The Time Has Come

The time has come for one last blog post in 2008. I sounds crazy to say it, but 2008 has already come and almost gone. Wow! What a year it has been, huh? :)

The time has also come for me to talk about Christmas. Our children's service went smoothly, for what it was. It was by no means orderly or well-rehearsed like all the programs I've seen and the ones I participated in as a child. But, it went ok and everyone who came seemed to enjoy it. I'll admit that personally, because I'm ridiculously organized and because I love order, I wasn't all that happy with it. But as it finished and the kids were happy and as people were talking about how much they enjoyed it, I felt a little better.

People clapped after every song and ever reading/recitation the children did. I kept thinking, "Just wait 'til the end, people." lol But it was reassuring for the kids and they did do well. But the thing that was strange was that Laura (Agron's great niece, the one who plays violin) played two songs at the end of the service. She hadn't come to any practices, hadn't rehearsed with us at all, but Vitori told her she could play. So um, we just kind of let her at the end of the service. But only once it was completely finished because she wasn't playing sacred songs. She played Jingle Bells and We Wish You A Merry Christmas. So overall, it was by far the weirdest Christmas Service I have every been to, or probably will ever go to, but it was good because I will always remember it.

For Christmas Eve we stayed at our place and had our own festivities with Aida. She came over and we had some snacks--bruschetta that Emily made, sausage, mandarins, kiwis, and wine--followed by cheesy potato soup that I made. Then we had a Christmas devotion so we could explain the advent wreath and candles to Aida and then we read the Christmas story. It was very nice. Simple and definitely not fancy, but very nice.

Then we opened presents. :) We took a bunch of funny pictures to capture our reactions to everything. lol Aida did lots of picture taking and even more laughing at us. The funniest thing of the whole night was that Emily and I both got each other long green necklaces. Haha! We are definitely related!

After that was over, we got out the cookies and chocolate and played Ticket To Ride. Of course that was fun, too. But then we quit so that Emily and I could take some time to call our families and since it was late, Aida went home.

On Christmas Day, we hosted Olsa, Neda, and Ledio in the afternoon. They also decided to bring two extra people. We weren't exactly prepared, but we arranged things to make it work and found a quick last minute gift for each of them from things we had at our apartment. lol The two extra guests were Sara and Danja, two of Emily's students. They are just so darned cute. They also have an interesting story because their dad was/sort of it Muslim, but their mom isn't, and they don't appear to live that way or really follow any of the traditions. Sometimes they even come to church with Neda, but they always come to Activity Nights and always stop in to see Emily and I, even when it's not their class time.

So we kind of pretty much repeated the same activities as the day before with left over snacks, soup, and cookies. They opened the presents we gave them, we put on some Christmas music and danced a little, and then watched a movie that was on TV. It was very fun and I'm pretty sure a good time was had by all. ;)

Since then, I've just been doing a lot of relaxing because I know that once the New Year gets here, things will start to get busier again. We have plans to have dinner with the Huna family (Olsa, Neda, and Ledio's family) and then we're meeting some friends in the city center for the fireworks. Then we'll see where the night takes us. It will be interesting because here, most people stay home until it actually reaches midnight and the new year, and then they go out and celebrate. It's typical for people to be out until 5am or later. Oh, man. I'm not so sure how I feel about that, but Emily and I are both thinking that 3am sounds late enough for us. lol :)

After that, we're leaving at 11pm on the 4th to go to Italy for a few days. We're taking the ferry across the Adriatic Sea from Durres, Albania to Bari, Italy. The ferry ride is overnight so that we have a larger portion of our day the next day to spend checking things out. From Bari, we'll take the train to Naples. We've booked a spot at a hostel in Naples, near the center but right on the coast. We're planning on taking a day trip to go to Pompeii and see the ruins left from Mt. Vesuvius. We'll also spend another day and a half in Naples before we head home. I'm so excited!!! I'm just praying that I feel good because with this dumb giardia business, I never know how I'll feel from day to day, even though I usually just feel kind of generally yucky overall.

Once we get back from Italy on the 8th (or maybe the wee hours of the morning on the 9th), we will have to start some serious planning for classes. It will be good to get lessons planned out for the first few weeks and we'll have to start calling kids and reminding them about registration and orientation. I'm sure we'll have a few more days to relax and such, but it will be time to get back to work as well.

Oh! There's one other noteworthy thing we've done. We went to another birthday party. Sara turned 11 and we were invited to her house for snacks and cake and a little party with just a few kids. Her mom was explaining to us that last time (at Danja's birthday) things got too crazy and there were too many out of control kids, so Sara's party was smaller. But she kept telling us she was so happy and it was a very good birthday. Awww. :)

So...without further adieu and because I've had time, here are a bunch of photo albums for you to look at. :) One I get more savvy about this link business, I'm hoping that I'll just be able to type the name of think album for you to click on and be taken directly to the pictures. But we'll see. I may not have enough time to figure that all out. lol Anyway, enjoy what I have to share for the time being.

Here are the pictures of events leading up to Christmas:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=52C42ZQ3443M5FCGYK23RW

These are the pictures from when we baked cookies with the girls in the MMM group:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=54ETYYPXU24M5FCGYK23RW

Sara's birthday party was fun. See for yourself:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=65ETYX56R22M5FCGYK23RW

The Christmas Eve photos can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=54AXX5R44V6M5FCGYK23RW

And the pictures for Christmas Day can be seen at:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=125600102&k=Z6LUZZT4P4YCUC1GVJVXQWR