deflated christmas.

during our short time in rocklin before heading out to michigan we toured the neighborhood to check out the christmas decorations. we found some great ones...and some not so great ones. i chose to take pictures of the not so great ones because i thought you would find them to be funny-so here we go :)

photo #1:
you have to look closely to see that santa is deflated and crushing poor rudolph while the elves stand there smiling away.

photo #2: deflated christmas in all it's glory.
photo #3: closer view

photo #4: candy canes in the bushesphoto #5: they even have snow people in california...but they aren't made out of snow :(

photo #6: this was from a nicely decorated area-i just found it extremely funny that they would put fake snow down on the lawn...and that there would be leaves covering it :)
merry christmas everyone! more pictures coming soon.

michigan.

i'm excited-don't get me wrong-but i just don't know if i'm going to be able to handle the cold. today i looked at the calvin webcam---it looks cold in the midwest. i'm definitely getting used to this warmer, sunnier climate of northern ca. today it rained but still we saw sun in the afternoon. i guess i'm going to have to pack my winter jacket and boots. can't wait to see you in michigan!

A Long Awaited Post

Things are finally beginning to settle down a little bit, just as things are beginning to get busy.

Even if I haven't finished everything I wanted to, it feels like life has fallen back into a managable pattern...at least for a couple more days!

And now for the review I have been intending to write/post for the last TWO MONTHS!!

An Amazing High-Wire Balancing Act

The stakes couldn't be higher as the members of Daggett and Bartlebee's circus recover after a terrifying accident on the rails. With busted cars, injured performers and lions on the loose, Daggett and Bartlebee's have little time to spare if they want to catch up to their rivals, Clark's Incredible Show, whom some believe caused the accident.

In the best installment of the Caleb Pascal & the Peculiar People series, Kersten Hamilton packs A Gathering of Brothers chock full of everything one would hope for in a children's book. I was most impressed by Hamilton's ability to incorporate complex ideas, in simple language, within the driving plot of the story. Not once did I feel as if the story dragged because of dialogue, nor did I ever feel as if the ideas were treated only superficially. There is great depth and drama contained within this slim book.

This is quite a feat for any author, but especially for one in the book market that Hamilton finds herself in. Very rarely in the Christian children's market does one find such a daring and talented author (at least in my experience). Often, we find books that are heavy on "Christian Themes"- whether that comes in the form of dense apologetic or heavy-handed allusion. In many cases, even the theology is watered-down in order for the books to be either understandable, or palatable to a wider audience, and in doing so these books sometimes border on bad theology.

Kersten Hamilton's Caleb Pascal books are none of these.

I could say much more, but I won't. Instead, I'll allow you to discover the world of Caleb for yourself.

our apartment

some have you have requested a few more pictures of the apartment. i found some that i took awhile ago to show you the kitchen and our bedroom...the dining room you can see in the thanksgiving pictures and the living room/office you can kind of see in the christmas tree picture. have a great week-i'm hoping to come out alive at the end of it :)

meeting a hero.

yesterday afternoon we went down to santana row and met the person who i believe to be the best cook on television. her name is rachael ray. here are some pictures from our meeting. p.s. justin came into town yesterday too-that was also very exciting! his hair is quite long since our last meeting-very californian.she was posing for us during her Q and A
me grading papers in line...i can't lose precious grading time :)
justin...our photographer for the signing.
rachael ray while signing...don't worry she wasn't caged up.
check out the security guards...yes she's a high profile celebrity folks
our foot ware for the day
another woman's foot ware choice...i hope those make her run faster.
i wanted to cut her hair and donate it to locks of love...don't worry that's not my hand contemplating where to start cutting.
like her princess cup?
we told justin to get some close ups....i think this is as close as it getsjeremy is pretty nervous
signing our books "i just can't do this with the hand brace on" (she was looking pretty sore after signing like 700 books)
jeremy is just as excited as i am...believe me
WOOOO WHOOOOOO!!!!!
there is my signed book :)
mom denouden with rachael ray
super excited that we got our books signed!
this picture is taken where we started the day in line...notice you can't even see her from here.
what do you think of these Christmas outfits?
it was a great day! i hope you enjoyed these photos :)

a snapshot of the snow family visit to sj

over thanksgiving the snow family came to visit us! we had a great time with them being here and loved showing them around the bay area. here are a few of my favorite pictures from their visit.
day 1: thanksgiving day. church at sjcrc, eating in the apartment and then taking the lightrail to downtown san jose
hannah and i had bunches of fun getting the turkey ready for us to eat it. i felt as though i would become a vegetarian after that experience...and then the delicious turkey came out of the oven and i forgot about those thoughts. we had a good time checking out christmas in the park-complete with fake snow :) andrew thought the outdoor toilets were a bit crazy...he had his own ideas of what to do. after our tour of downtown we headed over to dad denouden's for some of grandma snow's famous apple and raspberry pie-thanks for the recipes grandma!









day 2: driving the school van around the neighborhood-checking out jamba juice, safeway, my school, and other interesting stops before heading out to mt. hermon and santa cruz to see all the hippees.
we had a good time walking downtown santa cruz, eating at pizza my heart and then heading down to the beach boardwalk to stick our feet in the ocean. i don't think they knew that one week later they would all be enjoying a snow day in michigan :) hannah, jeremy and i enjoyed visiting santana row-notice the beautiful christmas decorations. later that night we headed to the mall for p.f. changs (some wonderful chinese food) and some black friday shopping at the oakridge mall.















day 3: san francisco tour day
first we headed to starbucks before making the trip up to san francisco (1 hour drive) in the school van. "garmin girl" kept us on track with the navigating while dad denouden was our taxi driver. first stop-the golden gate bridge. we walked across it-which was very cool-and were picked up on the other side for a ride back over and through the city. we then went up and down lombard street (very scary in ths school van), to coit tower, to in-n-out burger at fisherman's wharf, pier 39, piviot's sf offices, alcatraz, and ghiradelli square. we enjoyed a lot of cool sites-especially alcatraz and the golden gate bridge. we headed back at the end of our whirlwind tour to pick mom denouden up from the airport and head to bj's for dinner.
day 4: big breakfast at the apartment, downtown campbell, trader joes
we finished up the snow's visit by cooking up a big breakfast with 4 snows and 4 denoudens surrounding the table. the tiny kitchen survived one more big cookingfest which was a good thing in my book :) after breakfast and cleaning up we stopped by trader joes so that mom snow could see what its like inside and then we went to downtown campbell to check out what they had at the farmers market. after our quick tour of campbell we headed to the airport to say goodbye.
i hope you enjoyed this belated post about our wonderful thanksgiving. we have many things to be thankful for-especially this year!

























and for my favorite picture of the day...in honor of dad snow's upcoming (ok now it's already happened because i'm so slow!) trip to japan