Monday, April 17, 2006
Happy Easter
Sounds like everyone had a nice Easter with their families. Michael and I hosted my sister Kristin and two of her friends from work. We were fortunate that the weather was cooperating and ended up eating Easter dinner outside on the patio. I made my first ham (well, the pre-cooked, spiral-cut variety) and all of the fixings. It was a nice evening (I forgot how good wine can be) and topped the evening off with an hour in the hot tub under a star-filled sky. I can't believe how lucky we are and what a great life we have here in California.
Two interesting things to note:
1. We have just started going to church. Michael was raised Catholic, and in an effort to meet new people and have a wholesome activity to discuss during our homestudy, we decided that we would start to go to church. Sunday was our second week in a row. We are "test-driving" churches, but the one we went to yesterday had a lot nicer service than the church we went to on Palm Sunday. The second church is very modern, and is lead by a Priest who appears to really connect with his audience. Decent music - more of the organ variety than the modern-tamborine variety. I was not raised with religion, and always felt awkward as a kid because I didn't know anything about the bible, holidays, etc. So I am looking forward to finally learning about religion. We think that we will want our children raised with religion... I think it will be good for them to learn, and then make an educated choice as to whether its something they want to continue on with later in life.
2. We are using the hot tub again. Last month our gas bill came and after the initial $800 (oh my god!) shocker of a bill, we think the high bill was caused by either: (1) the broken sensor we had fixed at the beginning of March; or (2) we accidentally heated the whole pool instead of the hot tub (which may have broken the sensor). The new bill came on Thursday and was $80 (with no hot tub nights), so we are pretty confident that there was something funny going on and we can now go back to our little luxury. The previous tenants said that they calculated the hot tub expense at $15 per hour, so that's not too bad I guess.
Since I cooked three hours yesterday, and I made a 9.5lb ham for five people, we have leftovers for an army of 20. No cooking for another 2-3 days!!! Leftovers tonight.
Safe travels for all who are traveling to Russia this week. Hoping all of your dreams come true.
Two interesting things to note:
1. We have just started going to church. Michael was raised Catholic, and in an effort to meet new people and have a wholesome activity to discuss during our homestudy, we decided that we would start to go to church. Sunday was our second week in a row. We are "test-driving" churches, but the one we went to yesterday had a lot nicer service than the church we went to on Palm Sunday. The second church is very modern, and is lead by a Priest who appears to really connect with his audience. Decent music - more of the organ variety than the modern-tamborine variety. I was not raised with religion, and always felt awkward as a kid because I didn't know anything about the bible, holidays, etc. So I am looking forward to finally learning about religion. We think that we will want our children raised with religion... I think it will be good for them to learn, and then make an educated choice as to whether its something they want to continue on with later in life.
2. We are using the hot tub again. Last month our gas bill came and after the initial $800 (oh my god!) shocker of a bill, we think the high bill was caused by either: (1) the broken sensor we had fixed at the beginning of March; or (2) we accidentally heated the whole pool instead of the hot tub (which may have broken the sensor). The new bill came on Thursday and was $80 (with no hot tub nights), so we are pretty confident that there was something funny going on and we can now go back to our little luxury. The previous tenants said that they calculated the hot tub expense at $15 per hour, so that's not too bad I guess.
Since I cooked three hours yesterday, and I made a 9.5lb ham for five people, we have leftovers for an army of 20. No cooking for another 2-3 days!!! Leftovers tonight.
Safe travels for all who are traveling to Russia this week. Hoping all of your dreams come true.
6 Comments:
Adopt A Child.orgAdopting from Russia
Eastern European Adoption Coalition, Inc
Embassy of the Russian Federation
Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption
Karen's Adoption Links
Older Child Adoption
Russia Adoption Blog
Russian Adoption Medical Services
Russian Family Search
Russian Toys
Vernissage Press
My goodness that's a high power bill. Glad you got things fixed though.
Glad you're finding your way to church...it has definitely helped me with all the anxiety in life.
And hey, too bad you live in California because I would SO start a knitting group with you!
Good luck on the church hunt. We were fortunate when we moved to Tacoma. We joined the 2nd church we attended. It is quite large for a Lutheran Church.
Finding a new church is such a personal choice. I wish you the best.