Holidays, etc.

Why, hello everyone. What do you know, it's a new year! Here's an overview of the past several weeks:

I commemorated my year-since-leaving-Mexico on November 23rd by spending the day in prayer, reflection, journaling, and reading, ending with a dessert get-together with friends at Diego's. It was a meaningful day, and I was glad for the alone time as well as the time with friends.

Thanksgiving was really nice at the Sikorski's with a few other families from the church. It was a great day to get to know my church family better and honestly feel at home with everyone, not to mention the delicious food!

I went home to Tulsa on December 12th for two weeks. I loved getting to see so many friends and spend Christmas with my family. My brother Kendall, his wife Rachel, and my sister Lindsay with her family all came to Tulsa too. It was good for me to spend quality time with everyone.

But I was happy to come back. The 28th was my friend Leland's birthday, so we had a small party at Tara's house, eating and playing games. The next week was filled with visits from various friends. Miguel came to spend Christmas with his family in Petaluma, just north of San Francisco, and he spent a few days here in Grass Valley to meet everyone and see everything and celebrate New Year's. We also spent a day in San Fran with a group of friends. He already wants to come back. :) Ann Cardamone from the AIM team that worked here a few years ago came to visit with her boyfriend Joel and good friend Amber, and that was fun too. Johnathan Ledbetter, my other friend Amber's brother, was also visiting from Lubbock. And lastly, Erika Carley has been back home from college, and she heads back to Abilene on Saturday.

I went back to work on Friday, and things have been a bit slower but not too bad. My hours haven't been cut, so that's really nice. It's good to see everyone again, and even though I had such a great holiday season, it's nice to get back to life as usual again. I'm looking forward to starting new Spanish lessons, talking to Sierra College to get things going for the fall, helping out with the youth girls' class at church, and continuing music and poetry endeavors.

One last bit of news: yesterday I finally got the tattoo I've wanted for years - the empty tomb on my foot, a symbol of hope and life. For some reason the picture uploader isn't working, but if you're on facebook, there's a picture there!

Love you guys, and hope your 2011 has begun as beautifully as mine has, thanks to God. :)