and a great Christmas too!

Not only did I have a wonderful New Year, I had a wonderful Christmas holiday too!!
I drove south from Seattle the night of the 23rd and faced a good bit of traffic, but I made it safe and sound to my Grandma's house greeted with lots of love. I then went out to a perfect dinner :)
Christmas eve morning I headed to my cousin's house and babysat her two sweet children, Rafe and Ellie. I had a great time getting to hang out with them. That night when Allison (my cousin) and Richard (her wonderful husband) got home from work we had great Thai food take out, joined by my mom and her childhood friend Barb. It was great food with great company :)

 

Underwear fight! 

After dinner and good conversation my mom and I headed over to midnight mass where my Grandma sang. It was a beautiful service.

We got back to Allison and Richard's ready to crash. We spent the night there and woke up Christmas morning to excited children raving about the gifts under the tree. I stayed a bit while they dug into the christmas presents.

                          

I soon headed over to my dad's where I celebrated Christmas day with my dad, Carol, Grandma Mary, Grandma Caroline, Grandpa Rich and three of my favorite little men, Sean, Andrew and Matthew. My brothers were of the few that I actually purchased gifts for and I was so excited to see them open their presents up! They all raved and loved what I got them (I got exactly what they asked for, no guessing there!). It was a really special time to share with them. We also had a great meal and just a really relaxed day together.

That evening I headed back to my mom's house where we exchanged gifts. This is always a special part of Christmas for me. We open our stalkings while we sit around and enjoy each other's company. My wonderful momma also prepared a DELICIOUS pot roast meal. It was the perfect way to end Christmas day.

Can you tell I was a bit all over the place? There were definitely a lot of back and forths, as there tend to be when it comes to visiting home, but it was simply lovely and pretty much perfect in my book :)

I really treasure Christmas. I love how it brings out the spirit of giving, time with family and delicious food, but really the best part is the reason for the season, Jesus! (Check out this blog post to read more about my thoughts on this!)
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that you have time to reflect and remember those treasured moments.
Stay tuned for an overdue Thankful Thursday post tomorrow!

a wonderful week to remember

Hello everyone! It has been a long while since I've been able to catch my breath enough to write in my blog. I have lots of updates to share--you can be expecting most of those this week! The holidays sure do speed by when you don't get a month off between semesters! 

The first update I'd like to share is still fresh on my mind :) I had the most wonderful last ten days, spent in Seattle with my love visiting from New York. We rang in the New Year together, we visited beautiful spots of Seattle together, we ate a lot of great food together, but the best part of it, was that we were TOGETHER! John left on Sunday after being here since December 30th. It's the biggest chunk of time we've had together in a long while, and it was just wonderful. 

Here are some pictures to tell the story!

John and I got all dressed up to go to LoFi, a venue that was playing soul and funk music to ring in the new year. We had a great time dancing and celebrating the last hours of 2010!

They also had a photobooth, one of my favorite things in the entire world!

A bit bleary eyed, we said good morning to 2011 and headed over to Jeanne and Jim's to watch football with Maia!

One of our favorite nights was going bowling with Kate and Chris (visiting from Iowa)! John kicked our butts! Another great night that wasn't captured on my camera was our packed house Kate and Chris, Sarah and Matt and John and I playing a competitive and silly game of Cranium!

 

GasWorks Park is one of my favorite places in Seattle, and it was so great to take John their on a beautiful, sunny Seattle day!

We ate TONS of great food, including this delicious platter of Ethiopian food! We cooked with friends, made dinner ourselves and tried out a bunch of great spots in Seattle!

 We also went to the space needle and spent a good chunk of time enjoying the incredible architecture and the crisp air!

John came into work with me and got to participate in the preschool program and the afterschool program with the first through third graders. My favorite comment by Abrham, age 6, was after he found out that John was my boyfriend. He turned to me and whispered, "Kate, is that embarrassing having a boyfriend?" It was so sincere and so adorable!
We had a great time together; it was so nice for John to see my life in Seattle. And, we of course shared lots of laughs.

I think the picture below is my favorite of all the pictures taken. John just looks so striking and handsome! (Can you tell he's by Seattle's John Street?)

Without going on and on any more, let me just say, having John here was the best way to start off 2011!

I hope you are all doing well. Perhaps enjoying a bit of snow? I'm praying that it keeps coming down in Seattle! I'd love a day to sleep in and sip hot tea with no place to go :) Stay tuned for more updates and interesting tidbits!

HAPPY 2011!

Happy New Year everyone!

2011 has been jam packed and full of wonderfulness and fun for me :)

John and I at Gas Works Park--enjoying the view of Seattle!

I want to explain my blogging absence-- my wonderful boyfriend is in town from NY visiting for the next couple of days. Thus, I'll be spending my time with him (there is no way I'd rather be spending the first couple days of this new year) and post holiday updates and more after he returns to New York. I have so many wonderful things to share with you all!

For now, know that I am wishing you many blessings in 2011 :) I hope that the new year has started well!

The beauty of Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!!

I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday with loved ones.

I have been very blessed this year to experience a new beauty with Christmas.
Christmas is a special time to many people. It also can be a really difficult time. Though I love Christmas, I can understand some of the pain that the holiday season brings about. It is a time when the brokenness  and separation of our own lives becomes a bit more evident. Whether the brokenness is death of a loved one, a split relationship or a difficult relationship (even if that is with yourself), it seems like the difficulty at this time of year comes from relationship stress of varying magnitudes. Humanity struggles with relationships, as seen in the number of wars and strife, hate and hurt, broken marriages and disconnected family members and friends. There is hope.

Let me tell you something beautiful. This day, many years ago, Jesus the Christ was born. He came to bring life and relationship. Jesus says in John 10:10, "I came so that they may have life and life abundantly." Jesus came to give life, true life. The beauty of it is life is given through healed relationship. Jesus, son of God, took on human flesh so that he may sacrifice his life in order to reconcile the sin of humanity and create a pathway for us to have relationship with our heavenly Father. Only through his perfect sacrifice are we taken out of the equation. We no longer must work harder or be better. We only must be, and in doing so recognize that we are not enough, but we don't have to be, because Jesus was and is! He is our pathway. When we enter into this relationship with God, created through Jesus, we find life and life abundant. Life so full and so rich, we recognize that we need not suck up life from all our other relationships, we have all we need. Jesus is our final victory because his death on the cross conquered death and all the destruction and sin that reigns in us. This death and destruction is what causes brokenness in our world and in our lives. Jesus was victorious on the cross and enables us to live in victory as well. It is an incredible truth that never gets old or boring because each day it brings new freedom. And as beautiful as our salvation story with Jesus is, to fully grasp this we must understand what came at Christmas time.

Jesus is known in a lot of different ways (check out this website to see all the different ways he is known today). There are people who love Jesus and those who hate Jesus and then a bunch of people in between. In truth, I say that Jesus is God and son of God, he is also our incredible savior, he was a perfect example of human life, an incredible teacher, and at one point a mere baby.

I have always loved Christmas but never did I begin to grasp why the birth of Jesus was so special. I knew that the virgin birth was totally miraculous and that the prophesies of the old testament were perfectly coming true through this birth, but why was Jesus as a baby so amazing? In church a couple weeks ago the pastor spoke on the fragility of a baby and complex needs that a baby must have met for survival. This when it really struck me. Jesus, our Lord, put himself in the most fragile position, the most vulnerable state. He gave up oneness with God our Father to be human flesh. He did this, because he loves us. Love so sacrificial and so perfect that no human love can even come close. People may think that Jesus is a lot of things, and during the Christmas season, seeing Jesus as a baby is pretty common. But how often do we stop and think about what it meant for Jesus to be a baby?

Power beyond comprehension, Jesus laid it all down to be human and walk with us, laugh with us and cry with us. Jesus as a baby demonstrates so fully his humanity and thus his sacrifice in a very different way than I usually think of it. Jesus gave everything up to be with us, and heal broken relationships. He did this because he loves us, and to him, we are completely and wonderfully lovable.

Today, my wish for you is to find hope in this, to think on this and to rest in this. Jesus was born today, many years ago, so that we could have hope and see how beloved we are to God.

Merry Christmas!!

"Where I'm from" an Art Show!

So, if you hadn't gathered from the title, this blog is all about the places I call home. These places include the greater Portland area, Seattle, New York, Gettysburg, and every place that has someone I love, so Baltimore, Kirksville, Argentina, Virginia, California and the list goes on and on and on.

So, what makes your home a home? Is home a place or a person or something else? What types of emotions do you feel at home? How can you describe your home? What have you learned from your home?

...These are all questions we asked our New Futures first through six graders! The last month we have spent significant amount of time on Accordion Books dedicated to home. Each page displayed a different component of home. We gave the kids a lot of freedom to describe what they wanted to about where they are from and what home is to them, and let me tell you, they did a great job! One of my favorite portions of their "home book" was a page dedicated to poetry. Ellie, my supervisor, asked me to plan and present the lesson on poetry, and i absolutely loved the opportunity to do so! Poetry was one of my favorite things to do with the El Centro kids I worked with a couple summers ago, and so I was happy to do poetry with these kiddos. It is such a great way to get a look into a child's heart :)

Considering I find the definition of home so complex and beautiful, I really loved this project and how it made the kids think about their realities.

After a month of hard work, we celebrated tonight with an ART SHOW!! We called it, "Where I'm from." We invited their parents, teachers and friends to come and check out all the kids hard work. We completely transformed our space and offered a delicious spread of food. Overall, it was a GREAT success, and so much fun to see the kids proud of their accomplishments.

Here are some pictures from the evening :)

Doesn't it look great?

Help find Joe Sjoberg!

Hi everyone!

I am posting this today because I need everyone's help--just their eyes. On November 30th a recent grad from Carlton College went missing. He is a Seattle native and was working in Madison, Wisconsin.

Here is a recent article from the Seattle Times with more information:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013720221_missingman20m.html

And here is the link to the facebook group organizing support to find Joe:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_173227499368973

He is about 5'10" and 180-200 lbs. He has brown hair and greenish eyes. His car is a gray 1991 Chevrolet Caprice with Washington license 513 WYN.

If you see him or see his car, please contact 911 and let them know or call his brother, Pat at (206) 954-2723. There was a possible siting in the Seattle area, but he could be anywhere.

Please, keep an eye out!

Thank you!

--Kate

CPR Training

Today, I became officially CPR certified for adults and for children and infants. Wooohooo. It was great to see most of my AmeriCorps team in the training and I really loved getting a refresher and being pleasantly surprised by how much information I remembered from my babysitting class at age 13.

Here are some cell phone pics of us practicing our new knowledge :) We're getting ready to save lives!

From the CPR Training, I went to New Futures where I did paper work and cleaning. It is a great change of pace from being with the kids all day long.

After coming home and eating dinner, I finished up some important Christmas shopping and baked some yummy cookies. It was a packed day!

Hope you all had a great monday!