Christmas 2025

Quite a nice holiday, actually.

Om went and picked up Josh to ensure that he would show up. Steve called and we did gift opening with phone commentary. He's done that the past few years, but he seemed to really get into it today with me sending him pictures of the various gifts. So, that was really fun.

After the successful experiment a few days ago, I made a real batch of the low cal/carb cinnamon rolls. These turned out even better. I learned a few things the first time.

The table looks good. But wait... five plates?

Yup! Doug and Cathy were going to go spend the day with one of their daughters. But all the kids are really sick, so they are waiting a few days. That was perfect- they came and ate with us. We had ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry relish, and a low-cal chocolate dessert. That list sounds impressive, but we really kept it simple. It's also a meal that most everyone will eat.

Cathy brought a game we all played. It's called Marbles and Jokers. It's very similar to Sorry, but it will work for three to eight players, and there is more strategy to it. Doug won if anyone cares. The board is very ingenious. Each player choses a color and you hinge the sections together with a 2-D ball and socket joint to create the track.

We tried to get a family picture. Well. Josh says this is his smiling face. We couldn't find a location where the light didn't bounce off my hair. Om looks pretty good.

As is so true in most holiday homes, the day started with cleaning up the kitchen so that I could make another kitchen mess. The second one is partially cleaned up. Om took care of all the wrappings (most are fabric and bags, so it's just a matter of folding them and putting back in the box. The only paper wrapping here is on things someone else brought in.)

Cathy gave me a jigsaw puzzle. Actually, I have six new ones. I may have to start one this week. She also brought some pumpkin bread and sweet snacks. That bag of mint M&Ms got opened and devoured.

I'll share some of our loot another day. Right now, I'm beat. And too full of food.

See Food Coma

Food Coma

 We were ready for Christmas. This looks very impressive, but we actually cut back quite a bit on the gifts. However, we've always been masters at making something small look very festive.

We skipped a big breakfast today and just put out a veggie and cracker tray. The proof of pie is also in the picture.

The Om played Santa.

We had ham, mashed potatoes, mixed vegs, the cranberry relish. I thought I was eating a reasonable amount, but ohhh... too full. Obviously, Josh was here, and Steve called for a nice chat.

Oh, the pie? You want to know what kind? We cut that for dinner. Cherry!

You can count on there being pie in my breakfast future too!

I had to lie on the heating pad for a little while this afternoon, but I'm pretty much back to full activity.

See Silent Night

Family Time Christmas

 Contrary to the opinion that one should get off their phones for Christmas, we are much in the same situation as people separated from family in the early 1900s. That phone line is the much desired connection.

Steve called while we were opening gifts. We had a really nice chat with him, which is special because he really doesn't like to talk on the phone very often.

Omer played Santa as always (since the boys grew up and were no longer enamored of being the one to hand out the gifts).

Josh takes a turn opening a gift.

We had a nice dinner. It was great to not be cooking 17 different things. Very simple with ham, plain sweet potatoes (we don't like them with that marshmallow ick), asparagus, and orange sauce (a new, easy, recipe that Om says is a true keeper). Joshua brought some fruit and the pineapple was ripe, so I cut that up too. You've seen the cookies before.

After we ate, we watched a movie. Santa brought some used DVDs, and Josh picked Scully to watch. I'd seen it before, but had forgotten how good it is.

Then Josh went home, and I started another puzzle. Very relaxing day. The only work I did was the cooking and part of the cleanup.

See Christmas Eve

Thinking about Adoption

A former President of Youth for Christ, Dan Wolgemuth, writes an essay every Friday that is always thoughtful and interesting. His father was President when we were with YFC, and I went to college with most of his siblings. His mother and I were good friends.

Yesterday, Dan wrote about Joseph. Joseph of the Christmas story. He points out that we are told very little about Joseph. The lineage of Joseph back to King David is given. Even though Joseph was the adoptive father, that heritage was important enough to include in Scripture. In these days of easy DNA testing, perhaps we focus too much on the biological.

Dan makes some interesting statements. He points out that Joseph was the "non-biological father to the son of the most high. He was the bread winner to the bread of life." These statements echo the mystical thoughts in the song "Mary Did You Know?" For example, "This child that you've delivered will soon deliver you." (Also resonating in my thoughts is C.S. Lewis' stable scene in The Last Battle. It's a bunny trail here, but it's in Chapter 13 "How the Dwarves Refused to be Taken In" if you are curious.)

I have no idea about legal documentation in the Roman Empire, but Joseph functionally adopted Jesus. I'm sure the baby was counted in the census which they went to Bethlehem to fulfill. Adoption has a good reputation in the Bible. In fact, there are five times in the New Testament when we are told that we have the status of being adopted by God. In context, these adoptions are contrasted to being slaves and to being "stuck" in physical bodies (perhaps a reference to the fact that as children of God we are spiritual not physical beings). Also, the Jews are promised that they will be redeemed from the law and be adopted. The most general reference is Ephesians 1:5 where we are told that before the foundation of the world we were chosen to be adopted!

I think adoption is one of the ultimate ways in which we are given the opportunity to live in the image of God. God does things that are counter to our human nature. He forgives. He loves with genuine altruism (our love is usually tainted with a least partially selfish motives). He adopts. He elevates us to sons and daughters the second we agree to accept that arrangement. Of course, we can also reject that offer.

I'm not in any way attempting to elevate our family's journey to the same plane as God's adoption. But yet, chosing to become a functional parent, to love a child who does not carry my DNA is one of the ways I've learned so much more about how God loves me.

Before baby Steve joined us, we had this glimpse.



Two years later, we received one bad Polariod picture of Joshua (and his cat) to see what our middle son would look like.

We later received a few pictures of Josh taken in Vietnam.

Dan points out that Joseph was called to live in humility, to be courageous and offer selfless support. Not the role we often desire.

But Dan's phrase that will stick with me the longest is, "None of us will be like Mary. But we can all be like Joseph."

See My Little Squirt is 39 See Joshua Turns 40

Looking Good, Josh

Joshua stopped over for a short visit. We think he looks better than he has in a while, which is really good news. He has some ongoing health issues, and the medications often leave him feeling dull.

I've been fighting a bit of a cold. Nothing major; mostly just annoying, but I didn't do anything very significant today.

See Breaking the Rules

Breaking the Rules

  We had a non-traditional Thanksgiving today, and that was just fine. The trailer table is still on sawhorses in the kitchen and it made a lovely table. We had dinners delivered by Radiant Church. We got an apple pie from the Reformed Church and a pumpkin pie from Meijer. Omer bought a large tub of "super-food salad" from Meijer for me. It was perfect. Joshua joined us for the meal.

After that we had a Skype call with Steve. Can you believe I didn't hit print screen? Bummer. But we had a nice chat with him. He hasn't been here for 2 years. And he doesn't like to talk, so this was a real treat.

We also ended up having a discussion of how often we "break the rules" for Thanksgiving. Thanks to the blog, I was able to look back on a lot of years. Just for the record, last year I did cook. We have done take-out a couple of times. It looks like the last year I cleaned the dining room and fixed a classic turkey was 2013. That's OK too. I did fix a turkey for Christmas dinner at the newspaper one of the years I worked there.

I do get to cross off a big item. The last time Steve was here, he requested that I make him some cloth shopping bags. Procrastinator that I am, they are just getting done. I wanted to ask him one question before finishing them, and I did that during our call. Now there are 2 of these, ready to send. I suppose I shouldn't cross it off until they are in the mail, but I can add "mail the bags" to the list of small items.

And I get to have pie for breakfast again tomorrow. We "broke the rules" this morning and cut the pies before the main meal so we could have pie for breakfast today too! After all... who made the rule that you can't eat the pie early? (Probably I did, back when it would have been completely gone before the real meal.)

In other news: I worked on that final difficult project in the trailer a little bit, but mostly I sewed. Steve's bags were a BIG ITEM, and I did one other small one. 14 BIG ITEMS to complete or drop (48 done). Tons of small ones to do (59 done). 5 days to go.

Now, it's back to the sewing machine for me.

See Thanksgiving Threesome

Christmas at Our House

  Omer always plays Santa. He does such a good job of it!

The day began with the pecan rolls. Yeah, we had them last year too. So what. They are good (although I'm way overdosed on sugar tonight).

Here's our main meal- pork loin marinated in orange/garlic/rosemary, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, carrots, mint jelly.

Steve called and we all talked on speaker for a while. This is very 2020, but we've done it a lot of years, because he doesn't make it home very often.

Christmas picture with the three of us. I'm bundled up because I just got home from a walk. Josh has his coat on because he was just getting ready to leave. But at least I remembered to take a picture! (The first one I ever showed you on this blog was in 2009, which was a bit crazy.)

The squirrel situation has stabilized. I gave in. We actually have two squirrels, a larger one that I named Buster. I showed you that one before. But I think it should be Bustra or some feminine form because there is also a younger, smaller one. I see the younger one more often and I've named him/her Buster Baby. This is Buster Baby.

So, almost every day I put something out on the porch rail. BB likes the sunflower seeds (of course), grapes- even if a bit sad for human consumption, stale raisin bread, and definintely NOT lettuce. BB was shocked and overjoyed with the Christmas haul. There was some leftover piecrust from our takeout meal yesterday. S/he ate a bit, but carried most of it away to wherever its apartment is.

I took a walk mid-afternoon. Less slippery than yesterday with a lot more snow. Felt good, and helped settle the large quantity of food consumed.

In other news: I cooked, and I went down in the well pit to check the temperature, do a couple of tiny final things, and retrieve the ladder. I think I'll need to check the temp one more time, but everything seems to be fine. Hooray!

See Food with a Chance of Sun

Thanksgiving Threesome

  Joshua came over to eat with us today. We were going to go out because it's so hard to fix things that all of us will/can eat. But the restaurants are shut down again, so we managed to come up with a menu that I like all of, and Omer and Josh like most of. We had lemon-rosemary chicken (on the stove), rice, buttenut squash, salad, and the pies.

Because of the aforementioned house Tetris, there is no place available to eat. So we set up an extra little table. Worked fine!

After the food settled a bit, I went on a walk. Just a road walk, but I decided to challenge myself. I was doing a 7-mile loop, and I wanted to see how fast I could do it. Kept a 4 mph pace for the first two miles (my casual pace is 3 mph), but I couldn't quite keep that up. My overall pace was 3.74 mph. Not too shabby. And, it's never a race on a real hike. But I figure if I push myself when it's easy, then I'm in better shape for when it's not.

The sky was mostly gray, with a temperature of 43 when I left the house. Light breeze. Nice walking weather. No spectacular pictures. I was concentrating on walking fast. There were rays coming from the spot of light in this cloud, but the camera didn't catch them.

In other news: There is no other news. I cooked and cleaned up and played my game.

See Dinnerpieme

And He Keeps on Ticking!

  Long day. We just got home. But everything went well with Josh's procedure. Praise the Lord for one more good report for our miracle boy. It took a little longer than expected and then they made him lie still in recovery extra long. But he's "all fixed." This procedure was to cauterize an extra bundle of nerves in his heart that competed with the bundle of nerves that is supposed to control the heartbeat. It's amazing what they can do now, with very little invasion. This is all done by going in through a vein from the groin. Actually they used both sides, but it's still almost "no big deal," these days. He needs to be calm for a few days, but then he shouldn't have this irregular heartbeat problem any longer. This was done a Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids. I was very impressed with the set-up, the communication, and even the food at the hospital. We were given a prep/recovery room that was ours alone for the entire day. No sharing of public spaces. We were allowed to have food in there, and they did everything except the actual procedure in the OR right in that one space.

There is no other news. This was all day. I could have taken my computer if I'd known there was a space I could have worked without distractions, but I took a book to read, so that was OK, too.

See some Joshua history

Fun and Games

 
It's all fun and games until somebody has to go home, right? I managed to forget to take the traditional family picture, but we got one of the boys and me playing games. We did Mille Bornes- this year's favorite, but we did Sorry, Sniggle, and Old Maid, too. And Steve has developed an aversion to having his picture taken. I'm not sure what that's about, but I can't make people do what they won't do.



I set up a simple puzzle, because last year Steve actually wanted to do one. This year, I did it all, but Steve likes to time me to see how fast I can do one. We didn't time the whole thing, but I managed to do 100 pieces (of the 300) somewhere in the middle of completion in 50 minutes. Doesn't seem very fast, but usually I'm the fastest puzzle-doer.



Omer is taking Steve to the airport in the morning, and I'll be off to a book sales event. Over too soon, but it's been great.

In other news: I did get some editing and formatting done before Steve got up, and I went to the bank.

	See Packing It All In
if you like this blog, click

Packing It All In

 
We are packing two holidays into three days, and packing in the food too!



Since the dining room is totally unusable for dining, we set up a small table in the living room, and had a yummy meal. Winner! We found 5 menu items that everyone was willing to eat, and they are OK with leftovers tomorrow, too. We had a pork roast, mashed potatoes, peas, squash, applesauce, and cranberry relish. Nothing fancy. Pretty easy to fix.

Then we played some of the games we do well together. Omer agreed to one round of Sorry (definitely not his favorite), which he won, so he shouldn't gripe too much! Steve and I have been playing Mille Bornes quite a bit.



Then we did a group game with a hugely wrapped package with one tiny treat in the middle. Each person has a turn to unwrap as long as the music is playing. Oh, but the unwrapper has to wear bulky awkward gloves! This was a real hit, and Joshua won, getting the cash prize.



We did Christmas stockings, and ordered gifts for each other from the internet. Not my fondest template for Christmas, but I'll take what I can get. It's really nice to have Steve home.

	See Food and Fun 2018
if you like this blog, click

A Trip Back to April 1975

 
I picked up a free book that is volume one in one of those series that you bought one of at a time, forever. But I'm happy to have this one. The series is The Vietnam Experience, and this volume is called "Setting the Stage."

It begins with the end. The final days of Saigon.

Some of you may remember, some not, two of our boys are Vietnamese and they both came from Saigon during those last days.

This picture was in the book- orphans boarding a C-130 cargo plane. This is not the flight that either Steve or Joshua came on, this flight was later, one of the very last to leave Vietnam, but to me it's still poignant.



Steve's paperwork was actually in order. We'd been working at his adoption for months, and it just happened that he was ready to be moved in that month. We had been told he'd be leaving Vietnam on either April 4 or 5, 1975. You might remember there was a DC-10 full of orphans that crashed on April 4. One of the doors blew off. The pilot managed to crash land, but 78 people died. We did not know for hours if Steve had been on that flight. Then we finally got word that he was on the next flight, and we picked him up in Chicago on April 6. He was only 6 months old. We expected a tiny waif and got a healthy hunk- he'd been in foster care since he was 10 days old.

Although he's older, Joshua did not come to live with us until 1977, and he was one of those kids that was just stuffed in planes at the last minute with no proper paperwork. But he would have been very much the size of the child in the middle of that picture, maybe a little smaller. He was extremely thin and malnourished.

So that's my quality item for today. If I could pick only one foreign country to visit, I would like to see Vietnam now. Neither of the boys has any interest.

In other news: I wrote in the morning, but not on the book. The afternoon was intolerably humid. I figured up how many sheets of plywood, insulation, etc I need for the trailer, and then worked on one of my never-ending sorting projects for a couple of hours.

	See My Little Squirt See Joshua
if you like this blog, click