Christmas Day

Christmas Day was filled with many blessings of family, food and presents. Brady and Rodi arrived at the Deckers around 10 and we preceded to read the Christmas story, retrieve our stockings and open presents. This was the first year our stockings weren't hung by the fireplace due to the flood damage-but Santa still found them to fill. Brady and I were surprised to receive a T-shirt quilt that my aunt had been working on-it turned out just beautiful! I also received a surprise GPS unit to help find my way on my out-of-town jobs (and even in-town jobs). After dad and Todd have gone with me to work-guess they thought mapquest wasn't all that it's cracked up to be. Brady proved to me that he indeed did have some Christmas spirit and surprised me with dance lessons-how fun! We continued the merrymaking at the Hansels later in the day where Santa had delivered the Wii...fun and friendly competition was had by all. Congrats to the bowling record holder Mary Jane! No one can step to her skills.

Ye Ole Festivus

On December 23rd we were able to get together with our good friends Dan, Steph and Larry for a pre-Christmas meal and merriment, also known as festivus-even though according to Dan we did not have the traditional festivus meal of spaghetti and meatloaf. Dan plays a darn good Santa at Christmas time always bearing many wonderful gifts-I know Rodi was not disappointed by her drum sticks and chicken jerky! Christmas Eve Brady awoke to his first ever bout with the flu so he wasn't able to go to Terre Haute that night, but joined us on Christmas day healed by cinnamon rolls and red velvet cake.

Merry Christmas from the Hansels

I've been calling Brady a scrooge a lot so far this month! He should celebrate festivus-a revolt against the holiday consumerism and materialism. So in rebuttal to my comments he assured me that he elfin loves Christmas...enjoy!!!

Slow, Local, Sustainable, Small Starts

Last night I felt like I was being transported into the paper I recently wrote for my class. Through Brady's contacts at HEC we were able to attend a lecture by Alice Waters at the IMA titled "Delicious Revolution: An Evening with Alice Waters". I actually hadn't heard of Alice Waters before this talk but have heard of her work. She is the founder of the Edible Schoolyard garden project in which students grow and prepare their own food. She is also an author, chef, local food advocate and food educator. After hearing her talk I really hope to visit her restaurant in Berkley, CA one day, and taste the wine and olive oil she was gushing about.