This has been a monumental year in my life, and I just don't think it'd be appropriate to go into the new year without a highlights list from 2009. Shall we?
10. My mom, Kyle, and I got to see Jan sing the national anthem at a Braves game (against the Yankees) in the summertime. There was also free food and beer for the celebrated singers' relatives!
Jan is the one all the way on the left in the white polo. Yay Delta Men's Chorale!
9. After many years of being scattered every which way, the highly coveted and most beloved Brownie reunion was held before yet another diaspora. Maybe we can do this again in 2011? I love these girls so much!
Whitney, me, Kelly, and Allison after a lovely slumber party
8. I found a cat in the parking lot at work, and wouldn't you know? When I brought her home, she became the deeply cherished Moonpie Milligan (it's Moonpie because she moons everyone~weirdo doesn't have a tail). A brief story about her~ when Moonpie still dwelled in the parking lot, a lady wanted to feed her. She didn't have milk or cat food or anything, but she did have plain yogurt. We agreed it probably wouldn't hurt the cat to have yogurt so we found a bowl and left it to the tiny animal. At the end of the day, a coworker saw it and thought it was spoiled milk. She started getting all frustrated about who would leave milk for a cat outside in the middle of a scorching summer in Georgia. It was hilarious for those of us who knew that we were dealing with yogurt...a much thicker dairy product which had not spoiled at all...
In all her tailless glory~Moonpie!
7. After carrying the shame of being an International Affairs major who had never even visited her nation's capital, Kyle took me to D.C. It was thanks to our good friends, the Gardners, who invited us to come stay with them as a wedding gift. We are still so grateful!!!
6. I landed two really stellar jobs after spending the better part of 2008 interviewing and scattering my resume to the four corners of the earth. I loved working at Go Fish; it's a mission based business which ministers to artisans and craftsman all over the world while selling their goods in the U.S. at fair trade standards. It's lovely; you should visit it on the Marietta Square! My second job was at Good Samaritan Health Center of Cobb. We provided medical and dental care to folks who didn't have health insurance at a low price. I really loved my coworkers~Corina, Jackie, and Nanette. They kept me sane and we had a lot of fun in our little office. I was sad to leave both places back in August.
4th of July at Go Fish~so fun!
The whole Good Sam family
5. I have run on and off for the past few years. Kyle and I finally put our efforts towards something bigger this past spring. Our new year's resolution was to run a half-marathon. We trained a bunch doing big runs on Saturdays and Sundays. In the end of March, we did it. We definitely want to do it again.
It was a chilly run in Atlanta (ING half-marathon)
4. My big sister Katie and her husband Blake have spent years earning their Masters of Divinity and working in churches all over. Katie was officially ordained this year; it was a huge landmark in her career and a wonderful event for the family to celebrate. It even snowed on her ordination day in March in Memphis, TN.
Mom, Katie, and me sporting red for Ordination Day
3. My little sister Anna and I got to spend a ton of time together before I got married. Number 3 is just all about the quality time that we got and probably had never had before. Anna is a fancy artist who can do anything, and she deemed I was cool enough to come to the art gallery where she hangs out for a lecture with her. This evening is pictured below.
Anna is probably telling about how easy this style is to master or we are making fun of the pinhead art "connoisseurs" in the house
2. On habite en France! Need I say more?
We needs some berets and cigarettes to look authentic here...
1. Kyle Hamilton asked me to marry him, and we did just that on May 30, 2009. It was the happiest day I think I've ever known.
We slow danced to a bluegrassy rendition of "Cheek to Cheek"
There you have it folks. 2010 has a lot to live up to. I'll keep you updated right here. Take care and Happy New Year!!!
Happy Christmas Eve! Kyle and I returned from our travels last night and had a terrific time, and are happily settled back in our apartment listening to the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College's Chapel in Cambridge. All we are missing is a fireplace and hot chocolate. The day holds happy baking and snacking on tasty treats as well as stocking stuffing and dreaming of sugarplums. But first, I'll recap our travels for our friends and family who are far away.
Saturday morning we woke to a veritable winter wonderland. The lake was frozen and snow covered everything. With our suitcases packed and our bodies bundled to face the elements, we set out for the train station. I regret to say we didn't take photos in the hopes that we would return to the same magnificent snowy terrain...it was not to be. No worries; it'll snow again for sure. At the train station, we realized we had forgotten two key elements~our passports & our youth cards which allow us to buy discounted tickets. We debated returning home and catching a later train, but Kyle bought new youth cards and we resolved to use our drivers' licenses as ID. Our train ride was not as idyllic as one hopes at the holidays. I envisioned that our trip would be like that of the Pevensies when they are sent to live with Diggory~beautiful train and terrain. Of course there is no war now, we live in France, and thankfully it's not always winter and never Christmas. We are in fact quite different, and Kyle and I experienced a troubling thing. The French are rude! (The reader may say to oneself, surely the Hamiltons were aware of this before they moved to the land of cheese eating surrender monkeys. Yet it occurs so infrequently (I mean, I live with Kyle Hamilton~the nicest guy ever), that it was a shock to us) (and yes, I did put parentheses within parentheses). We can just chalk it up to holiday anxiety and oversold trains...lame.
We spent our first day in Strasbourg. It was terribly cold when we arrived, so we spent the better part of the afternoon at the hotel trying to overcome the effects the cold had on our toes. Our hotel greeted us with delightful vin chaud or gluhwein (depending on if you are talking to a Frenchman or a German). I found it to be very tasty while Kyle could do without it. Kyle also scarfed free cookies and came across his first taste of pfeffernusse. I had actually just warned him about their nasty flavor when he bit into one and hated it. My big sister Katie loves the stuff; I remember eating it when we were little...it's gross.
Vin chaud served in a plastic cup....weirdos, it ought to be in a shoe!
Saturday night we hit the town. Strasbourg claims to be the capital of Christmas. Perhaps they are, but we think they are just the capital of the most vin chaud huts out of all the markets we visited. It's like a carnival, and the food is so bad but so good. From here on out, I'll mostly be logging what we ate and how we lived to regret it. Kyle got a hot cider to make up for the yuck factor from the vin chaud at the hotel. Then we got the most insane thing~it was a pretzel covered in cheese and lardon (big bacon bits). It's probably the flavor of sin. Jack frost was out in full force, so we hid out in a little salon de thé to warm up and drink coffee and hot chocolate. We braved the cold for just a little longer and pick out a dessert (as if we needed it). Kyle had his very first batch of churros con chocolate. This was a staple for me in Spain just a few short years ago; I happily munched the fried tasties with my husband as we rushed back to the hotel in the cold. We rounded out the evening with a couple of Simpsons Christmas episodes in French...not exactly a Garfield special, but nice!
One of many market entrances
A very bad yet oh so good pretzel
On Sunday we wanted to catch up on some sermons from our U.S. church Trinity Vineyard. The minister always emphasizes preparing our hearts and minds for the coming of Christ (both his first coming and his second coming). We loving going to church in Metz, but the days that we have home church are really nice, too.
Advent on an iPod
Our hotel had a huge breakfast buffet; we ate a bunch to prepare to face yet another cold day out and about. We had a couple of hours to explore more of Strasbourg in daylight before a quick ride to Colmar. Strasbourg is just a lovely city in general; I would love to go back when it's not sub-zero temperatures outside. I had to resist saying over and over again, "I can't put my arms down..." like Randy Parker in A Christmas Story. In truth it was more like I couldn't turn my head. Anywho, we had a nice afternoon strolling about and train riding with many kinder and gentler French folks than our first train.
Posing with a polar bear
Colmar is a new favorite place. It is filled with old town timber framed houses and is known as "Little Venice" for all it's canals passing through the village. We had the most magical Christmas evening here. Our hotel room was like a cozy log cabin, there was one Christmas market right outside our hotel, it snowed non-stop all night, we attended part of a Christmas concert in a beautiful cathedral, and ate dinner at the perfect restaurant. Kyle said he wanted to take me out to a nice dinner at least one night on vacation. After venturing into several restaurants to ask about their food and hours, we finally found a place off the beaten path. It was tricky since most of the restaurants in Colmar are brasseries...not especially fancy. Kyle said if he could just find a place where the chef comes out and talks to the folks in the dining room about the food, it would be perfect. We got that and more. Our chef greeted us at the door and was ever so friendly. He recommended a nice white wine we wouldn't have tried otherwise (a Klevener from the Alsace region). Kyle ordered escargot as an entree for me to try; it was my first time eating a slug, and I must say it was quite lovely in a garlic and butter cream sauce. For dinner, I had veal, and Kyle had a duck thigh~a very different flavor from the fillet we had on thanksgiving. Our meals were served with spaetzle (which is different in every restaurant) and choucroute (sour kraut). It turns out our waitress was the chef's wife. They were both very nice, and we had lovely conversations with them and marveled at their ability to switch from speaking french with us to German with the other patrons. It was a delightful evening.
A lovely night in a 4 star hotel!
A concert before dinner...Kyle kept looking for Old Man Marley who comes to watch his red haired granddaughter sing on Christmas eve (name that movie!)
Fancy dinner with a handsome husband
Colmar's Robot Nativity...very odd
Kyle and I spent the better part of Monday in trains and train stations. After seeing on the news all the European travelers affected by frigid snowy weather, we ought not to have been surprised when we too joined the masses of troubled holiday travelers. We returned to Strasbourg to depart to Germany on a speedy TGV. About the time it was to take off, we found that it was delayed for 1.5 hours...yikes! We had places to be and people to meet! Skillful Kyle again rescued us from having to worry. It just meant taking another train (making the total for Monday 4 trains). It's enough to make someone dizzy, but Kyle was on top of it all. We were blessed to meet a fellow American from Kentucky on a train somewhere in Germany. She skillfully translated a few things for us from German to English to help us find our way. It was refreshing to just chat easily with someone in English.
Books and coffee~the official sponsors of our holiday travels
When we finally arrived in Heidelberg, we were greeted by Audrey and her parents. It was a happy sight and a happy experience to all get in a car and go for a ride. We wasted no time to get downtown and hit the Christmas market. Audrey had arrived earlier in the day and was doing surprisingly well with the time change. We saw downtown, drank gluhwein, and watched people ice skating. I loved it. Sadly, we left our cameras in the car and have zero pictures from our time in Heidelberg...lame. Guess it means we'll just have to go back! We snacked on roasted chestnuts for the first time~those things are meaty. For dinner we scarfed some bratwursts and feuerwursts (hot brats). The night wasn't complete without a quick trip to the prettiest little Starbucks we have ever seen. Seriously, I think I'll decorate my future house in the likeness of this particular Starbucks.
Well, our early error of forgetting the passports came back to bite us. Kyle and I were not permitted on to the military base with photocopies of passports and drivers' licenses...at first it stunk. The Lewis' put us up in the Holiday Inn down the street. We felt so bad and so frustrated with ourselves. I just wanted to spend every waking moment hanging out with Audrey, and I felt let down that something so small had prevented me from much needed QT. Alas, God knew before he laid the foundations of the earth that Kyle and I would be spending Christmas feve (does this work Katie, Foo?) and Christmas threve in the Holiday Inn in Heidelberg. We got to experience the weird bed cover situation that Germans do...so odd and hard to explain. Kyle got under a sheet and said that we should have been in it all night only to find that when he did that, he was sleeping on the mattress cover...again, hard to explain and odd. But fun for adventure's sake.
Tuesday was great~Audrey's parents, Sherri and Mitchell, had picked out a bunch of treats for us from the commissary. We started the day with something I love so so much and will likely never find anywhere~cheese bretzels. They are amazing. Kyle got to drink some real milk~real American milk. The pasteurized stuff in France just isn't all the great to drink... We hit to road and visited two cities: Worms and Speyer. The day was filled with Christmas market magic and good foods~currywurst, gluhwein, crepe, flammkuchen, and spiced breads. German food is so good. As if all that weren't enough, Sherri took us out to a neat German restaurant. Tragically~no pictures to capture the memories. We finally enjoyed large German beers (Audrey & I had Paulaners...Kyle had some kind of schwarzbier...but we can't recall now which it was). For dinner Audrey and I split a jagerschnitzel; it was very big and very delicious. All four of us shared an apfelstrudel for dessert. We ate like kings. After dinner, the four of us played a very clever domino game at the Holiday Inn and sipped a Cote du Rhone that Kyle and I brought from France. It was so much fun, and I dare brag that I won the game.
The original Sunday crew reunited and getting jolly with gluhwein
We are down with Martin Luther in Worms, Germany
We are inSpeyered to take a picture (mix Speyer, the name of the city with inspired...)
This video got messed up, but it was a very fun moment in the streets of Speyer
Catholic treasures~Kyle is taking in what appears to be a bedazzled bone on display
The close up of the bone if you didn't believe me...yikes!
Wednesday was our final vacation day. We hit one final Weihnachtsmarkt in Mannheim. We ate gebrannte Mandeln (candied almonds), and they are my new favorite thing. We snacked on some other sweets like schneeballen. Some folks were making old fashioned Lebkuchen (gingerbread) with metal forms to shape the cookies. It was really pretty. I succumbed to my Starbucks weakness one more time, and shared a mocha with my pals. For lunch we shared a good old fashioned kebab with pomme frites and mayonnaise. It always hits the spot. Kyle had his first Kinder egg, and Audrey taught us the method for selecting an egg which may hold the best treat. I think we all came out on top with the toys thanks to her. After all the food and the sights, our visit with the Lewis' was drawing to a close. It's sad to say goodbye, and I'll miss Audrey until she comes to visit again in the summertime. I'm glad she has a job that has good holiday breaks. Alas, good things never last forever. We all bid each other adieu and auf wiedersehen, and Kyle and I were back to our favorite pass time~waiting for trains.
Kyle says: Ich esse gern dem schneeballen...or something like that
Marionettes marching...the sound is a bit funky on this video
3 cheers for Starbucks
Family Christmas card photo
Our barely there Kinder Surprises....no wonder these are illegal in the States
The train rides home were mostly uneventful. We watched a couple of season 3 Office episodes and listened to another advent sermon. Listening to sermons on a train is a lovely thing. It grounds you even though you're traveling at high speeds across a strange country. As enjoyable as traveling the European way is, we were glad to be home, unpack, and settle in for Christmas. We watched It's a Wonderful Life before bed last night and it was the perfect end to a few perfect days.
As it is dinner time, and Kyle implores that I watch more Christmas movies with him, I must bid you a Joyeux Noel and pray that you have a most blessed Christmas. Thanks and praise be to God for our family, friends, travels, and most of all for his son Jesus Christ. Bonne Nuit!
Nothing to take you right out of the holiday mood like breaking a child's spirit in front of his peers. Boy, I am down on myself. A little fellow named Gauthier is a fifth grader at one of my schools. He did miserably on his tests and his classwork was in disarray. Going into the grading period, I knew it would be bad for him. Now that we both are aware how challenging English is for him, I think he dreads seeing me more than ever. Well, today I tried not to make them work too much since it's the last day before vacation. I gave them two Christmas pictures to color. In each one I asked them "What do you see?". Since we've been studying parts of the body, the answers were "I see 5 eyes" or "I see 2 legs". It ought to have been a piece of cake, but naturally the children forgot the "s" at the end of plural words. I coached them along trying not to give the answer. I also discouraged their peers from revealing the desired response because I wanted to see what they remembered and to hear complete sentences spoken. After all, what good is an English anatomy lesson if you can't talk about it?
This brings us to dear little Gauthier. On his turn, I asked him how many heads he saw. I wanted to give him an easily remembered word since I knew he was struggling. Last Tuesday we sang "Head, shoulders, knees, and toes" a million times so I was sure he knew this word. To say that the cat got his tongue would have been an understatement. I asked him if he understood the exercise, and he said he did. I wasn't instantly reassured because he started to look frantic. The poor little guy got really worked up; his peers Lou, Herve, and Jules started whispering the answer to him to try and throw him a lifesaver. All our voices must have overwhelmed him. His round little cheeks turned bright red and his eyes filled with tears. I couldn't believe I had done this. I felt so bad that I wanted to run to the nearest bathroom and cry too. Leah Hamilton: English Assistant and Bully to 5th graders or Miss Leah: You'll Learn Vocab....Or Else!!! Just when I thought I was getting better at my job, something brings me down to remind me that I'm not a real teacher.
I don't mean to be so blue. This unfortunate event happened in my last class of this trimester. I thought I'd be blogging about me in my kerchief settling down for a long winters nap. When what to my wondering eyes should appear? The sweetest little boy with eyes full of tears.... (did I mention I read "The Night Before Christmas" 7 times this week in my classes?) It's not the end of the world, and I still have 6 more months to try to help Gauthier. Oh bother...
In happy news, Kyle and I embark on our second excursion from Metz since we arrived in France. We roll out to Strasbourg tomorrow; it has the best Christmas markets in France. I'll save the details of the trip for when we return; I'll have plenty of pictures and more surprises from the trip....it's better this way.
I also wished to include some pictures from our lake. It has almost entirely frozen over. Alas, my camera was dead. I used Kyle's camera which allowed me to take just a few snaps before promptly dying too. I'm not quite sure I got the settings right...lighting is funky at sunset and I am no photographer. Next time I'll have to just throw in a video of the ducks slippin' and slidin' every which way. You can't be sad when you see that....For now, joyeux noel et bon vacance!
Merry Christmas!!!! This entry will be a bit all over the place since it's been a while since I wrote. Not surprisingly, I got bogged down with end of the semester laboring over test preparation, grading, and general fatigue. The children know that the end is near, and their enthusiasm has amped up with each passing day. One super fun Christmas-y week left until holiday and travels!
Kyle and I celebrated 6 months of marriage on November 30th. Since it was so close to Thanksgiving, we just saved celebrating for last weekend. We had a lovely day of fun food activities. I made Chex mix for Kyle; he had never had my mom's recipe which is super tasty. We had to improvise a good big because there are no cereals like Chex here. Zip zero zilch in the corny, wheaty square cereal department... We used something that looked like Chex (but jumbo sized) from the snack aisle. It turned out pretty well, and the whole batch was scarfed within 48 hours of its preparation. It may be the best snack in the world.
Moments before the magic mix performed a vanishing act...
Kyle picked up some oranges and cloves from the store so that we could scent our home with a wonderful holiday citrus aroma. It's about as close as we got to homemade ornaments this year.
Posing with our delights~please don't mind the lack of mascara; blond lashes are weird to me too.
Orange you glad these smell so good?
In truth, it probably wouldn't taste that good though...
The day ended with a meal we absolutely love. At our rehearsal dinner we ate bacon wrapped shrimp and risotto. Kyle first recreated it for us on our honeymoon because we wanted it again so badly. Well...French bacon is expensive so we used the next best thing. There is a wonderful little item called lardon; it's cubed pork with that delicious bacon flavor. Lardon doesn't exactly sound very appetizing, but we achieve the flavor which we sought in this dish. Kyle yet again mastered this dish.
Up close and personal...you'd dig this!
On a side note, all the shrimps come with their heads still on. There beady little black eyes really creep me out so I always discourage Kyle from picking them out when we are at the grocery store. Once I finally gave in for our fancy meal, Kyle thought he'd make the most of those freaky little shrimp heads. He made a homemade shrimp stock for a neat shrimp bisque (in lieu of crab bisque). His culinary inclinations payed off; the bisque was delicious. However, we quickly found the downside of homemade shrimp stock....the smell (or should I say stench?) of stewing seafood has lingered in our little apartment for days. Candles and clove-stuffed oranges haven't toppled the reigning shrimp flavor in the air. Even our pillows on the bed smelled gross. Today Kyle stewed cloves and cinnamon sticks in water on the stove (a very lovely thing to do at the holidays anyways). We are hoping this does the trick.....
Packages arrived from the states filled with Christmas presents this week. We are happy to have added to our loot under the tree~it's a veritable surprise. Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I don't want Christmas to get here soon. Don't get me wrong; I'm going to love opening presents. But the presents represent something bigger while we are away from home. As long as we have gifts from home, we have something to look forward to doing/sharing with our families. If I open the presents, I will have the moment where I feel connected to my parents, sisters, and brothers. In that moment, I'll feel not so far away from them; it'll be as if they are with me. Once the present it open, the moment is fleeting and I return to being in France and not knowing when I'll see them or be near them again. It's a funny thing....
Colorful gift wrapped presents from the Milligans and Foo
Gifts from the Hamilton family are shiny or plaid! (Wow I just realized that we can be called the Ham Fam~haha!)
The stockings were hung by the windoor with care.
I'll end on a lighter note. I've finally remembered to take pictures of Kyle's Lance Armstrong bike and my Barbie Dream bike. Also, Kyle had a home improvement project that he wanted me to share with yall.
Only a handful of months before the Tour de France....
...from ecole de Jean de la Fontaine. The original has a better ring to it. So my big sister Katie requested a few more of the quirky stories and mishaps from my day to day life at school. Here are a few gems I've been saving up:
1. I teach a class that is part 2nd grade & part 3rd grade. I'm only responsible for the 3rd graders, but the teacher is such a bum that she insists on me entertaining the little ones so she can take a break. The attention spans of 2nd and 3rd graders are vastly different, and sadly the 3rd grader in the mixed class don't perform as well as my class composed entirely of 3rd graders. It's a problem in the schools in small towns where there just are too many children in one grade for one class and yet not enough to form two classes.
Occasionally I have issues maintaining order in this class, but one day I experienced a whole new type of distraction. I expect the chit chat, throwing erasers, poking with rulers and such. However, I was completely caught off guard when one of the second graders started...let's see...trouser coughing? Some might call it "behind burping". These were no childlike noises coming from this little fella; every child in the class was aware of his situation. And it continued....to the point where I asked him if he was feeling ill. He said no. I couldn't discern whether he was proud or embarrassed. It was a peculiar occurrence that I didn't want to dwell on. So naturally the best way to cover it up was start singing the ever popular Nuvaring days of the week song. Crisis averted!
2. This next story involves the very same little 2nd grader. While doing a matching activity, 7 students were asked to come to the front of the room to label each day of the week with a picture of school or a picture of home (to represent where they spend the days~lucky french kids are home Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday). When he was called to place his card next to the appropriate day, he turned toward a female classmate and laid a big fat smooch on her. Everyone giggled. I was shocked. I think there is something wrong with this kid, but all his shenanigans have been mostly harmless (even the little girl didn't seemed to bothered by his public display of affection). He's an absolute nutter.
3. I have two types of teacher's pets (or in my case, English teaching assistant's pets...kind of awkward to say...). The first are the ones who like to stand next to me when I'm teaching. Each time I enter their classrooms, they jump from their seats to ask me if they can be the privileged child who writes the date in English on the board. The situation was only exacerbated by the introduction of writing today's weather on the board in addition to the date. They also like to be able to select classmates to participate in certain activities. I like these students for the most part, but I wish they would be kinder to their less avid English learning buddies.
The second group of pets are creative and artistic. Among the girls, it results in frequent drawings and gifts of candy or special paper (think Lisa Frank or Hello Kitty collectibles). With boys it is a strange story. They typically admit a crush (I am much younger than most institutrices/french teachers and very rarely discipline anyone). Sometimes they try to hug me; I've instituted the high five rule when encountering the huggers. One boy tells me lots of stories during recess. One gives me origami surprises. One braided me a plastic friendship bracelet. Today I got something entirely new....
My french name is Léa~ fancy, huh?
This little number illustrates a large version of me and small version of my would-be 5th grade boyfriend who has a hairy pancake for a hand. In his imagination, he is part pauper and part king (displayed in his tattered clothes and royal crown) or he is a homeless Bart Simpson. From what I gather, he also updated my look to a flashy one strap top, a skirt, and some high-heel boots. On top of that my new hairdo includes bangs and a side pigtail. How did he know I was a child of the 80s? All in all, this was the biggest surprise gift I have received to date. I wonder if he'll still think so highly of me after I administer a super huge English test on Friday...
Alright...that's the latest and greatest from this side of the sea. Brief good news updates~Kyle has become friends with a fellow named Peter who is a super smart Mechanical Engineering PhD student here. He plays guitar and sings, so naturally Kyle had a new friend with whom he could play banjo. Peter invited us to a Bible study too, so we are pretty pumped about that. Did I mention that they won 50 euros in the GT Thanksgiving talent show? (scroll down to the next entry for video) Peter is already favorite. On a final note, it's my mom's birthday eve. It's a sad time not to be home because there is usually a Carrabba's dinner involved and lots of fun with the family. Happy Birthday Mom!!! Hope all is well in your world. Hasta luego tios!
