In less philosophical and more troubling news, Klaus escaped from his stake, cable, collar, and then from the fenced-in yard last week. I guess we know how my manager found him without a collar. The good news is that when I came home from work he came bounding up to the car to meet me, so at least he didn’t go wandering two and a half miles like he did when left in my manager’s yard. So, what do we do?

1. Tighten his collar, shorten his cable, and try again?
2. Leave him in the yard, no cable – when he gets out and wanders away at least he’ll still have a collar.
3. Electric fence.
4. Wood and wire fence – 5-6 feet tall, wire buried underground to prevent digging.
5. Leave him inside.

My inclination is number 2. Ken thinks only #4 will suffice. We’ve been leaving him inside, but that’s no fun for anybody.

Now I can be truly depressed by how slowly I run instead of pretending I’m zooming.

I started training on January 1st with two days of skiing. What? It counts as training. My schedule at this point is to run and do a short bike on Mondays, swim Tuesdays, long bike on Wednesday, run and short bike Thursday, swim Friday, and run on Saturday. When the sun starts coming up early enough I’ll start riding to work again, so then I’ll be biking 5 days a week.

I’m contemplating the purchase of a heart rate monitor/GPS. Because I love data… Anybody have one they like? I was looking at the ones you can swim with, but it doesn’t seem like they’re worth the extra money because reviews say the GPS doesn’t work in the water. On the other hand, I could just get a heart rate monitor without GPS, then get a more sophisticated variety of GPS that we could use while we hike or whatever and just carry it with me. Hmmm. Advice welcome.

“Yeah, it was great! We talked about youth in Asia!”
“Pardon me?” (Actually it was probably more like “What, huh?”)
“Youth in Asia! We had a very deep and meaningful discussion about it.”
“Aah, glad you had a nice time.”

I thought that was a really weird thing to talk about with her crush, but I thought if Asian juveniles were what the boy was interested in then good for her for being a good sport about it.

Then several months later I saw the word euthanasia and connected it with youth in Asia and I realized what they were talking about. Suddenly everything was clear!

In retrospect, it still seems like a really odd thing to talk to a boy about when you’re 14.

See my stocking? It’s very green. By the way, apparently trapezoids are not the normal way to make a zig-zag pattern. It’s triangles. So I guess I invented a pattern. Go me! I’m having lots of fun making these stockings. Maybe next year the dogs and cats will get them. I have plenty of cotton scraps around.

We’ll plant the tree in the spot where we tried transplanting another little evergreen. It promptly died, so hopefully this one will survive a bit better.

Ooh, look, bokeh. Haha, look at me throwing around photography terms like I know what I’m talking about. Imposter.

Note to myself: I spent several hours after this photo was taken cleaning and oiling the kitchen floor. Therefore I should take another picture tomorrow and see if it made any difference and decide whether it is worth repeating the somewhat laborious process on the rest of the soapstone floor.

Best meal eaten: My birthday dinner with both of my families, spaghetti, and a delicious home-made ice cream cake.

Worst gift given: Broken dominoes. Sorry Ronnie, maybe I’ll get them replaced this weekend. Don’t count on it…
Best gift received: Having Christmas and my birthday at the same time makes for lots of awesome gifts in a short amount of time, but I think it’s between the cool butter dish Bekah got me and the shirt my sister-in-law, Marie, got me.

Best day of skiing: Silver Mountain with Bekah, Sara, and Ken. Was supposed to be with Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Justin too, but the others were unfortunately indisposed in various ways.
Worst day of skiing: Red River, NM. They need more snow. And although I used my 10 ticket voucher so I didn’t pay their rate for my ticket, $64 is WAY too much for what they had to offer. For $64 I expect at least one high speed lift.
Best lodging: The Gold Pan Motel in Eagle Nest, NM was perfect. It was about $100 cheaper than anything else I could find, it was adorable, cozy, and just great. Go there.
Longest day: Work at 7AM, flight at 7PM, arrive at 12:35 PM body time, rent car, drive to Kellogg, ID, arrive around 2:30AM body time. Then go skiing the next day. I was sleepy.
Vehicles acquired: Ken’s parents gave us their 12 passenger van, since it’s down here anyway. Anyone interested? We need to sell it so we can get a more 4WD truck-like vehicle.
Most anticipated future event: Kristina is coming to visit in the summer. Now it’s public, so you MUST come.
Best (and only) movie viewed: Sherlock Holmes. Highly enjoyable.
Newest apartment visited: Bethany and Ronnie’s. They have a pantry. I must admit to covetousness.
Most amusing lunch: With my friend from college and her husband. We talked for 2 hours.
1st golfing experience: At the country club after lunch. I was forced to putt for 5 minutes for my lunch. I don’t think that golf is my sport of choice.

Only former foreign exchange student met: Nils, from when I was in high school. Still tall, still funny.

Biggest hole in bottom of ski: My poor ski met with a BIG rock at Red river. We will be needing some P-Tex. A lot of P-Tex. We had just waxed them too.
Amount of extra-box cat poop awaiting us: 5 piles.
Sigh.

But it’s good to be home.

We went on a bike camping trip with some friends at the end of April. In May, my Mom, Dad, and sister Sara came to Cleveland a week before our graduation and we gallivanted about western NY, checking out the Corning glass museum, several of my Mom’s cousins, and a dog on a motorcycle wearing a helmet. Ken’s Dad arrived from CA after we returned to Cleveland, followed in rapid succession by Ken’s Mom from WA and my cousins, the Jacksons, from NC. We then graduated.

My parents took our cats with them in anticipation of our moving back westward. Over Memorial Day weekend we went on a miserable backpacking trip wherein we had a rude introduction to black flies. I got two job offers allowing us to choose between the Seattle area and Albuquerque. Deciding we had soaked up enough rain in Cleveland to last us native desert dwellers for a lifetime (and because it was pretty much my dream job) we picked Albuquerque.

We headed back to the west coast on the 4th of July, where we spent one day moving Ken’s Porsche from his parents house to my parents house, five days camping on the Oregon coast with my family, and one day packing a U-haul box with our belongings. We then drove to ABQ with the cats. I started work and Ken flew back to CLE for a few days to oversee the movers. We couldn’t find a suitable rental, so we bought a house, which turns out to be a unnecessarily painful process. However, we eventually moved in and we love it.

In September, Ken flew back to WA to drive his parents van back down with his parents dog Heidi, his Porsche, a canoe, and a kitchen table. His stepdad Elis drove with him. Ken started work as a process engineer at a precious metal manufacturing facility the next Monday. Since then we have been spending our time working on the house and our surrounding 0.8 acres. We did take a break in November, when my family came to visit, then we went up to Golden CO for Thanksgiving, a day of skiing, and to get my Anna Grandma’s piano.

We’re getting another dog this weekend, going to WA for Christmas next week, and coming back here for a little ski vacation over New Years.

Whew. Quite the year. We hope and pray that you enjoy celebrating the birth of our Savior who: “being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” Philippians 2:8-10