Here's an update on what we've been up to in the past two weeks.
December 5 - St. Nicholas vigil at St. Tikhon's. Following the Vigil, we had the St. Nicholas day otluck or dinner (can't remember which, but there was certainly enough food for everyone). One of the students dressed up as St. Nicholas and gave presents to all the children. Luke had a good time, except when we set him on St. Nick's lap. We have a picture of Luke screaming and trying to escape from St. Nicholas. We'll dig it up when we get back to PA.
Dec 6 - St. Nicholas vigil, followed by distribution of presents by FOCA, the Fellowship of Orthodox Christians of America. This organization found several churches to "adopt" seminarian families from St. Tikhon's and St. Vladimir's. They gave each family a bunch of Christmas presents based on lists we submitted. It was overwhelming to see the outpouring of support from a bunch of folks who don't even know us.
Dec. 7 - I gave the homily about St. Nicholas at St. Paul's in Emmaus. Credit goes to Anastasia, who did most of the legwork gathering info on St. Nicholas and then oraganizing it for me. I just put the finishing touches on it and delivered it. We went to lunch after church and didn't make it home until 4pm.
Dec 7-9: When we got home from Church on Sunday, we found out that our good friend Elizabeth Meyer was in the hospital with preterm labor. She is pregnant and due two weeks before Anastasia. Because Elizabeth got sick and went to the hospital, she and her husband, Daniel, asked us to watch their 19month old girl Nonna (pronounced "NO-na"). Luke calls her "nono". We ended up watching Nonna for 3 days and two nights. Poor girl was traumatized. She cried a lot, and when she wasn't crying Anastasia was holding her. It was pretty crazy trying to entertain a 19month old who didn't want to be at our house in addition to Luke who didn't want to be at our house either--I'm convinced that he was ready to see his grandparents in California and Alaska. Our neighbors were very helpful in all this as they took Luke frequently and let him play at their house with Liam (see earlier post for pics of Liam).
During the time that we watched Nonna, I was finishing 4 finals. Two of my finals were take home papers. Despite the madness at our house, I finished them by Tuesday. I basically timed myself while I was writing, and when my time was up I was done. It's not the best system for producing high-quality work, but it is the best for producing mediocre-quality papers that will help me pass the class. The important thing is that I was FINISHED! FINITO!
When I finished my finals on Tues Dec 9, we were able to leave town because Elizabeth was sent home from the hospital (the baby is ok, she is ok, and they stopped the preterm labor). So Daniel and Elizabeth took Nonna home, and never has there been a girl so happy to be home as Nonna. But I digress. Once Nonna went home and I was finished with finals, Anastasia, Luke, and I drove down to Hershey, PA.
It was a 2 hour drive but Luke slept the whole time, which was nice. We were able to get a tour of the factory, which is actually just a tour of a fake chocolate factory that shows you how they make their candy bars. Then we spent a couple hours in the ginormous gift shop. The facility is really nice and they have some good outdoor areas for picnics and whatnot, but it was too cold to be outside. We're hoping to go back in the spring so that we can go to their zoo, their rose garden, and the amusement park (with real roller coasters even). And of course we picked up some candy that cost twice as much as it would've had we bought it at Walmart. But hey, it came striaght from the Factory, so it must be good, right? Right...
After the Hershey Factory on Tues Dec 9 we continued our trek south to Washington DC. We stayed at my buddy Keith's studio apartment. It was a bit snug, but better than paying a couple hundred bucks for a hotel room. On Wednesday Dec 10 we went sightseeing. We hit the Smithsonian Zoo (aka the National Zoo), and saw all sorts of ugly animals and even some good looking ones: bears from Asia (butt-ugly), elephants (found out what "hung like an elephant" really means), a lion, tigers, giant Pandas, a giant guinea pig, some orangutangs (spelling?), giant apes, naked mole rats (super ugly), and small otters that decided they all needed to defecate in the same place at the same time (seriously, all 6 of these otters pooped in the same spot, one right after another, like a mob of high school girls all heading to the bathroom together. It was weird). Anastasia really enjoyed the Zoo, and it wasn't raining, so that was good.
From there we headed over to to the Capitol Mall. We caught the last elevator of the day to the top of the Washington Monument and caught a glimpse of the entire city of DC. That was probably the coolest part of the trip, going up 555 feet to the tallest point in the city. After we finished at the Washington Monument we left the mall in search of grub, so we didn't see the Lincoln Memorial or any other monument. We thought we would have a chance to do it the next day.
On Thursday Dec 11, we had good aspirations to walk around Capitol Mall again. But lo, the weather did not cooperate. It was windy and rainy, so instead of paying a visit to Lincoln's oversized bust, we went to the Smithsonian Museums of American History and Natural History. It was interesting enough, I guess, but I'm not a fan of Museums unless it's a sports hall of fame. So if you really want to know how interesting it was, ask Stasia. She enjoyed it. :)
After lunch at a Mongolian BBQ place, we traversed 5.5 hours back to NEPA in a rainstorm that never let up. We got home Thursday night around 10pm. It was a long three days but a really good trip. It felt good to get out of Simpson, even though it "is the center of the universe..." according to one sarcastic monk at St. Tikhon's. We're hoping that we can take a few more short road trips next semester. I'm thinking Cooperstown, NY for the Baseball hall of fame. Stasia is thinking Gettysburg. Hmmm, we'll see what happens.
On Dec. 13, Fr. Richard Ballew, the priest of St. Athanasius in Sacramento where I grew up, had a heart attack and fell asleep in the Lord. He died in the early morning hours of Dec. 13. May his memory be eternal.
By 10pm that night, Anastasia and I had tickets to go to Sacramento the next day. We left our house in PA at 3:30am to catch an 8am flight in Newark, NJ. We made it to Sacramento at 3:30pm CA time (6:30 Eastern time). Luke was mostly good, except he didn't sleep until the end of the 5.5 hour flight from Newark to Seattle. He was sure glad to see his California grandparents, and they were glad to see him.
The funeral for Fr. Richard was Tuesday night Dec. 16, and the liturgy was Wednesday morning Dec 17. We were thankful to be there at the funeral, and thankful to spend some extra time with my family. Luke was able to spend some good time with his uncle Jonathan, Aunt Shelly, Uncle Robert (Stasia and I even taught him how to say "bob" when we left Sacramento), his Grandma Sally and Grampa Fr. Stephen, and his great-grandparents Marge, Roy, and Joyce. Despite the sad circumstances of our visit, it was good to spend 5 extra days with the family.
On Thursday Dec. 18, we tried using a buddy pass to fly out of Sacramento to Eagle River. It didn't work. We didn't make the flight, but our luggage did. We ended up buying a ticket on Alaska Airlines and left Sacramento Thursday night at 9:30pm, spent the night in Seattle, and caught the first flight from Seattle to Anchorage on Friday morning. We finally caught up to our luggage. :)
We are now in Eagle River until Dec 30, when we head back to Sacramento for our planned vacation.
I hope this update is good enough for those who have faithfully followed this blog. We will try to be more consistent with our posts, but that might not happen until next semester when we are back in NEPA.
We Wish everyone a joyous feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch.
--Matthew
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