3 system to distract us. It was definitely the highlight of the weekend (along with blu-ray movies on the new HD TV).

One of the favorite games was an off-road racing game with unlimited lives and spectaular crashes. Here's a picture of Sherri playing it for the first time.

The reason for the face? Here are some of her spectacular crashes on the beautiful new TV.

Do you hear what I hear?

In honor of it being the week of Christmas, I would like to share some Christmas thoughts about a song I've gained a greater appreciation for. First, I would like to write all the words, and read it like a poem... try not to think of the melody as you read.

Said the night wind to the little lamb,
"Do you see what I see?
Way up in the sky, little lamb,
Do you see what I see?
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite."

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,
"Do you hear what I hear?
Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,
Do you hear what I hear?
A song, a song, high above the trees
With a voice as big as the seas."

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,
"Do you know what I know?
In your palace warm, mighty king,
Do you know what I know?
A child, A child, shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold."

Said the king to the people everywhere,
"Listen to what I say.
Pray for peace, people everywhere.
Listen to what I say.
The child, the child, sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light."

My first thoughts have to do with the voice. The name of the song is "Do you hear what I hear" after all. The night wind is what had the voice, and it was telling of the star with a voice as big as the seas. Perhaps we can assume this amazingly large voice was an angel, appearing to the shepherd to tell him of the birth of Christ.

My second thought is about the bravery of the shepherd boy. Can you imagine having the responsibility to tell the king about this amazing vision and newly gained knowledge you've received from an angel? How very brave.

But my final thought is for the king. He must have been a very humble and righteous king to know the truth of the words of the shepherd, and especially to know that this child, Christ, would bring goodness and light. We have no record of such a king at the time of Christ. But we do know that the wise men were led by the star from the beginning of the song. Maybe this song is a little window into the nation that one of the wise men came from. It's kind of fun to think of other prophets and kingdoms that we have no record of, but we know existed.

Of skunks, schools, and stilettos

We arrived in Nevada on Friday and guess who came out to greet us? Pepe Le Pew! (We think he's in love with T.J., Alisha's cat, who is black and white, after all.) Gary and Scott tried all sorts of fun things to try and get him out of the garage without being invasive, but this skunk was very small and could squeeze into another smaller, more secluded place. At last we looked on the internet and discovered that skunks don't like the smell of ammonia. Go figure. They don't seem to mind their own smell, but their touchy little noses can be picky about others. So we put out a bowl of ammonia with a rag in it (to help perpetuate evaporation) a couple feet away from his hiding place, and he was gone by morning. And he didn't leave any offending smell aside from the residual ammonia.

On another note, Scott got me my first pair of stiletto heels ever for my birthday this year! It took me a few days to be able to walk in them without the constant feeling that someone was trying to trip me. Now that I'm more used to them, I feel like I have attractive feet and I'm fashionable all at the same time. (For those of you with normal sized feet, when you wear a size 11 shoe, it's quite an occasion to find fashionable and attractive shoes that fit.)

Tomorrow is another big day for Scott with an interview in Reno. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers!

Eleven Puppies!

Our landlords have a black lab whom we love and play with whenever we can. Just before Thanksgiving she gave birth to eleven puppies! Unfortunately, since they don't know what kind of dog the father was, they don't feel right about selling them legitimately. So what do you do with eleven puppies? Well, you take their pictures, of course!

I love how their faces are all scrunched up and wrinkled.

They just started opening their eyes. You can see their eyes are still foggy so they probably can't see much yet.

Most of them are dark brown/black with a little white on their tummies. Some have white noses and white feet, too.

Can you find all eleven?

Viva, Las Legas, Baby!

Do you like my allusion to your blog, Amy?

Here Britta and I are in Sin City, Nevada (actually, Henderson) in a nice hotel room. I was really quite scared at what I was going to get for my price range here. (I read some reviews of hotels around here and the customers talked about prostitutes, dirty and dingy run-down rooms, and I just wasn't looking forward to it.) Anyhow, we got into a Holiday Inn Express. And I paid significantly less than I was afraid I would have to. Thank you Priceline!

We are here because I am interviewing for medical school at Touro University, an osteopathic school. This is a relatively young school, a subsidary of the Touro University system based out of New York, with another campus in California, which is one of the top-rated schools (the California one) for primary care medicine in the US. I figure that if they ask me why I want to be a doctor on Monday, I could tell them that I feel like I can do anything, because "I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night." I wonder if that will work.

On the drive here Britta and I were thinking of what ridiculous, middle-school level nickname we would be given by the paparazzi if we were a celebrity couple. . . you know, like TomKat, Bennifer, or Brangelina. . . (thank goodness we aren't celebrities at all, who could really live with a monniker like that?) After tossing around a couple, and thinking of some for our siblings, we came up with one we liked. From now on, you may call us "the U.K." (see if you can figure it out). "Your Majesties" would be fine, too, afterall, we did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.