Ethiopian Food!

There is a whole row of delicious restaurants here in Little Ethiopia, and we tried one of them out tonight! It was fun to eat Ethiopian style, with our hands, and taste a different cuisine. We ordered the big sampler platter. They bring out this yummy spongy, flat bread that's kind of like crepes. You use it to pick up the tasty morsels of food: chicken, lamb, beef... veggies. It's really fun and quite good! I couldn't tell how much I ate though because we were all sharing. After all the jokes of scarcity, I think we were all pretty full when we left!

Behold The Lowly Tomato

As I've probably noted previously, we're growing a garden in our friends' yard. To make a long story short, this kind of sharecropping was necessary in our apartment dwelling life. It has been, mostly, a lovely experience. Both families labor and split the costs of the endeavor and share equally in the spoils.

I've spent a little more time in the garden this week with our friends and the rest of the Puentes all out of town. Our tomato plants are starting to fruit and what a terrific variety of colors and shapes we've got going. I harvested a handful of the first fruits yesterday. I didn't think much of it until I got home, but decided to make a simple Caprese salad (tomatoes, mozarella and basil, lightly dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper). It was indescribably good, better than any salad I've had at fine restaurants. It is just one of the many transcendent experiences I've had in that garden over the last few months.

Not to complain about this modern world of ours, with so many blessings and benefits, but I feel sad that so few have the experience of a garden. Of the miracle of watching things grow and of tasting of the direct fruits of our labor. For me, a garden is a real testimony builder. I thought I'd see if anyone else out there felt the same. A google search for "god" and "tomato" yielded this result:

“Behold, the lowly tomato, token of God’s goodness, sign of his love and favor!” And thus our kids were introduced verbally to this dazzling, created order.

They were introduced much earlier with catechism questions:

Q. Who made you?
A. God made me.

Q. What else did God make?
A. God made all things.

Q. Why did God make you and all things?
A. For his own glory.

But, “Behold, the lowly tomato” was tangible, it was red, and juicy and sweet. And I hope they’ll always remember the tomato, token of God’s love and goodness. http://beholdthelowlytomato.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/why-the-lowly-tomato/

I couldn't have put it better my self.

The New World And The World Cup

John and I went to a sports bar for lunch today to catch the game. It was a blast! We were both rooting for our respective ancestral teams (John for Germany and me for Spain) even though it went counter to our picks (of course, my hopes of catching up to Nana were minimal to begin with). It occurred to me that the Puente boys have family ties with 3 out of 4 of the semi-finalists. The Spanish and German relationships are obvious. Additionally my great-grandfather was half Dutch. I love family history and its been really fun to have a bit more of tie to this years world cup than in years past.

Mom takes sole possession of the lead in world cup pool

The quarterfinals of the world cup are now finished and now taking sole possession of first place is Mom!

The leaderboard after the quarterfinals are:

1. Mom 315 points (2 teams remaining)
2. Beej 305 points (2 teams remaining
3. Ian (tie) 280 points (2 teams remaining)
3. Rico (tie) 280 points (1 team remaining)
5. Woozie 265 points (1 team remaining)

6-10 place finishers (including me arrgh!) only have 0 or 1 team remaining and have picked winners who are already out so will most certainly not win the pool!)

The second game of the semi-finals is today and after that we will have a better idea of who will win. This much I will reveal ... two of the top finishers have picked Germany to win and one has picked Spain to win so a lot of it will come down to who actually picks the correct winner.

Hopefully everyone will be able to watch some of the semi-finals and finals which I'm hoping will be good games.

Canada Day Party

This week it was a blast celebrating two countries' birthdays. Spence, Beej, and a few other friends came over on Canada Day to join Rach and I and our roommates for a Canada day party! We enjoyed some delicious strawberry shortcake which Rach had made to perfection! We watched 'I Am Canadian,' (which is a beer commercial, but still a good poem.) We looked at and played with my canadian coin collection and canadian stamps. We also talked about what we like about Canada. The mountains, clean air, and people!

Happy 4th of July!

I realize that we are a mixed nationality family and that many of you are in Canada today. That said, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July. It has always been one of my favorite holidays. For the food, the fireworks and for what we're celebrating. We enjoy unprecedented freedoms in this day and age, in many countries. But much of what is now taken for granted in the western world started here. I'm grateful to those men and women who fought to promote liberty and freedom and to those, through the years, who have continued that fight. May we all, regardless of country, have a lovely Independence Day!

Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. ~Louis D. Brandeis

America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality. ~Adlai Stevenson

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. ~Erma Bombeck

Enchanted evenings

One of the advantages of living far north is that the days in June are incredibly long - still twilight past 11 PM. The evenings are my favorite time. On a warm windless day, it stays warm in the evening, and it is great to sit outside and enjoy the scenery as the sun slowly goes down, and the soft light gives everything a red or yellow hue.

Jord and Char invited us for a wiener roast on just such an evening - great food and great company. Thanks, guys.