Wow!  How crazy that we’re at the front side of a brand new year.  2010

A friend was trying to think up sayings for 2010…you know, the corny ones like “lose some weight in 2008″  So far none of the ones I’ve heard have hit a chord for me.  The only one I could think of is “pick up a pen in 2010″ to try to bring back the art of letter writing.  I love receiving handwritten notes or letters and RARELY does that happen anymore as we’ve moved beyond snail mail, to email, to the crazy world of tweets, texts, IM, FB, etc.

Rob and I were trying to think through the year ahead and for the first time in a long time I’m not extremely curious about “what will happen?”  2009 brought so many surprises and excitements that I’m still recovering – in a good way.    I think it’s okay and actually better for me (God says so!) to just take things one day at a time.  As we entered 2009 I had no idea Robbin would get engaged to Jake, Bethany would start a relationship with Dwight, or all the girls would move out by the fall and a few odd assorted happenings in between.  But, I am living proof that no matter the highs or lows, God is faithful.  God sustains you.  God protects you.  God comforts you.  God LOVES you unconditionally.  Wow did I see that played out in our lives this past year!  It gives me great courage to live day by day for 2010.

and a brief update from the holiday festivities…

• Dec. 23rd – Whiskey Shrimp Dinner.  A great family tradition. Yum!  An old recipe my mom discovered on her 25th Wedding Anniversary trip to Iguasu Falls in South America.  We almost lit my cupboards and my face on fire when we lit the whiskey to burn off the alcohol.  Oh well, what’s a couple of eyebrows.
• Dec. 24th – Christmas Eve services…3:30, 5:30 and 11:oo (Candlelight) Beautiful time to remember Christ’s birth and the peace that can only be found through Jesus as he lived and died and rose so we could live, eternally.
• Dec. 24th – One batch of cinnamon rolls didn’t rise, batch number two finally did, worked on it ’til the wee hours of the morning!  I only make them once a year and I was bound and determined to have them this year.  First batch literally was a lump of mushy dough.
• Dec. 25th – CHRISTMAS MORNING  my favorite!  Kelly tradition is to wake everyone up with this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfnXZGBqxFc Took playing the song 3 times this year to wake up everyone.  Then it was on to the stockings, then presents, then brunch with more family and friends, then off to the movies for a double feature AVATAR in 3D and Up in the Air.
• Dec. 29th – a great fun day with my friend Debbie Bresina – we started the day in Golden for breakfast, then ended painting plates at a place in Arvada. 9 1/2 hours of good conversation and laughter!
• Dec. 30th – had dinner with the Browns, not my daughter and son-in-law, but our other good friends, Kim and Tim.  We literally froze at Wahoo’s Fish Tacos downtown – I guess they don’t believe in heating their restaurant, but we moved on to Starbucks and closed it down, sitting by the fireplace reminiscing and catching up.
• …and many days of hanging out with the best husband in the whole world!  His bright idea for being productive was to clean the kitchen.  Note, when Rob is a part of the project, be ready!  Clean the kitchen meant to remove everything, I MEAN EVERYTHING from every drawer, cupboard, pantry, etc. Clean the kitchen, sort and rearrange all items.  The trash man hated us this week I’m sure!
• It was a great two weeks!

a few pictures of the festivities…

Three movies + three days = two happy people!  Not mathematically sound, but that’s what happened!  Rob and I went to Boulder for three day for some much needed R & R and during those three days we watched the following three movies:

•  21
  • Enjoyed this movie, but it wasn’t as great as I thought it would be. 
• Under the Same Moon
  • This was our surprise movie of the bunch.  It had subtitles which at first I was worried Rob wouldn’t like so much.  The movie is in Spanish which worked great for me.  Soon both of us were completely in to the movie.  The young actor who plays Carlitos was amazing!  We both really enjoyed this story of real life for many.
• The Bucket List
  • Many of our friends had seen this movie and recommended it.  It moved kind of slow in parts, but it was also a good movie.  Made us think of what would be on our “bucket list”.  (Our friend, Jason, shared his bucket list on his blog.) I always get a kick out of Jack Nicholson – he’s always a colorful character.  Morgan Freeman did a great job as well – I probably shed a couple of tears…

We had a great time – both of us love watching movies, so that part was fun, but we also mosied around the new mall 29th Street, walked around on Pearl Street, hung out at Borders searching for the next perfect read – Rob found his, I’m still looking, played Rummy – let’s just say “I let Rob win”, picked up some great stuff at Bath and Body Works, Levi’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods, ate a ton of great food – favorite meal was at the Boulder Chop House – yum!  It was a very relaxing, non-pressured, non-agenda-filled weekend away. 

…Bethany is home on Spring Break and so Rob, Robbin and I watched a movie she had to watch for her Spanish class over Spring Break called Machuca.

Here’s a summary of the plot:

In 1973, in Santiago of Chile of the first socialist president democratically elected in a Latin-American country, President Salvador Allende, the principal of the Saint Patrick School, Father McEnroe (Ernesto Malbran) makes a trial of integration between students of the upper and lower classes. The bourgeois boy Gonzalo Infante (Matías Quer) and the boy from the slum Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mateluna) become great friends, while the conflicts on the streets leads Chile to the bloody and repressive military coup of General Augusto Pinochet on 11 September 1973, changing definitely their lives, their relationship and their country.

As I watched the movie it took me back to the time I lived in Bolivia (which was during this time in history).  I was reminded of the instability of the government in Bolivia and also of the many times the government was overthrown.  It wasn’t unusual to have soldiers patrolling our streets with scary looking guns.  Or hearing shots fired out in the nights after curfew.  Or to walk unsuspectingly through abandoned streets downtown that had just been tear-gassed – definitely not recommended! Or to have all the radio and television stations taken over by the political parties – regular programming would stop and the airwaves would be filled with political propaganda.  The movie also followed the story line of the two boys discovering the difficulty that though they never thought that social class and political views would affect them that in the end the lines become drawn and loyalties remain with family and can interupt a friendship forever. 

Today I am rarely touched by these types of things.  Sometimes I feel very overwhelemed by the difference of living here in Colorado vs. the way things were in Bolivia growing up.  Because I am an American, I didn’t have to suffer through the things my Bolivian friends suffered through – we always had a way out, returning to the U.S. if we needed too, my Bolivian friends didn’t.  Watching this movie reminded me to be grateful for my life now in Colorado.  

I’ve written and erased sentences several times now…to try to describe the conflict of dredging up memories from this time in my life and letting them meet my life today. 

It’s difficult to explain – it was a lifetime ago, and yet watching movies like this brings it all back.  I LOVED growing up in Bolivia – most of what I’ve written about it is filled with great memories – but some of what we went through was hard.  Dealing with the political unrest was unsettling.  One of my closest friends was the daughter of a Bolivian man who was very high up in politics there.  During one government unrest period his wife and her little sister appeared at our door and his wife pleaded with my mom to take their daughter in to keep her safe.  The family was having to flee to safety – their house had been overtaken by the other political party and their lives were at stake.  She remained with us several weeks – we weren’t certain some of the time whether her family would return for her, but they did.  I look back at it all now and it seems like a great novel you would read – but it was and is my life.  It gave me a much broader world view and extreme compassion for those who still endure political terror every day. 

The movie was a great reminder that it’s easy to take safety for granted – and also that the only real constant in my life has always been God.  Through His Word and His ever-presence in my life, I have learned that I can always rest in Him, knowing He is and always will be in control of my life.

(If this post is confusing – it was hard to write -but needed to get these thoughts out of my head.)