Skip to main content

The holiday season part II: Christmas with our twisted team!

Our team celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve by throwing a mad bash with food, presents, and 4 kinds of dessert. I know each team member has graduated kindergarten because we all shared our American candy with each other, including Twizzlers, JR mints, and Reese's! My sister Allyson inspired the menu; we had a great feast of loaded baked potatoes!
Doesn't that look wonderful?

We then proceeded to open presents and that was a lot of fun. It always is! Here's some stuff we got:
Daniel: a giant mug that says I LOVE TEA, 3 boxes of tea, money, a big chocolate "R" (for Rad....or Revolution...or maybe Rabies?), and some other goodies.
Janna: a mug with Russian nesting dolls on it (ultra cute), a Christmas apron, a cookbook for Ukraine, some books, an olive serving tray complete with olive fork, a can of olives (I think I like olives), and some cookie cutters!

Doug says our team is twisted. What do you think?
I think we're pretty normal.
Regardless if we're normal or not, I think God put us together for a reason. We get along so well, and I think our personalities complement one another's. I marvel every day that I work with people I love and respect; it seems crazy that just 6 months ago Daniel and I barely knew our team, and now here we are eating baked potatoes together! God is good!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Freedom in losing

The last day of our summer camp, I told the kids about my first tennis game in high school.   It was a game that skill-wise I should have won, but I was so nervous and afraid of messing up that I totally blew the game.   It was only after I was one game away from losing the match that I relaxed and just played, after all, in my mind I had already lost, there was no stress.    And then I started winning.   But after winning four games in a row, I thought, “Wow, I might actually win this game.”   Then the stress returned … and I lost.   I focused on that time in the game where I had pretty much lost, but the game just wasn’t over yet.   There was an awesome freedom that comes when you know you’ve lost and you just get to play.   You can experiment, and if you mess up; who cares you’ve already lost.   If you do good, it feels good and you can enjoy it without worrying if it’s good enough.   Life is a lot like that tennis matc...

Anya’s Russian Dad

How war and propaganda have been affecting families across Ukraine, Russia and the world. On February 24 th , 2022, Anya, like millions of Ukrainians, was woken up at 5 o’clock in the morning by the sounds and reverberations of missiles striking in and around Kyiv (where she lived) and all over the country.  She spent that morning rounding up her very large family, including a 13 year old son who was at a sleepover more 30 minutes from their home.  Imagine being separated from one of your children in a situation like that.  They did get all of their family (18 people) together, but it was a lot of work and stress.  While getting everyone together Anya and her family had to pack up not knowing how long they would be gone.   Then, they joined millions of people on the road who were heading West.  It took them 3 days to make a trip that would typically take 7-9 hours.   As Anya sat in the car, she started thinking about her parents.  ...

How Ukrainians act during missile strikes

     I have been in Ukraine during many air raid alerts and have been close enough to hear and feel a number of explosions (primarily Russian missile being shot out of the sky), but, strangely, I haven’t actually been around Ukrainians throughout the duration of an air raid until this past week.   I had gone to a small warehouse store where I buy nails for my framing gun.  In the middle of placing my order, everyone’s phones started dinging.  Kyiv was under an air raid alert.  The young man who was helping me just kept working on his computer, but his colleague immediately stood up, looking at her phone and started wondering out loud if we should go to a shelter or if we should stay put.  Within a few seconds another worker came in from outside, and a lady came down the stairs.  They were all on their phones.   “Ballistic missiles.”   said the man “… heading towards the Kyiv area.”  Said the woman who had just come d...