Christmas Tree

We would like to wish all our friends and family a very Merry Christmas!

Another video

Here's a video from the wedding, waaay back in August. Ok, so it wasn't that long ago. Thought I would put it up here for fun!

Shannon McElroy from Greeley is doing my hair, while Sarah assists :). You can hear Ernest (Dan's best man) in the background, along with Mallory (maid of honor). Luke (another of Dan's guys) got roses for all the bridesmaids, that's what they are talking about in the background.

New Post, Whohoo!

Hello, sorry it's been such a long time since I've posted anything. Dan and I had a wonderful trip to visit his parents in Washington State (btw, if your from the West, Washington = the State). I will give a more detailed description later, but I just wanted to post a video (I finally figured out how to transfer videos from my cell phone to the computer!) of some of the animals we encountered.

Liesel is Dan's German Shepherd, while Dakota and Aspen are his parents. Hopefully Liesl and Trogdor (the ferret) will be joining us in March! Cookie will have much to get used to . . .

I apologize to Lydia, Dan's sister, for catching her napping unaware :)

Some Books I've Been Reading Lately

Right now I'm reading The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman. It's the true story of Jan and Antonia Zabinski, a Christian Polish couple living during WWII. Before the war the couple were caretakers of a zoo; when all the animals were either killed or taken to German zoos, the Zabinskis housed over three hundred Jews, keeping them safe from the Nazis. I'm still in the middle of the book, but it's an easy read and an intriguing story.
I'm also reading an edition of The Taming of the Shrew that also includes texts from the time period dealing with marital relations. I think sometimes the story gets a bad rap as being chauvinist; it is very interesting to learn from the book that "shrew-taming" stories were quite common in England, and were quite violent against the women. However, in Shakespeare's story, Petruchio never hits Katharina, even though she frequently hits him. The book suggests that it is the influence of the church and it's condemnation of domestic violence that influenced Shakespeare to have a gentler treatment of the subject.
I think it would be helpful for many women today to see that being b----- won't make them happy or get them want they want in life. At the very end of the play Katharina states:

136 Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
137 And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
138 To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
139 It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
140 Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
141 And in no sense is meet or amiable.
142 A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled,
143 Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
144 And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
145 Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
146 Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
147 Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
148 And for thy maintenance commits his body
149 To painful labor both by sea and land,
150 To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
151 Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
152 And craves no other tribute at thy hands
153 But love, fair looks and true obedience;
154 Too little payment for so great a debt.

I think women today often take for granted how hard our husbands work for us.

In a side note, for all you Twilight fans out there (you know who you are :) ), I just want to say that I've read all the books, and enjoyed them. I also just recently finished reading Jane Eyre for the umpteenth time, and it blows Twilight out of the water for sheer passion. I guess that's why Jane Eyre has been around for so long.

In the Navy. . .

First of all, please be in prayer for various family members :). Dan's father is undergoing spinal fusion today in Spokane, WA; please pray that the surgery would be successful and he would have a quick and speedy recovery. Also, please be in prayer for my uncle and aunt (see Regan Ramblings) as they travel to Thailand this week amid some political unrest.

Anyway, Dan's gone for several days as his ship is doing some exercises. I thought I would do a quick blog on his ship. Dan is currently on the USS Carr, FFG 52. If you would like info about the ship itself, it has a public website at http://www.carr.navy.mil/default.aspx . Dan is currently the Fire Control Officer, which means his men fire the "big guns" on board. When he gets back, I'll have him write about just what exactly he does.

This sailor is firing a MK-38 25 mm machine gun. This week the ship is also hosting a Family Day cruise, where I'll be able to go on board with Dan. I might even get to fire something similiar to this!

Leaves, Leaves, and More Leaves

Pics of House

Here's my cherry pie. I made it with sweet fresh cherries instead of the normal sour cherries, but I got a recipie that uses sweet cherries, so hopefully it will turn out ok. I decided to use frozen fresh cherries because I haven't really like cherry pies made of that canned stuff, so we will see . . .

Very First Post

Well, I can tell I'm new at this. When I went to write my "very first post" title, the computer started translating what I was writing into Hindi! Yeah, I fixed that. I wonder if what popped out was anything remotely close to "very first post" in Hindi or just some gobbledy-guk!

On to real blogging . . . I'm going to start by apologizing because my blog will not have a lot of pictures. I'll try to get some on here, but as I only have me cell phone camera for digital shots, they may be few and far between. I would like to get some pictures of the house up for our relatives back West (especially the colossal pile of leaves that will be sucked up by the fabled vacuum truck!)

On Thursday we will be celebrating Thanksgiving with some of our new church family here in Virginia, and I am supposed to bring a cherry pie and a corn casserole (courtesy of Dan's mom Kathy). I'm currently debating as to whether to do "easy", ie store-bought pie crust and filling, or "hard", ie homemade pie crust and filling (which may or may not prove to be disastrous). I had thought I would need to buy a rolling pin to make the crust, but lo and behold, I found one in the drawer. I knew we didn't get one as a wedding present, but apparently it was one of the kitchen curios accumulated by Dan and his college roommates. As the last in a series of roommates to graduate, Dan unintentionally collected an odd assortment of strange kitchen objects, including some of the following: a porcelain vase-like object for pouring sake, numerous lids for pots that have long since been separated from their mates, some strange shots glasses with towns of Germany on them (Dan's never been to Germany), more spatulas than I can use in my lifetime, the said rolling pin, and bundt pan. I sort of get the sake and the shot glasses (it was college after all) but can anyone please explain to me why college guys would ever need a rolling pin or a bundt pan? Anyone??