M, M, M and J's Christmas

Mary and Mark enjoyed the Christmas devotional at the Washington DC Temple a few days before Chrsitmas.

Along with Mark's mother Jan, they traveled to Dallas to spend the holidays with Mark's sister Amanda and her family.  Some of the places they visited were in the area where George lived when he served his mission in Texas a 'few' years ago!

Johnny and Mónica's first Christmas as a married couple was a nice blend of traditions of both countries.  I sent them all the things to make Christmas sugar cookies.  This was Mónica's first time and the report is that she loved baking them and eating them!!!

Their cute little nephew Simon certainly loved them! Like most little kids, he liked the frosting the best!

Johnny says that since it is hot and everyone shoots off fireworks it felt like the 4th of July to him!  Fun to see them blend cultures and start to develop their own family traditions.  Hopefully next Christmas we can share a white Christmas with Mónica in the US!

Christmas 2014

We made a last minute decision to go to Eagle for Christmas.  Since George was keeping a careful watch on the weather we decided to leave on the 23rd after his 8:00 pm meeting and drive to LeGrande to spend the night.  We beat the snow storm across the Blue Mountains and only had this little bit of snow on Christmas Eve morning as we continued on to Eagle.

Christmas morning we woke up to a 'White-ish' Christmas!

For the first time ever we had our gifts under the Gaudi  tree that Matt had inherited from Aunt Tammy!  It was perfect!

The stockings that Grandma Montgomery made years ago gave us a touch of tradition!

Matt and Scott got the requested winter attire...even though Matt decided to return his!

Mary and Mark continued their perfect gift for the brothers of gift cards but this year with a twist....they were in puzzle boxes that had to be solved to open! Happy to report that both of them managed to get to their cards without tearing the boxes apart!

Keeping with the clever gift theme...Mary and Mark gave George these fun Lord of the Rings pez dispensers.  The boys are hoping that in 30 years they will be worth a fortune!

Matt made a very difficult tangram for George.  It is called a stomachion and has many possible solutions.  These two worked on it for quite awhile and finally were successful!

George did it on his own after we got home.  Another success!

We ate our traditional breakfast pizza.  Can you tell which part is for our vegetarian Scott?

Jackson got a new toy.  

I think he likes it!

I realized that there is not one picture of me from that day!  I had a good Christmas too!  One of my favorite gifts was a sweet note from Matt and Scott.  Along with the note was my ticket from the first Barça soccer game I attended at the Camp Nou.  They found it in a box and gave it to me.  It is from a game in 1999 I think!  Very thoughtful!  Mary and Mark gave me Downton Abby cookbook so I can cook all the Crawley family favorites just like Mrs. Patmore! Maybe the "Earl of Grantham's Green Turtle Soup"????

We missed Mary and Mark and Mónica and Johnny but it was still a wonderful Christmas!

Foster Dog #17

Foster dog #17 was 'Mystery"!  She was sweet and cute and lovable but was career changed for some guiding issues. The reason was not because she ate one of my wise men her last night with us!!!

People often ask me how I keep from falling in love with each of them and how we stand to give them back.  Well, I do fall in love with each of them and although he wouldn't admit it, so does George.  We can stand to give them back because we know from the beginning that they are not ours and we know that they are going to have great lives either as a Guide Dog or as a much loved career changed pet.

Of the 17 we have fostered 3 were retired guides, 6 were career changed, 5 went on to become Guide Dogs, and 3 were active guides who were just being boarded while their owners went on vacation or recovered from surgery.  Of the career changed dogs, 3 were career changed because of medical issues and the other 3 for behavioral reasons.

I think we are doing pretty well!

Christmas Ships

Portland has some great traditions!  This year was the first time that George and I saw the "Portland Christmas Ship's Parade" and we saw it right from our own apartment clubhouse and sidewalk.

This was the 60th anniversary of the parade. Fifty-nine ships participated...seems like they should have gotten one more so that there would have been 60!  Some of the skippers have been involved for more than 20 consecutive years.  The ships are privately owned and range from 50' feet long to little 18' ships.  Our ski boat was larger than some of them.  Each is decked out with Christmas lights.

Since is was raining (another fine Portland tradition!!!), I used a small waterproof camera so my pictures aren't the best.  It is hard to get a clear photo of a moving ship with blinking Christmas lights.  I did find a professional shot of one of my favorite ships.

The jolly old gentleman himself!  

Merry Christmas from Santa sailing down the Willamette River!!!

Christmas Past

I was feeling a bit nostalgic for Christmas past so I looked through the couple of albums I have here with me in Oregon and found a few Christmas shots that I love and that make me smile!

Says something about me that the first Christmas picture I saw that touched my heart was of our beloved Cirera.  Christmas in Barcelona!

 Then there is this one of our dog Arthur, my Daddy and Santa.  This was taken when Arthur spent a year with Moma and Daddy in Arkansas while we lived in an apartment in California.  Arthur adored my Daddy!

In the living room of my Aunt Mary's house - that is Aunt Mary, my mother, Aunt Maudie Moore, and Robin Moore.  

Oh how i wish this one were clearer!  That is Ross Moore, Robin Moore, Leigh Anne Cummings, Tracy Creech holding Amanda Cummings, with Alan Creech in front with the dog (but that can't be a real dog in Aunt Mary's house)  Then there is Kellie Walker, Kerrie Walker in my lap, me, George with the beard, and the little football player in the front is Chuck Cummings.

This must be Christmas 1979 in our house in Loveland. Colorado. Interesting hair style for me!

And 1981 with the addition of Matt.  Not many things cuter than kids in footie jammies!!

A couple of years later....  Notice that Matt isn't in Santa's lap.  Mary was never scared of Santa or Darth Vader or anyone in costume.  Not so for my boys! 

And now 1984, we add a 2 month old Johnny who was NOT happy to be in Santa's lap at all!

This picture includes our whole family.  Dad got to play Santa at the mall for a soccer fundraiser.  Neither Scott nor Johnny figured it out but as Johnny walked away he said, "That Santa tickles just like Dad."

I just love this one....Scott doesn't look too thrilled at whatever he has just opened!  And the matching pjs are just too cute!  

I've been thinking about the words to "I'll be Home for Christmas".  Love the phrase, 'where the love light gleams'. I'm glad I've had a life full of Christmas 'love light'!

A Christmas Laugh

Our ward took nativity pictures as part of our Christmas party.

They crack me up!

We definitely look more like Elizabeth and Zacharias than Mary and Joseph!

Black Sea #16 - Istanbul

Welcome to Istanbul! Now that is a moustache!  A Turkish band playing lively music welcomed us as we got off the ship.

Istanbul - Constantinople!  The crossroads between east and west, between Europe and Asia.  The center of Christianity for over 1000 years.  It served as the capital of four empires: the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Latin Empire and the Ottoman Empire.  It was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times. Then the  Ottomans conquered the city in 1453 and transformed it into an Islamic stronghold.

Hagia Sophia on the right and the Blue Mosque on the left

Hagia Sophia was built in the 6th century AD.  The name means, "Holy Wisdom".   In 1453 after hundreds of years as the dominate cathedral of Christianity, the Islamic call to prayer was heard for the first time within her walls.  In that year the Byzantine Empire ended with Constantinople falling to the armies of Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire.  Amazingly Sultan Mehmed stopped his soldiers from destroying the mosaic icons.Any kind of depiction of the human form is forbidden in Islam. For almost 500 years Hagia Sophia was a mosque but in 1934 became a secular museum.

I especially loved seeing the icon of the Virgin Mary with Jesus on her lap surrounded on both sides with Islamic letters that spell out "Allah" and "Mohammed". 

Brothers - John and George with Hagia Sophia in the background.

The Sultanahmet Mosque, commonly known as the 'Blue Mosque'.

This mosque was built from 1609 to 1616 and stands just across a park from Hagia Sophia.

Mosque's traditionally have one, two or four minarets.  The six minarets of the Blue Mosque make it very unique.  The story is that this was a misunderstanding. The Sultan asked his architect to make gold (altin) minarets which his architect understood as six (alti) minarets. Don't know if that is true but it does make a good story.  Even better, supposedly there was so much controversy that this new mosque had more minarets than the Haram Mosque in Mecca, which is the holiest in the Islamic world, that the Sultan had to send his architect to Mecca to add a seventh minaret to the Haram Mosque! 

You might wonder why this obviously white building is called the "Blue Mosque".  Well when you go inside that becomes clear!

20,000 blue tiles line the ceiling and walls!

We were there on a sunny day and the light was brilliant as it shone through the 260 windows and reflected and sparkled off the tiles!

The central dome is designed to lift all eyes heavenward.  All the photographers in the group certainly gazed heavenward!

They even had blue head scarfs for all us heathens!

Black Sea #15 - Katherine

One of the many wonderful things about our recent travel adventures is sharing them with George's brother John and his wife Katherine.  

I heard someone described as a person who 'scatters sunshine'.  That phrase describes Katherine perfectly. During a free afternoon in Sinop, Turkey the men headed back to the ship while we went exploring and climbed to the top of the guard tower we had been walking by all day.

We both love photography.  This afternoon we were out taking photos of the sunset.

I'm so glad we get to travel with someone who adds fun and laughter to each trip!  Katherine truly scatters sunshine wherever we are in the world!

Black Sea #14 Sumela Monastery

See that monastery carved into the steep rock cliffs?  Sumela Monastery was started in AD 386 by two monks who had found a Madonna figure supposedly carved by St. Luke.

Getting inside the buildings required a hike and a climb up some very steep stairs.

But the effort was rewarded as we entered into the monastery.

When Turkey was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, one Sultan granted protection to this monastery as a reward from curing him from an illness. Subsequent sultans extended the privileges.  Unfortunately there has been recent vandalism.

You can see an Islamic influence in some of the niches and decorations.

The frescoes date from the beginning of the 18th century.

 This one is considered very unusual because it shows Mary on her death bed.  Normally she is seen ascending directly to heaven.

Definitely a highlight day on our trip!