I hope all of our scattered family have a great Thanksgiving! Per our tradition, I wanted to start the day with what I am thankful for. My family is the biggest blessing in my life. I love each one of you more than I can express...those who have children will understand part of it but it gets more and more with each year as I see you all growing into such wonderful adults, spouses and parents.

Also, I am so thankful for the gospel and the peace that it gives me in my life...For Our Savior's atonement that allows us to overcome the inevitable mis-steps we make in our life and get us back on the path to return to our Heavenly Father. In conjunction with that, I am so thankful for the opportunity I have had to be an ordinance worker in the temple. Memorizing the ordinances has added such richness to my life.

I am so very thankful for Dad and our 37+ years of marriage...with both ups and downs but mostly ups. I love him so much. I'm also thankful that he is so valued by Willamette that they are trying hard to figure out how to keep him there. We'll see next week if it is worth it to do so!
But we feel pretty confident that we won't be put in a corner to have to put in our letter of resignation right now.

I hope all of you have a great day...and know that we love you!!!!

Love,

Mom

This was attached to a Crunch bar of my co-workers kid from Halloween.

My German co-worker just got back from a trip with her relatives and gave us all some treats from Germany...which somehow sparked a Christmas memory of Wa-Wa always giving us a chocolate letter for Christmas with the first letter of our name. I didn't remember if that was a Dutch thing or just a Wa-Wa thing so I searched on the internet for it. I guess it is a Dutch thing and I found this article about the tradition of giving chocolate letters...thought you all might be interested. :)

Dutch Chocolate Letters

At many Dutch Sinterklaas Eve parties, the very last surprise in Sinterklaas' special burlap sack, is chocolate initials, the first letter of each person's name. There will be one for each person—the first given to the youngest child, then on up to the oldest person present. These letters, melk (milk), witte (white), or puur (dark) chocolate, are popular throughout the Sinterklaas season. The tasty treats may be found in shoes, left by Sinterklaas as he makes his rounds checking on children. Employers may give an S for Sint, to employees. These letters also make special little Sinterklaas remembrances, promotional gifts, or may be simply purchased to enjoy with a cup of coffee or tea. The letters, in brightly colored boxes, are sold from around October 1st through 5 December only. Unsold letters aren't marked down, rather, they are returned to the manufacturers to be melted down for other chocolate treats. The Netherlands is the only place with a St. Nicholas chocolate initial letter tradition. However, letters are exported to other lands where Dutch have settled, such as Canada that imports one million.

A custom of edible letters goes back to Germanic times when, at birth, children were given a runic letter, made of bread—as a symbol of good fortune. Convent schools in the Middle Ages used bread letters to teach the alphabet. When the letter was learned and could be written well, a pupil could eat up the bread letter. During the 16th and 17th centuries pastry letters were captured Dutch Masters' still-lifes. These were probably filled with almond paste, much like today's letterbanket.

Letters became associated with Sinterklaas in the 19th century, when a sheet was used to cover St. Nicholas presents. A bread dough letter, placed on top of the sheet, identified where a child's gifts were located. During the 1800s advances in cocoa bean processing led to the production of chocolate bars. Chocolate letters were first manufactured around 1900, though they didn't become readily available until the 1950s. Almond pastry and sausage letters are made by bakers and butchers.

The Egyptienne font, with large serifs on the ends and no thin areas to break easily, is now used for most letters. Ridges in the mold help release the chocolate, conceal surface blemishes and give a ribbed surface to the letters. Originally molds were metal, now they are synthetic.

Boxed letters come in several sizes. Small ones are around 2¼ ounces, medium, 4¾, and large, 7 ounces—these big ones must be for real chocolate lovers or especially good children! Shoe letters (about 1½ ounces), come in cellophane, not boxes, to fit easily into shoes. Smaller yet, one-inch dark and milk chocolate letters come mixed in packages. Some also have crisped rice, nuts, or fruit bits. Sinterklaas season now brings letters that aren't edible at all, such as plastic s-shaped containers for candies and pastel foaming bath letters.

Chocolate letter makers pay attention to what names are most popular to determine how many to make of each letter. The best seller is M (a popular letter for names as well as mama and moeder), followed by S (for Sinterklaas, used generically to substitute for missing letters) and P, (for papa). Most companies don't make Q, U, X, Y, or Z. Some don't make I, as it seems clumsy and small. O and V are least popular, as few first names begin with them. M and W look like the biggest, though all letters weigh the same. In 2001, as a result of petitions with 2700 signatures, the large supermarket chain Albert Heijn promised to wait until 14 days before Sinterklaas' official mid-November arrival to begin selling chocolate letters. Parents don't want their children singing Sinterklaas songs and getting excited already in September!

Only the Dutch have chocolate letters for Sinterklaas—consuming many million each year (Droste produces more than 20 million, de Heer, another 10 million). 60–70% are milk chocolate, followed by white and bittersweet. It is a unique, tasty tradition!

I also found this website where you can buy the Droste brand of them here!

Nice to have the memories. Thanks Wa-Wa! :)

So I may have mentioned this to you guys and you may have already heard of it somewhere else but I want to introduce you to one of the best television series ever...
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

I know that Tom and Tracey share a deep love for the show with me and I think the rest of you would probably like it quite a bit. Well I found out today that MSN is going to be showing the episodes online at the link below! The first 5 episodes are up now to watch (with small commercial breaks) for free and they will be periodically adding more episodes. It is SO funny and I am ashamed that I didn't watch it when it was actually on the air and so it is now cancelled after only 3 seasons... :(

There are many movements to try to get it back on the air but we will see if anything happens. At least this is a good sign. Check it out!

Song Of The South - Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

This was on the Schickie blog---but I wanted to put it on ours too (I learned how!) because of Dad's fondness for this song and his funeral wishes!!!

Arrive PDX at 2203 on 22 DEC.

We leave from PDX at 0700 on 05 JAN.

- Mike

Mike & Brooke - could you put your mailing address on here again so that I can mail some Christmas stuff your way? I don't want to wait too long, since FPO/APO can sometimes take a while.
Tom & Tracey - I am assuming you are staying put for Christmas this year, so I will mail your stuff out there. Just let me know if it's any different.
Treven - we will send your gift home with Kim, if that's ok.
Whew. Let the season begin.

Adina

Chad and I went to this gathering in Irvine of car owners that want to show off their cars and talk to people about them. Dad you would love this. Next time you are in LA or SD it would be worth it to go to it on Saturday morning @ 7am. The last picture was a concept car that made an appearance. It is made by Maybach (off shoot of Mercedes). All Carbon Fiber!! and it stole the show from many Ferrari's and others. It was a wonderful experience!! Also 2 Carrera GT's were there. They are 400 - 500 K dollar cars!! WOW!! It is pictured with the yellow vette.
Brent

I have a request for any input on how Microsoft Flight Simulator X Compares with other simulators out there on the market and whether all the accesories are necessary such as the joystick, pedals and throttle box?

On another note thank you to those who helped with my New Orleans trip. It really was a great experience and also productive on the networking side of things for work. We did stay down the street from Bourbon Street and the group I was with was a bit wild so when I was back to the hotel after dinner at a time I thought was late(10:00pm) they were coming in hours later near 1 or 2 in the morning. Needless to say I was the only one at breakfast at 6 am who could keep their eyes half open without a cup of coffee.

The devastation there is really hard to describe. I took our video camera and shot some video. I will try and get some uploaded on the blog to give you an idea of what it looks like. We worked in the lower 9th ward gutting a home on Monday. It was one home of a duplex and it had not been touched since the hurricane hit. We pulled all the property, sheet rock, insulation and mud and made a huge pile that gets picked up on their rounds once a week. Our question was where do they take it? So needless to say it was pretty gross at times. A lady in our group was emptying the kitchen cabinets before we tore it all down and she opened the cabinet and three rats jumped out bouncing off her chest and running around the apartment until we hurded them out an exit. For Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we worked on roofing on one home and then framing and sheething on a different home. Friday we got rained out as it was pouring rain all morning.

On other topics we're excited to have Kim and Treven coming for Thanksgiving with Melia. Work is going good. I have been spending a lot of time with my Kuna City Engineering assignment. Everyday I am learning more about developing and how that process works with our being the city engineers. Brent and Buffy, I would be interested to talk to you about your home and at what stage of the process it is in. Hopefully they will get it done soon for you.

We are looking forward to a fun Christmas time with everyone that will be able to make it to Vancouver. We will be there from Dec. 24th to Jan.1st. See you all then.

Peter

Just some interesting comments I made note of this week...

Taylor, in his final draft paper on Dentists: Another way I picked this job is because I want to do this job when I grow up...because my Dad makes me brush my teeth every night and morning and I don't like it. While my Dad is doing my teeth, I droll because I can't swalo with the tools in my mouth. (grammatical and spelling errors included)

Morgan, after asking to help me make brownies: Yea, I'm a good helper because I can jump very high and I speak cat, dog, and werewolf.

Adina

So here’s an update from me since I don’t think I have written in a while. Things are good. This last weekend Nicole came down for a visit and that was really fun. Wish she lived down here but, oh well, I will get her down here soon enough! ;)

We did have a crappy run-in on Monday morning. I got my first flat tire on the 91 freeway in LA. We had to have the car towed to the nearest Mini dealer so I could get the tire fixed. Turns out the Cooper S doesn’t have a spare because it has “run flat” tires that you can supposedly drive on for up to 50 miles at 50 mph once they are flat…who knows maybe I had gone that far but by the time I realized it was flat it was pretty destroyed. It was pretty much hanging off the wheel when it was hoisted up on the tow truck. My poor Remus! :( So we got it to the Long Beach Mini dealership where they told me it couldn’t be repaired, had to be replaced. We had to end up waiting because we had no other way to get anywhere. Horrible service at the dealership. I’m sending them a letter about it…hopefully something will come of that. They didn’t offer us anything and pretty much ignored that we were there until they came to tell me that I had to replace the other front tire as well at a sweet $225 a tire…in the words of Dad, “if you buy a hi-perf vehicle, you have to pay hi-perf prices”. So I did and it pretty much sucked. I wasn’t really counting on a $600 bill that day for new tires. So after waiting for about 3 hours (3 hours to change two tires??!! Honestly, how many breaks did they take!?) we finally were on our way to Disneyland, our original destination. Disneyland made me feel better. We had the most amazing lunch at the Café Orleans, my newly discovered fav place to eat, in New Orleans Square. We had Creole fries, Monte Cristos and beignets! Yum! We then spent a few more hours enjoying various rides throughout the park before I had to take Nicole back to the Long Beach airport for her flight back to Salt Lake. It was a great weekend and nice to get away from the craziness of home.

This week is pretty much back to normal. We have been having internet problems at work yesterday and today…very annoying since we really can’t do anything without it because our server with all of our files and email is off-site so we have to access it through the internet. So right now the internet is down so I figured I would write this since I have nothing else left to do but play Spider solitaire.

I am very excited to hear that I will get to see Melia and Kimmy for Christmas! Thanks again Treven! It will be fun to come up and visit for the time I will be there. I believe that I fly into Portland on the night of Thursday Dec 21st and will be staying through the morning of Friday Dec 29th . Nice to be in an office that closes for that week! :)

It is great to hear from you all. Glad that you are doing well. I think we are due for another report from Bavaria. :)

Love you all.

M

Christmas Exchange

Anne and I thought it would be a good idea to repost this so we don't have to go searching for it. We did that today! So here you go!

Mike - Anne
Brooke - Kim
Dave - Treven
Adina - Mike
Brent - Tracey
Buffy - Peter
Tom - Adina
Tracey - Brent
Marnie - Tom
Anne - Brooke
Peter - Dave
Kim - Marnie
Treven - Buffy

Isaac - Sadie
Taylor - Melia
Parker - Hayden
Morgan - Danica
Jane - Taylor
Sadie - Morgan
Ellyn - Andrew
Hayden - Jane
Danica - Parker
Andrew - Isaac
Melia - Ellyn

Kimberly

Treven, Melia and I are still coming out on friday december 15th. The change is that Treven will still be leaving on the 18th but Melia and I will be staying until the 28th! Treven is being a wonderful husband and letting me stay for longer to be with the family on Christmas. Just wanted to let everybody know... especially Marnie :)!

Love you all and can't wait to see you guys in December!

Kimberly

Hey Guys,
Just letting you know that I got a call from the Oregon PT Board... and I passed the national board exam!!! I am now an official PT and have no more mandatory tests in my career. I will only have exams if I opt to get my doctorate or want to get more initials behind my name for sub-specialties.
Other than that big news, Brent and I are headed to LA next weekend for my certification ceremony. That is for my PT program where we are all officially done with our internships and some of us already official PT's. It will be a nice brunch attop a very nice hotel in Century City (LA). We will also be doing Disneyland on Friday and going to our friends' baby blessing (we are also staying with them) on Sunday.
A very busy week ahead for us.
Oh, and Amy is very uncomfortable right now and due tomorrow. Very exciting!!!
Buffy

First of all, Anne, Andrew's eyes are huge and he has grown so much!
Well, finally I have some time to sit down on the computer and tell you more about earlier this week. We went in on Tuesday morning around 8:30 and the doctor came in and broke my water and they started the pitocin through the IV. Everything was great and then contractions started getting stronger and stronger. My doctor was doing surgeries during the whole day and he was on call so he was the one to deliver all the babies. He definitely was busy that day. They came and checked me when the contractions were geting about 2 minutes apart and I was at 4-5 cm so they asked the doctor and he said to get the epidural going. So they got that in and IT WAS WONDERFUL! I would recommend it highly. Anyway, around 4:45 I had the feeling to push so we started and then 45 minutes later and almost not in time for the doctor to come, Melia was born at 5:29 pm and she was 7 lbs 12 oz and 20 inches long. I did get a 2nd degree tear and when the doctor went to do stitched, the epidural wore off enough to the point where I could feel him doing the stitches. OUCH! so he numbed it up for me! Anyway, Melia did have the umblical cord wrapped around her neck once, but I didn't even know until Treven told me later on. The doctor didn't want to alarm me at all. Everything went great though! I feel like it was all a dream though.I went home from the hospital a day later. They also moved me floors and when they do that, they give you a box of diapers for free which has 240 diapers in it so we didn't mind AT ALL! Treven is more affected with being tired then I am right now even though he gets a lot more sleep then I am. Oh well though! I guess it is supposed to be that way right now. I definitely agree with Anne in that I could have never thought I could love her this much. I am so grateful to have her here and for Treven and I to have a family now. It is definitely an amazing experience and worth it!
For Marnie, She has dirty blonde hair and she has dark blue eyes, for now at least. She definitely has Treven's feet and hands though because they are huge. She is very strong and loves to stretch out. She did great with feeding at the beginning, but now with my milk in, she was having a difficulty. I went to the lactation specialist today and she was WONDERFUL! Now everything is 100% better.
Adina and for everybody else, Treven, Melia and I will be coming home Friday December 15th and we are getting into Portland at like 5:30pm and leaving on Monday December 18th in the morning. So we will be having the blessing in Mom and Dad's ward on the 17th of December. Treven's pepsi job doesn't allow us to be away during Christmas so that is the best weekend we could get over there and I don't want to have Treven be alone on Christmas so we decided the weekend before.
Anne, I don't think Treven will be able to get the Friday after Thanksgiving off because their big stock days are Tuesday's and Friday's and especially with being right after Thanksgiving... I don't think he will be able to. We are still looking into it though so sorry it is taking a while. We are planning on coming on Wednesday, but don't know if it will only be until Thursday night or not. Also I love the car seat cover you got us. Melia loves it. She got mad that I took her out of it today because she was so warm.
Mom is heading home tomorrow. It has been wonderful having her here this last week. She has been helping us out so much. I will miss having her here though.
Well, that is all for now! We are just chugging along and can't wait to come home and see some family. We will be staying at Mom and Dad's for this visit just to let you all know. Marnie, I need IDEAS for Christmas. Treven wants to play his computer game now... so I need to get off the computer. Love you all and thanks for all the comments.

Kimberly

Well Andrew decided to spit up and created a goatee for himself. I love this big eyed boy!
-Anne

I took the kids to the Star Wars exhibit at OMSI - awesome.