How’s that for a post title huh? /proud This will likely be a long post, so if you’re bored already, skip ahead to the next site in your rss feed :p I haven’t written anything in over a month! *reviews calendar* OH! Let’s begin with Thanksgiving.. the real one :p

~Thanksgiving~
The day of my last post, I was traveling to Virginia to spend 2 weeks with my mom and brother, G. I brought along all of my jewelry stuff to work on Christmas earrings while I was there. My suitcases were stuffed! I never realized how much “stuff” I actually have now. I’ve only been making jewelry for just over a year now. The weather was so fantastic in Virginia, end of fall-ish, not beginning of winter. G and I ran a bunch of errands, I got a new driving report for my citizenship paperwork (they’re only good for 6 months). Hopefully I won’t need to go get another one! I tried to go get a new FBI record report, but the Quantico MP station wouldn’t do it on my downloaded form, and they don’t have the stock cards. So I called the Stafford Sheriff’s office but they couldn’t do it before I left and don’t give out or sell their stock cards. You’d think they were on ration!

Bonus: I got to spend a lot of time with my adorable puppies, Mookie, Vashti and Wolfie. I missed them so much! My Mookie has become so brave, he’s the big brother now. He used to be terrified of the living room because of the ceiling fan and adjustable coffee table. Now he lives on the couch. Poor Vashti was just diagnosed with cancer and had just had surgery to remove a tumor before I arrived. She was really tired most of the time and had a really hard time walking. Once her stitches were removed she quickly returned to her normal bouncy princessy self. The best we can hope for though is that she won’t be in much pain before we realize it. :/ Wolfie on the other hand is such a giant now! I was there when my parents adopted him, and for a long time we were really worried, he had really bad diarrhea for over a month. He was sooo thin too, now he’s grown out and UP! Sitting on the couch with me, he’s actually taller. He’s probably the tallest puppy we’ve ever had. He and Mookie were quite a pair, getting jealous whenever the other was being petted. Wolfie would actually rumble though. I’m not quite sure it was growling, he didn’t seem angry, just vocal. It was close though and I found myself pulling my hand back once or twice. I <3 my puppies.

Thanksgiving dinner was smaller than usual. Even though we were only missing 1 person, that person was my dad, who can polish off most of a 10 pound turkey by himself. We were also leaving right after Thanksgiving so we wouldn't be keeping many leftovers. Mom cooked a turkey breast instead, I can't say it was even close to as good, but everything else made up for it. I of course made my world famous potatoes, we also had stuffing (ick), brussel sprouts with bacon, creamy spinach, REAL biscuits (c'mon canada!) and other stuff I can't remember at the moment. I think we were all finished and full within 10 minutes!

~Kiev, Ukraine~
The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Mom, G and I left for a short trip to Kiev. G had a meet & greet planned at the language school that wants to hire him. I admit, the Ukraine wasn’t even on my radar for places to visit. Making the plans for the trip was quite a chore. G did most of the research but the amount of emails, websites and issues was astounding. We ended up renting a 2-bedroom apartment for our stay. I really liked the furniture and bedding in what ended up being my room. Dark wood and orange sheets. My overall impression was that Kiev is a dark and gloomy place. I’m gonna ask G for pictures in the summertime but I bet it will look almost the same. Still the people were super nice, G even commented that he’d never had such a nice experience with people in his many trips to Russia. I think the trip would have been very different if G didn’t speak Russian for us though. The driver we hired, Igor, was supposed to speak English but he really didn’t. Still he was awesome, we all felt bad leaving him outside in his car while we went sightseeing or to eat. We asked him to join us, but he always refused. I have a full picture set up on my Flickr account, you need to be on my friends list to view it though. None of us could believe all of the Mexican food that were on the menus though, really? Ukrainian Mexican? We didn’t try any though. Back in Toronto at the St. Lawrence Market, our favorite Ukrainian store was pushing their Salsa.. Coincidence?

You can find more information about the specific places we visited in my brother’s blog posts.
#1 My Trip
#2 Kiev (Day 1)
#3 Kiev (Day 2)
#4 Kiev (Day 3)
#5 Kiev (Part 2)

I flew home on Dec. 1st. Ken and I had 4 days to catch up on some of the 3 weeks of TV shows that had piled up between his L.I.S.A. Conference week and my 2 week trip before Reina would arrive.

~Reina in Toronto~
My best-friend Reina came to visit for a week. I honestly wasn’t as happy about her coming as I should have been, Ken and I hadn’t even started our Christmas shopping yet and we’d be yet another week behind. Once she arrived though all of that didn’t matter. We had a great time! Everywhere we went, Reina was super excited, she’d get pictures with everyone we came in contact with. Even when she forgot her camera one day, the next day we went back to every place we’d gone to and snapped a picture. She’s just a tiny ball of optimism, cheer, energy, enthusiasm and super charming. Everything I’m not! I doubt I’d get away with half the stuff she did. Though we did NOT get away with trying to get a picture of 151 Front St. The security guard made us go away, but we did get a parking ticket that said 151 on it so Reina took that home as a souvenir. She helped us decorate our Christmas tree, and we had a great time out with some of our friends too! Some memorable pics we took: ~THE MOOF!!~ & ~Rest Assured!~ Reinforced my belief that I need a “day-friend” to do stuff with while all my friends are busy being productive members of society. We wished Melar would have come too, but I doubt that will ever happen.

~2 Weeks of Christmas!~
So here’s where Christmas Cheer Collides.. the 2 weeks of Christmas is a blur of get-togethers, present buying, SNOW!, and 4 foot penguins?! The Sunday after Reina left, we had our Christmas Dinner with Ken’s Mom & Jeff, Ken’s sister Karen & Kevin. Always fun to do a full course dinner in our tiny galley kitchen. By fun I mean, exhausting and messy.. *grin* Still it’s amazing every time we succeed. This year, I put to use my experience from our many Thanksgiving dinners and cleared out all non-essential items from the counters and tables. We even got to use one of our end tables as a secondary “serving” counter. I’m also getting closer and closer to the perfect ratio of potato <> people. My goal will be to have no less, no more than we need. I also prepared a fantastically received salad of baby spinach leaves, dried cranberries, died red onions, shredded carrots, and sliced apple with balsamic vinaigrette dressing. It was pretty awesome, and made me <3 cranberries for once. My mom usually makes cranberry bread every year, and I've never liked it much, now I understand why my older brother, DJ, insists upon it every year.

Speaking of which, I learned that my dad had arranged for a helicopter to pick my brother up from his outpost and fly him into the base so they could spend Christmas together. I it's awesome, I can only imagine how lonely it is for everyone out there. I got to talk to them both off an on all Christmas Eve / Day in IM. We joked that they'd be forced into doing a "troops in Iraq reunion" special.

The next Saturday after our Christmas dinner, our friend Nick finally came over for a visit. A long visit it turned out! He and Ken did lots of geeking out, we went to dinner at Seoul House for Bolgogi. Then we watched some Ergo Proxy. It’s been many months since we saw the first episodes with Sosena and I’d forgotten how awesome the theme song was, and PINO! It made a lot more sense the second time around. I must have been in Sosena’s “gourmet” Grilled Cheese stupor the first time. The only bad part of the visit was trying a piece of Nick’s caffeine gum.. UGH.. it took me a few minutes to figure out what the taste reminded me of.. Flintstone Vitamins mixed with Robitussin. I think the world needs me to stay away from caffeine, I already have the oddest sleeping habits of anyone I know. :p Nick however has caffeine sludge for blood, so he <3'd it.

The next day, Sosena came over and we watched a few more episodes of Ergo Proxy. Explained a bit more of the story. We ordered dinner from C'est Bon.. A Chinese place of all things. Their spicy crispy beef was fantastic, took care of my Hakka craving NP. Too bad Sos had to work that night, or we'd have watched much more Ergo Proxy. After picking Sosena up from her house in Brampton, I had to park on the other side of this giant Lake that had formed from the doorway to our car. She thought it was hilarious that I had to cross the river for her But really, driving over 5km was enough to make waves reach the windows!

~Christmas Eve~
On Christmas Eve morning, I went out and mailed off some late packages, stopped at the grocery store to pick up pepperoni bread fixings and surprised the Canadian Cancer Society with a $1k donation on behalf of the Snider Family. Ken’s step-mother has had some tumors removed this year and all looks good, so we’re very thankful for all the research and work they’ve done. The poor lady was all alone in the office, though she said it was ok since they were only open 9-noon. As I was leaving I suggested she should take off a few minutes early and promised not to tattle. Then after a well deserved nap, Ken and I watched some TV, played some games and I made traditional pepperoni bread. The frozen dough I got from the grocery store didn’t have any special spices listed in the ingredients but you could clearly see and taste them. Still it was awful good. Mmmmm

~Christmas Day~
We were supposed to drive up to Brantford and have dinner with Ken’s maternal Grandfather and family. But a few days prior, Ken’s mom told us that there would be too many people there and that she was sorry. So we made reservations at the Town & Country buffet. We go there maybe once every other month and it’s always “ok” but not fantastic. It was downright packed on Christmas Day though. Afterwards, we drove up to Brantford and stayed at the Best Western Brant Park hotel. In the new Gretzky wing.. The room was bigger than our whole apartment, had a fake fire place, and the MOST AWESOME whirlpool tub I’ve ever ever ever seen… I MUST own it if we ever get our own place. Ken says we could probably find better, but I <3'd this one soooooo. Though maybe there’s something to his theory..

~Boxing Day~
We spent the day with Ken’s paternal family as we do every year. They’re such a fun bunch, lots of sarcasm and irreverence. Us “grandkids” have taken over the main course responsibility (we were expected to bring an appetizer before) for the last year so Ken and I brought some Broccoli with cheese sauce. The food was fantastic, the presents took forever to open, always fun! Everyone seemed to <3 the earrings I made for them. Sadly Ken & his cousin, Michelle, did not win the Euchre tournament this year so we had to relinquish the trophy to his Uncle Lynn & cousin, Teresa. There was much taunting Every year Ken says he should teach me to play, but then he forgets until a few days before Christmas. So I don't play in the tournament, I won't make someone lose because I don't really know how to play. They take this tournament seriously! The trophy is engraved with winners names from like 10 years ago or something. After the tournament we packed up some left-overs and drove home.

~The Gifts~
Some memorable gifts this year: Ken got 3 certificates to attend cooking classes at Cephalon center (2 from Mom & Dad, 1 from Me), He drooled over the blu ray discs “Planet Earth” & “Roving Mars”. Books: The Tipping Point, GreenTopia & 2 of the Stargate SG-1: Fandom books. He also got a decorative plate set, a spread knife, gravy bowl, some sauces and spices, colored cable ties, a mini flash drive, .hack and other stuff I got Season 1 & 2 of Dark Angel. I <3'd that show. I also got Season 5 of the Gilmore Girls! A jewelry making book, Disgaea 2!! (I think that's a hint I should hurry up and finish 1 already *hee hee) Chocolates, 2 packs of card stationary, a pretty tiny tiny hummingbird necklace, this years Swarovski Ornament, this and last year’s White House Ornament, a beautiful handmade fairy on sparkly stone.. and lots more! I think we can walk in and buy our local Future Shop with all the gift certificates we got this year!!

~What it all Means~
Even though I didn’t spend Christmas with my family this year, they are off on a grand adventure to England & Scotland or stuck in Iraq, we were still as close as IM and picture uploads could keep us. The collision of love, good wishes, hopes and dreams from all facets of my family and friends and that which I feel for them reminds me what it all means. I’m not a good enough of a writer to explain it, but I’m sure everyone knows what I mean. It’s the one time of year where everyone can feel like the star atop the tree, and at the same time be the light on everyone elses star. Merry Christmas Everyone, I hope you figured out what it all means too.