Christmas time is near.

Yesterday we had to go to Knoxville so that I could get my bee shots, and we took that opportunity in the city to do some Christmas shopping. WE ARE DONE. Hooray!

Although there is no snow here, there are some very real signs at the Community Center that Christmas is coming--things have been hopping since the beginning of December! There was a Christmas party for the families involved in the Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker (MIHOW) program, but unfortunately we missed that because we were away at the craft show near Indianapolis. I mentioned earlier about the Outreach Department's Christmas party, complete with gifts for the children, a visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus, and blankets and other necessary items for the adults.

The craziness didn't let up after those parties, though! Lisa, who coordinates several programs in the Outreach Department, has had her hands full with Angel Tree gift giveaways. What happens with this program is that churches commit to buying presents for specific children, working from information about the children's ages, clothing/shoe sizes, and interests. People are so generous! A couple from North Carolina came with a big SUV and a car both stuffed to the top with presents from their church. Another group (I'm not sure where from) came with a fifteen-passenger van, a pickup truck, and a U-Haul trailer, all carrying gifts for these children! As we unloaded the vehicles, we were amazed by the generosity of the people who sent these gifts. As Lisa and Shannon dealt with the rather overwhelming task of sorting out the packages and making phone calls, people from the community began to arrive, eager to pick up the gifts that would make their children's Christmas happier and more exciting. Altogether, gifts were collected for nearly three hundred children!

In addition to this daunting task, Lisa also worked hard on making the special Christmas boxes for the families that receive food from the food pantry. Lisa is an amazing person, and she's not the only one! I work with so many loving and giving and fun people....but there's not room in one blog entry to talk about them ALL!

Last week, as I mentioned, Henderson Settlement had its staff Christmas dinner, complete with wonderful food, good company, and some signs of Christmas. Eric snapped this picture of the Settlement's executive director, Mark, in an elf hat:

And after dinner, we sang some Christmas carols. (Pictured below are Mike, Gary, Wendell, Jim, Linda, and Mark.)

As we keep saying over and over, we are really enjoying our time here, but we are also really excited to come home for Christmas!

I'll leave you with one last sign that Christmas is coming.....click here.

oh well.

Here's why we originally put birdseed on our windowsill:

Here's why we won't be doing that anymore:This is a flying squirrel. There's something living in the attic above our apartment, and we're pretty sure it's this guy and some of his friends. We love to see the birds at the window, but we don't want to make these guys think that it's ok to keep having a party in our ceiling.

let it snow...

As I was driving back to our apartment from the Settlement's Christmas dinner yesterday evening, I heard on the radio the song "Let it Snow." It made me think of home, where they got a whole bunch of snow yesterday--enough to close the library in Scranton and enough to close everything in the Binghamton area!

I am jealous. We're supposed to get a whole lot of rain tomorrow, and then we may get a wintry mix tomorrow night into Sunday, but that's going to max out at an inch....if we're lucky.

My mom was kind enough to take pictures of the winter wonderland at home, so here's what the beehives at Honey Hills Farm looked like yesterday:

We love it here, but we are anxious to come home for a little while. We miss snow and closings and Interstate 81, but most of all, we miss our friends and family! Up until this week, Eric has been more anxious than I have been, but now every time I hear a Christmas song, I get really sentimental for home.

So would y'all please save some snow for us? We're going to need to get our fill in the two weeks that we're home.

I leave you with another picture taken by my mom:
The message is mutual--we love you, too! We can't wait to see you!

visuals

For those of you who need photographic evidence of our adventures in Kentucky, head on over to our picture website. I just added a whole bunch of new ones in the section labelled "Kentucky." More will follow....

indy and cinci

Over the first weekend of December we had the opportunity to go to a church in Avon Indiana which is near Indianapolis. One of the missions here at Henderson is the craft shop, where local artisans and crafters are able to sell their items. Frequently crafts are taken to churches and conferences to be sold. We took a minivan full of stuff to Bartlett Chapel UMC, we stayed with a great couple from their church, Sarah and Brad. We had some great conversation and got to see their postcards (and take some home) and they gave us the driving tour of Indy.

On the way back we stayed Sunday evening with Abby and went to see the band Peter, Bjorn and John. They are not the remnants of ABBA but an indie rock band from Sweden. It was an excellent show. They went from ambient to pop to rocking out on the floor. An attempted guitar throw from peter to the roadie went awry when he was standing on the cord, it made a beautiful sound when it crashed into the amp though. I managed to get the set list from the sound guy, which made my night.

missed opportunities

I have missed several opportunities lately to get great pictures.

The Sunday before Thanksgiving, the children at Hope UMC (where we go to church) put on a Fall Fun Feast where we had to guess what the menu was based on clues, and we had to put the clues in order of what we wanted. We managed to do pretty well, but one of the tables ended up having their dessert first! Lori (our pastor's wife) cooked some darn good food for us, and she coordinated the kids to do a great job with serving the meal and providing some fun entertainment. I especially wish I could have taken a picture of the kids performing a puppet show!

Yesterday, I forgot my camera again when Eric and I helped with the Outreach Department's Christmas party for the children in the community. (If any of you send Christmas gifts for kids at Henderson Settlement, this is where many of them get handed out.) The gym was full of Christmas gifts, all divided up by age and gender, and once the kids lined up to get them, it was WILD! I wish I could have got some shots of that!

And then I forgot my camera AGAIN last night when we went to a concert at the Frakes Elementary School. The concert was a fundraiser for a playground for the school. There were two bands that played: S&S Express and The Charlie Bays Unit. They were both REALLY enjoyable, so we're looking forward to another bluegrass concert that they're going to have in January. (Maybe I'll remember the camera then...).

This last one is the kicker, though. Eric and I went for a hike to day with Mark (the executive director of the Settlement) and Mike (the pastor of Hope UMC). There is a trail that goes through Settlement property, and I purposely didn't bring the camera 'cause I didn't feel like carrying it. We started behind the emergency housing, and we heard that we would end up near the reservoir that supplies water to the greenhouses. We hiked up to a ridge, and then we didn't see any more trail markers, so we ended up king of forging our own trail. When we ended up at the reservoir, we were all pretty worn out and warm. Somehow the topic of swimming in the pond came up, and Mike said to Eric, "I'll do it if you do it." Well, next thing you know, they were in the pond! They didn't stay in too long (after all, it IS December), but it was long enough that I could have had a hilarious picture of them, but alas and alack, I didn't have it with me. But we had a good time and a good laugh.

better late than never

We have been delinquent in keeping up with our blog, hopefully we will get to catch up some over this weekend. My mother was here for the week of Thanksgiving, we put her to work in the Library for a few days and then did some eating and touring.

Mom made the pies and squash and I made the bird and the rest, I ended up stacking dishes in the oven and mashing the potatoes with a tomato slicer.



Sarah did not feel well wednesday or thursday, we tried to take care of her but I think The Monkees on DVD did it better than I did.



On Friday and Saturday we saw some buffalo, and went to the overlook at Cumberland Gap. We looked for antiques and crafts and christmas gifts.

Saturday night we went to Webb's and ate too much food and saw some live music.

wedding

This past Friday afternoon, Daryl (who works in the Community Center with the after-school program and the recreation program) came into the library and said, "I'm getting married in about an hour over by the crosses--you should come over!" I had known he was going to get married this weekend, but I didn't expect it to be then! So, of course, I ran down and got the camera from our apartment.

It was a beautiful day (although chilly!) and it's a beautiful place that they decided to have their wedding. This is an area on the campus set up mainly for work camp groups to have their morning devotions. It overlooks the valley that serves as one of the pastures for the cows.

Daryl and Diane (who works at the Settlement's day care) decided to have a very simple ceremony to exchange rings. Wendell, who works in Mission Resources and is a retired pastor, officiated at the wedding. About ten or twelve people who work/volunteer at the Settlement were there to witness the ceremony.

I guess it just goes to show that you never know for sure what's going to happen on any given day! It was great to be part of this special time for Daryl and Diane. It was fun to wear jeans to a wedding, and it's good to know that the thing that was important to them was to get married--not necessarily to have a big to-do. I wish them the best as they start out on this new adventure together.

come and see

We have sent letters to some of you that have said you were interested in coming for a work team or we thought me might pester you to see if you would come. If we have overlooked you(our apologies) and you would like some information and or a DVD about Henderson Settlement, let us know and we can send that out to you asap. For those of you that may be planning a trip, we would love to have you any time but keep in mind that we will be away from here the weeks of May 25th, July 14th, and two weeks from April 21st to May 4th. Two weeks in June are already booked full so don’t wait too long to reserve your lodging. If you do plan on coming down let us know when it would be.

America

As we were driving over the mountain toward Middlesboro the other evening, a good song came up on the iPod: "America" by Simon and Garfunkel. It seemed so appropriate to be driving over a curvy road through the woods, looking out on the fall beauty of the Appalachian Mountains, hearing the lyrics, "I've gone to look for America."

During another instance driving on this (or a similar) road, the iPod brought up "This Land is Your Land" by Woodie Guthrie, and I felt like this, too, was exactly right.

Right now, Eric's watching a documentary on baseball that was made by PBS, and it started out with playing (appropriately) a big, impressive version of our national anthem. It reminded me of what I thought while listening to those other two songs--"The Star-Spangled Banner" doesn't really represent how I feel about America.

I tried to explain this to Eric last night, and it didn't really work, so I'm not sure if it will make sense to y'all, either.

I think part of why we came to Kentucky was that we came "to look for America," like Paul Simon wrote. We came to see what it's like to live in the mountains. We came to hear bluegrass music. We came to hear stories. We came to find out how God is experienced here.

I don't see America with all of the pride and pomp of "The Star-Spangled Banner"--I see it with the grittiness of "This Land is Your Land." I'm not so hung up on the flag as I am on the natural beauty. I prefer simple strings to big brass in telling the story of our country. I don't love big business America--I love tree-covered America. I don't appreciate suits as much as I appreciate dirty overalls in making a living. It makes more sense to me to build your body up with hard work instead of with fancy exercise machines.

While we've been here, I've seen lots of things that I came to find when I look for America: a restaurant where they have open mike night every Friday and where the owner showed us to our table; coal miners who stand at the picket line to show solidarity with striking nurses; a national park that's trying to restore a cave to some of its natural state after it had been a money-making tourist stop; women who sing hymns a capella with such beauty that you wish the piano had never been invented.

Maybe I just have a romanticized view of it all. I'm not sure. But I'm definitely glad that we "walked off to look for America."

pictures

Ok. Those of you who have been begging for pictures (ahem, Mom.) should now be satisfied. All of the Kentucky pictures that have been put on the computer are now on our picture website. Enjoy!

Amazing Find from the Opportunity Store - Part 2

Here are a couple of awesome glasses that we found at the Opportunity Store.

blank walls

This is a request for pictures of you, our family and friends so we can put something up on our walls to remind us of you. We also appreciate original artwork by you and/or your children. Our address is to your right (I can't wait to see what we may get).

Thanks

birthday weekend in Kentucky

Well, I told Eric that he should write a blog about his birthday in Kentucky, but he said that I should do it, so here we go! (I've decided to do this in photo essay form again.)

Eric's birthday was on Sunday, so we decided to take the whole weekend to do things he wanted to do. On Saturday we slept in, but not too long (it wasn't MY birthday), and then we headed to Middlesboro. We went to the Middlesboro Public Library to restock on DVDs and CDs....and on books, and then we headed to the Goodwill store, where we found this shirt with Eric's birthday on it!

Then we headed down Highway 25E toward Pineville to scout out the flea markets. We found a couple of sketchy ones with lots of.....interesting stuff for sale, but we found no amazing things that we needed to have. It's incredible what people can get away with selling.


We went to Pineville State Resort Park, stopping first at Lookout Point to look at Pineville from way up high!


Then we went to Chained Rock, which is so named because it's got a rock chained to another rock to prevent it from crashing down onto Pineville. (In reality, though, neither rock is going anywhere, with or without the chain.)

Here's Pineville from the Chained Rock site. (The Pineville Library and the Bookmobile are both visible in this picture...but so are a lot of things.)
Here are a couple of views of the rocks that are chained together.
Eric peeked down to check things out. Yep, it's a long way down!

After leaving Chained Rock, we went to Pine Mountain's dining room, where we had a buffet dinner--hooray! The buffet was interesting--it contained food from mashed potatoes to fish to what we think were frog legs.

Then we headed to Corbin to see Steve Carell's new movie, Dan in Real Life. It was cute, and we both liked it (proof that Eric likes chick flicks......if they've got Steve Carell).

When we got home, we watched Saturday Night Live, which featured Brian Williams and Feist. Brian Williams was fantastic, especially considering he's not an actor at all. I guess the Nightly News can prepare you to say anything on live television.

On Sunday morning, we went to Covenant UMC in Middlesboro, where several of the staff members attend church. (We usually go to the Hope UMC here in Frakes--sometime we'll have to blog about it!)

Then we headed to the town of Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, for lunch at Webb's Country Kitchen. Needless to say, it was great. And they have live music on Saturday nights, so we may be returning!

After lunch, we headed toward Cumberland Gap National Historical Park for a tour of the Gap Cave. When the group gathered together, we strapped on our giant yellow flashlights and hiked half a mile to the cave entrance. The guy in the park ranger outfit in this photo below is, in fact, a park ranger--our tour guide Scott.


It was pretty incredible inside. As you can see from this photo, Eric was pretty amazed.

Below are some photos of various cave scenes--stalagmites and stalactites and such.

This is called "Cleopatra's Pool."

And there was wildlife in the cave, too! Here are a bat and a salamander.

After coming out of the cave, we headed back to Cumberland Gap for some ice cream and a little antique store browsing.

We finished the day by heading back home so Eric could watch the football game between the Patriots and Colts. This didn't have the outcome we hoped, but it didn't spoil our day.

There are a couple of other things that need to be mentioned. Because Eric's birthday fell on daylight savings time, he managed to have 25 hours of birthday, instead of the standard 24--pretty cool. Also, he got several cards and packages during the week leading up to his birthday, which made for a lot of fun! (Grandma Yetter, if you're reading this, Eric did NOT wait until his birthday to open your package.)

apple butter

There is an apple orchard here at the settlement, this spring when the trees were in bloom there was a week where temperatures stayed below freezing and all of their crop was lost. We were fortunate enough to have volunteers donate 28 bushels of apples for making apple butter. I don't think that I have ever eaten apple butter, let alone had a clue about how to make it. I will give a little overview with some pictures.

We begin with washing, quartering and slightly cooking the apples:

The mushy quarters are then run through a grinder/strainer leaving us with applesauce.

This was all done on Monday.

Early on Tuesday (7:30) we started cooking and stirring, we used a 40 gallon copper cauldron.

David (the farm manager) stirred, while Norm (volunteer and apple butter guru) added sauce.

Norm (guru), Danny and Dully (farm workers) stirred, I stirred too but there is no evidence.

We added 60 pounds of sugar, cinnamon oil and cinnamon candies.

At 2 pm it was time to can, lid and box it up.

We ended up with 309 pint jars. We will start at 7 am again tomorrow for another batch.

Amazing Find from the Opportunity Store

This is the first in what I hope will be an ongoing series. I think I mentioned earlier that the Opportunity Store is Henderson Settlement's thrift store. It sells second-hand clothing, housewares, and miscellany. Here is Amazing Find Number One.

artichoke candle

our first visitor!

Ok, so I'm a little behind in posting breaking news.

This past weekend, we had our first visitor--Abby! Hooray! Here's a small photoessay about our weekend together:

Saturday, after a nice omelet breakfast cooked by Eric, we visited the Opportunity Store (Henderson Settlement's thrift store). Eric was opposed to all three of us buying 50-cent matching jackets that said Voyageur. Oh well.

We then headed to town, had lunch at Sonic, where our server brought our food to the car on roller skates. Then we took off for Cumberland Gap National Park.

At the park, we hiked part of a trail and explored a cave,

found a giant millipede on the trail,

saw beautiful scenery,

crossed state lines,

drove to Pinnacle Overlook (because we didn't feel tough enough to hike there),

and learned a little history.

Then we went to Dairy Queen (ice cream is a necessity for occasions like this), shopped for groceries, and came home. In between hanging out and watching movies, we ate Mexican for supper, and Abby made us fun star-shaped brownies!

After church on Sunday, we gave Abby the grand tour of Henderson Settlement, which is decked out in its fall colors.

We didn't make it to the Knoxville Zoo or to mini-golf, but we can save those for next time! We were so excited to have Abby come and visit--it's a nice switch that she used to be among our friends who lived the farthest from us, but now she's the closest!