Christmas for two please...

For the first time in our marriage Elisabeth and I spent Christmas without our families. We missed our families very much, but realized it was a nice change. Not that we are going solo (or duet I guess) from now on, but Christmas for two (or three if you count Magnum) brought us closer. We started the celebration by putting up our tree. The things is, for some reason our tree looked a lot more full in nature, with snow and other trees around it, go figure. So once again we have a Charlie Brown christmas tree and we love it!!
After the decoration came the food. And boy was there a TON of food. Elisabeth was a machine.
She cooked enough food for an army. We were able to give some away to friends and her coworkers. Not only did she cook wonderful holiday snacks like Puppy Chow, Cheeseball, Rumballs, etc.; she also cooked us a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner complete with a Cornish Game Hen, mashed potatoes, gravy, lime green salad, french onion soup and ALL the fixins that rival the best Thanksgiving meals I have had.

Of course I attempted to help. Unfortunately, I take after my mom in the cooking department and my feeble attempt at fudge resulted in a light brown runny mess that more resembled a sugary country gravy rather than a firm melt-in-your-mouth taste of heaven. Yeah, ew! Inside the warm house smelled of food, and Christmas. Outside, the temperature dropped as the days passed. Pretty much every morning we woke to freezing temperatures, frost and ice as in the picture below. One morning we woke to a light layer of snow covering everything. It stuck for a while but melted just in time to freeze at night so the roads were slick the next morning. Walks with Magnum at night on slick roads is very challenging but kinda fun. Not only do I enjoy playing on slippery asphalt, but I also really enjoy the crunch of grass under my boots when I walk on our freshly frozen yard. There is something about the smell of a cold morning, the smoking chimneys, the crunch of frozen grass, and the peace and quiet that brings a smile to my face and gives me a sense of contentment. I love it.



Merry Christmas to all, we miss you and we love you. We are truly blessed to have people who are actually interested in reading what we have to say.

Josh and Elisabeth

Schools is OUT (for three glorious weeks)

Ah the great release of finals. I come away from this quarter (my 5th of 12) with a sense of accomplishment and a hope that I remember even the slightest thing I supposedly learned this quarter. Okay so... the thigh bone is connected to what bone? Lord help me...

Next quarter (6th quarter) is where the real fun begins. I am finally done with the basic sciences. Now I get to start with clinical classes. The good news though, is that I learn how to adjust the neck and extremities, my last two hurdles before the finish line that is Chiropractic. The bad news is I have part one of the National Board Exams at the end of this upcoming quarter. This is usually the most dreaded part of the National Boards simply because it requires recollection of all of the material over the last year. The basic sciences. So I ask for prayers. Not only for me, but more for Elisabeth. During finals time every quarter I become enthralled in studies and neglect her. Coming up I will not only have finals, but one week prior to finals I will have national board exams. This means I will not be very much fun to be around and Elisabeth will have to put up with me for a good three weeks.

But enough about next quarter, it's time for me to concentrate on break. Thus far I have checked off one thing on my rather lengthy list of TO DOs. That's all right, I have three weeks. It feels good to turn my attention back home, to things around the house, and mostly to my wonderful wife and our Christmas together.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree . . .

Last weekend we had a lot of great plans, but unfortunately I ate something that did not agree with me. Therefore, I spent most of the weekend throwing up and Josh spent most of it cleaning up after me. (What great husband!) However, we did get our Christmas tree before all of that unpleasentness. One of the things I love about Oregon is that they have so many trees, you can cut one down for $5. So, we drove up in the mountains (about a 45 min. drive) and looked for a road or trail that we could take off the main highway to cut down our tree. The snow level had dropped to where we were and Josh handled the icy roads very well. The road that Josh normally uses for logging was closed due to the snow, but we found another one farther up the highway that didn't appear to have a name (which is really good, because if it isn't named then they can't tell you not to cut down trees off of it!) The short version of this story is that we parked, walked around, drove off again, fully engaged our 4 wheel drive, drove down a trail, parked, and cut down a 12 ft. tree.

It was a blast. Magnum loves the mountains. He was especially facinated by some fresh deer tracks. We ended up seeing the deer a couple of minutes later when we were in the car. Josh single-handedly secured the tree on the car and drove us home. My hero!

Thanksgiving!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving Everyone!

We had a wonderful holiday with my brother, Will, and some friends, Trent and Tiffani. Will flew in last Wednesday and stayed until Sunday afternoon before he headed back to school in Montana.

We had a big T-day meal with all the fixins. I bought a 21 lb. bird and it took 6 hours to cook! We also had stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean cassarole, pumpkin pie, rolls, lime salad, mashed potatoes and gravy.

After the meal we lazed around and eventually played cards.

On Friday, we burned off a lot of the T-day meal by participating in the Black Friday shopping event. I had never heard that term before I moved here, but apparently that is what the shopping craziness is called on the day after Thanksgiving. Josh and Trent left about 4:30 in the morning. Will, Tiffani and I headed out with them for round 2 around 9:00. We shopped until it was time to race downtown to the Christmas tree lighting in Pioneer courthouse square. We sang carols and had fun with friends in a huge crowd of people!

On Saturday, we went up to Mt. Hood to look for a Christmas tree and to play in the snow. There weren't any good trees where we went, but we had lots of fun sledding and tromping around in the snow. Magnum went with us and the snow was deeper than he is tall. It came up to Will's waist and he is 6 ft. tall. We spent the whole day (when it was light) up on the mountain with turkey sandwiches for lunch, of course. Needless to say, we burned off a lot of T-day on Saturday too.

We had a wonderful break and now we just have to get through a few more weeks and Josh will have a 3 week break before his 6th quarter and I will get a week holiday for Christmas!

Rain and more Rain

Well, it has been a very wet month so far. But we are really enjoying the rain! It's nice to just curl up inside, light a fire and relax with a warm mug of tea (or hot chocolate for Josh). Unfortunately, Magnum still feels the need to go outside for his daily constitutional. (a.k.a. a WALK - we never say the "W" word until absolutely necessary because Mags takes excited to a new level!) Notice my Magnum walking boots that I got from the farm supply store. They are warm, dry and even match my pajamas!

Josh has been studying like a fiend for his end of quarter. Sometimes Magnum helps with cuddles.

However, starting Wednesday we are going to relax and enjoy the holiday. We wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving!

Josh's Many Faces

Ok. We decided to start a blog to share what's going on in our lives with our families and friends. Aren't words and pictures worth at least 2 phone calls?! We'll try to update this often. It's a great excuse to use the digital camera! For Halloween, Josh dressed up as a Scotsman.

Magnum dressed up as a basketball player. I was sick and didn't dress up at all. :(

Josh grew out his beard for about a month beforehand and had fun shaving it off a piece at a time after Halloween.

This is what is known as a handlebar mustache- gross! But as you can see it was really funny to his friends. And yes, this was taken during class.... for shame.

Perhaps the good ol-fashioned 7o's 'stache will look better... perhaps not.

Thankfully one day later it was gone and all is right in the world.

Coming soon to a computer near you!