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.