Dec 26, 2010

Another successful Christmas at the Chapman house. Gifts were given, food was ate, and songs were sang. Laura bought me a sweet winter coat from H&M, a domino set, and some new collared shirts. I bought Laura a sweet winter coat from H&M (not matching), and a deck of cards with custom pictures on the backs of each. Andy and Susan got a fire pit from the kids. Jon got a new charcoal grill. Mark got a new 4-in-1 printer. Kim got a "bird bag!!!" And Mina got a new chew toy.

Here are some pics and a video of our celebrations. The video is at the dinner table of our lobster dinner on Friday night . The pictures are of Laura I looking very Christmasyyy, and of Jon and I wearing our new matching collared shirts bought for all the men in the family. Merry Christmas!

Life around Dover

Currently we are spending the month of December in Dover, OH with Laura's parents. Being from suburb SF bay area, Dover seems like an extremely small town, but not without a lot of charm.

There's appx. 13,000 people living here, which makes for little traffic and fun mom and pop businesses. For example, we have Softies a few miles down the road that offers delicious soft serve ice cream, milkshakes, and hot dogs. Softies is only open seasonally, an odd thing for a business to do coming from CA. Then we have Uncle Primos, a pristine house converted italian restaurant with some great toasted garlic bread. You wouldn't think one would need a reservation for a restaurant in a town the size of Dover, but this place is packed on Fri and Sat nights.

Finally, we have my favorite business. I didn't catch the name of the store, but the advertising on the front of the store says it all. What I'm still trying to figure out is how a store like this found a market in a county of 98% white demographics with no night clubs to speak of.


Another thing about Dover is that it's freezing cold here in the winter months. If you've been following the weather, the entire mid-west has been getting pounded with snow. Since I only see snow once every few years, and hardly ever when it's following out of the sky, I caught a quick video of the wet sticky snow coming down at the beginning of the storm.

Still homeless, but loved

So we are in the middle of week three with the Ohio parents. Being homeless definitely has it's perks: Susan and Andy have been feeding us tasty food (turkey sausages with sauteed onions and peppers last night), we have a x-mas tree decorated, we've made wassail, sugar cookies, and gingerbread men. Life is good.

Laura and I quit our jobs back in October and left life in San Diego to start the road to East Asia. In early November, we were able to spend some time with a Church in Oregon. Here's a pic of the family's three little girls we stayed with:


We were able to spend Thanksgiving with my parents in which we ate a delicious traditional Thanksgiving meal:
Next we drove down to Phoenix to see our dear friends Vince and Verity get married. They had a beautiful outdoor wedding with some great food. Verity looked beautiful and Vince looked, eh, alright :)
After the wedding we flew to Dover, Ohio where we met up with Susan and Andy (Laura's parents). We have planned a busy December and were excited to get to it. We hosted a few desserts for friends, baked cookies, and played with Mina:


We also spent time with Laura's cousin and husband Jan and Dan Landis and their weimaraner Coda. We met them up at a cabin in Seven Springs, Pa. It was snowy and cold, but tons of fun! We played games, ate tasty food, went hiking (and hunting), and enjoyed the fireplace. Dan is a stud. He cooked just about every meal--homemade chili, spaghetti with venison, and a hearty breakfast. Here are some pics of our time with them (and a fun video!):




I hope this paints a little picture of our life these past few months. Thanks for reading!

freezing in ohio

Laura and I arrived in Dover, Ohio a few days ago and are settling in nicely. Well, I have settled in nicely--Laura still has her stuff spread around the guestroom. We were greeted warmly by Mina's slobbering jowls, Andy's bear hugs, and Mom's kisses. The weather here is, eerr, a brisk 25 degrees in the middle of the day (I'm freezing!).

So we went out to pick a Christmas tree today. Our first stop was a Christmas tree farm. We walked up and down rows and rows of giant sized and greatly thinned out trees. The selection wasn't that great. But I did manage to nearly freeze out there. At one point I couldn't feel my face and at another point I'm pretty sure my eyeball froze. We headed next to a little house that rounds up trees from a nearby farm and sells them in their driveway. We found a nice big ole tree that we thought would like great in the living room, though Mama Chapman nearly crunched it as she attempted to park her car in the garage with the tree still on the roof! Uh-oh! The damage was moderate, btu I think the tree will survive...maybe. Here's a pic of the tree pre-crunch.


I unfortunately don't have a pic of the tree stuck in between the garage door and the attic, but you could imagine what it looked like as she started backing up once she realized what she had done.

That's all for now.