My Hometown

Boy, have we got a lot to share about Christmas vacation! First, I'd like to share some info on my hometown that I think is amusing. Ben and I drove this time which is about a 15 hour drive. We took it in two days going up there, but coming back we did it in one day. We were super tired of being in a car as you can imagine. My hometown is called Holly Pond (Alabama). Apparently they named it that because when they first established the community in 1911 there was a pond with holly bushes around it. It is a small town of maybe 640 people. It's quiet and pretty and full of hard-working farmers. Here are some shots I took when I was home.

This first one is of something that mystifies me. In my hometown we have a Dollar General store next to a Family Dollar store. Um... am I missing something here?














This next one is in Holly Pond park. (where the pond with the holly around it was) For many years the mayor of Holly Pond was a man that was in a wheel chair and always smoked a cigar. He has now passed away, but the town erected a statue in his honor. I think it is very unusual to see a statue of a man in a wheel chair smoking a cigar.













This next one is pretty funny to Ben and I. This is a photo of one of the two banks in Holly Pond. That's right... it's in a trailer. I am assuming there will be a building eventually.










This last one is of an owl we spotted while driving down the street. We were very excited to see such a beautiful owl!

Wii must be crazy

I have a dream... that one day little boys and girls would be able to buy Nintendo Wiis without chopping off their right arms for them. Maybe that was a nightmare. Anyways, I decided that I wanted a Nintendo Wii gaming system for Christmas. We searched and searched and alas could not find one. I decided that I needed to "step up my game" in order to get one. I was determined to camp out outside a Best Buy store until the morning when I knew they would have some. I wasn't sure how many they would have though. (gulp)

I lined up at around 11pm. Around 3am an "assistant property manager" that was only about 22 years old showed up and told us we had to get lost or he would call the police. Of course, nobody moved a muscle and the police escorted us off the premises 20 minutes later.

So for another 4 hours we waited across the street from Best Buy (in the rain some of the time), until 7am when we could officially walk onto the premises and line up. Meanwhile, all night long when we would see someone lining up outside of the store we would have to walk over and tell them that the line is across the street. At 8am they opened the doors and told the 100 strong crowd that they only had 24 Nintendo's and everyone else should go home. The first 15 people in line (other than me) were all college & high school kids that were going to sell their wii's on EBay as soon as possible. Parents didn't start lining up until around 2am, so only about 8-10 parents actually lasted the night to get a system at all.

Then just as I was leaving the store with a Wii in hand and I thought the drama was over, some of the college guys approached someone outside of Best Buy to try and sell their brand new Wii's. Two police officers were right there waiting and jumped out and started shouting at them to leave the premises immediately or get arrested for trespassing. I think Best Buy must have been paying the police to kick out anyone trying to resell their Wii because they seemed to be sitting around waiting for something to happen.

So after 9 hours of waiting I finally got my Wii for Christmas. Unfortunately Meredith cleverly wrapped it while I was sleeping on Sunday afternoon so I haven't even played it yet!

A Hard Nut to Crack

So I've been in love with this idea of taking home one of the coconuts that I found at my new workplace. Yesterday I utilized my new scooter rack to carry a really sloshy coconut that I found by the lagoon at the BK building and I was determined to split that puppy open and see what it was like to sample free unbridled pre-dessicated and unadulterated coconut milk.

This was harder than I anticipated.

I was thinking that my coconut was shaped very differently to the ones I've seen in the grocery store. Then I realized that I need to peel off the outer skin to get to the actual nut with the milk. This was a nightmare! First pieces of bark are flying everywhere as I'm bashing it with a huge knife and then even after making lots of slices into the shell/skin thing I couldn't peel it off. The skin had welded itself to the nut, in defiance of modern cutlery.

Finally I was able to chip away enough bark to start peeling away small strips of the outer shell. Much was my joy.



The nut revealed! At this point I knew I had the upper hand. This must have been the sloshiest coconut I've ever heard of. I thought the coconut milk would practically explode out of the thing so I did the next step very carefully.







Chipping a hole in the nut, I drained out about a cup and a half of the milk inside.

Now for the tasting!






Oddly enough it tasted just like pecans!

New chrome for my scoot!

Christmas came early this year - woo hoo! The new front rack for my scooter is the perfect size for carrying coconuts as I just found out today. Thanks to my wonderful mom for this early Christmas gift. Love you mom!

School Backdrop

This is a photo of the backdrop for my primary Christmas programs. Isn't it beautiful? Last night we had a faculty Christmas party, so that's why there is food in front of it. What I did was choose the image that I wanted for a backdrop, give it to a parent, and she had it blown up by an architectual firm into a huge size. Then we put the panels together and taped them to the back bar of the risers... and there you go. I chose this one because I thought it was really neat looking and because I thought all races were represented. You've got the black angel, then the Latin guy, then the Jewish guy, and then the white guy with blond hair! Merry Christmas everyone!

The Ultimate Santa Claus

... and what would you like fo Christmas fool!

Oh, I'm sorry former first lady Nancy Reagan - I thought you were someone else.

- Mr. T

Nativity mishap

At school I was helping a girl learn her Christmas lines and her lines were:
"The story of the first Christmas, taken from the gospel of Luke, Chapter 2... Cesaer Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. So Joseph and Mary began the long and tiring journey to Bethlehem, the city of David."

Well, this girl is a first grader and so she is just beginning to read, so she said "The story of the first Christmas taken from LUCKY chapter 2"... I corrected her and said, "no, it's not lucky.. it's Luke..it's a book in the Bible." She laughed and said "oh, I thought it was lucky...and the Christmas story is in the Bible?"

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry... but I thought it was innocent anyway.

Then I try to help her with her other lines and she was having a hard time saying "Cesaer Augustus", so I asked her if she'd ever had a Cesaer salad and she had. So every time we came to that part I acted like I was eating a salad. Then she kept saying "Cesaer Augustus issued a DEGREE"... it took a long time, but I think she's finally got it.

Spot the Iguana

You won't even believe it's there unless you really look for it.













So next time you get that eery feeling that you're being watched..... it's AN IGUANA!

Nature: Burger King Style!

The mosquitos are bad, giant buzzards are everywhere and there is an endangered crocodile in the lake. Welcome to the natural habitat around Ben's new workplace.

I've been moved to a new office in Palmetto Bay that used to be the old Burger King headquarters as part of the expansion that my company is doing . I found some giant ovens that they used to cook "test" burgers in. I also heard that everyone there used to just eat free burger king burgers all day long! (probably an exaggeration for story-telling effect, but still VERY cool!)

Anyway, the nature around this new building is amazing. I think the lake is connected underground to Biscayne Bay so it's entirely saltwater. Yet there is a suspicious alligator-looking animal swimming around in there. Alligators only live in freshwater though so I'm pretty sure it's an endangered American crocodile. Only about 1000 in all of the US apparently.

Enough of the jabber - here are some more pics:



Lot's of Ibis birds having a party... most likely feasting on the remains of old burgers in the grass.

DodgeBall

So I just discovered this video is not real after all and was officially debunked at snopes.com. Even so, I was totally blown away when I saw it so I hope you enjoy it!

Metar Bar mitzva

Today we went to Metar's bar mitzva. This is the first one I've ever been to. Being a Baptist girl, I know nothing about bar mitzva's. Here's what I learned... that "bar mitzva" means son of the covenant. For girls the term is "bat mitzva" and it means daughter of the covenant. Basically the whole ceremony centers on the coming of age for the boy in this case, to take on the responsibility for living the laws of the Torah. Also, now in the synogogue he can read the Torah. Whether you have the party or not, if you are of the Jewish faith, once you turn 13 you are bar mitzvahed.



This is Metar making his "I am a man speech". He was nervous, but he did great.


















Here are the men hearing the Torah. The women all congregated at the back seperate from the men. I found out I wasn't supposed to take this picture! Woops!














Barreth men being goofy... actually just Ben being goofy.

Thanksgiving

These are some of my favorite photos from yesterday. We celebrated Thanksgiving at my father-in-law's house in Aventura. There were many people there, many of them from Israel. This first photo is of a friend named Eli... he's funny.







Then Ben and I in front of the sunset!













Then Ben's dad giving the annual "pilgrim speech". (notice the keepa on his head)














Then we have Ben's dad and Luz cutting the turkey. She's from Peru and so cute!
















These are the Barreth men... from left: Jake, Ray, John and My sweet Benny.













This is Ilana's daughter Slil, with her baby, Roy. He's soooo cute














This is Ben's dad joking about cooking the dog, Minnie.

Animals in womb

An elephant in the womb

Thanksgiving Eve

Just when you thought hedgehogs don't have Thanksgiving dinners... I have the picture to prove it! Voila! By the way, I believe they are making apple pies. It CRACKS me up!

Barstools

Funny barstools. No disrespect intended, just thought it was funny.

Things I find funny

These are some pictures that I thought were worthy of sharing. Number one, you know you drink way to much wine if you can make a Christmas tree out of the bottles. Number two... sometimes I feel like holidays just are one after another! By the way... today is both my mother-in-law's birthday and also my brothers birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! This upcoming week we are going to have Thanksgiving and also we are going to go to our first Barmitzvah! (look for the pictures in posts to come)

For Beki

Well... one of my loyal readers, Beki, has requested an update. Although life feels pretty regular, I thought of something to talk about. Being a music teacher and rehearsing Christmas music all the time makes you get Christmas fever early. So... Ben and I have been Christmas shopping for our families online and have been signing away our riches at the door to the UPS man. Tonight we went to CVS and got some wrapping paper and tape. I started wrapping some presents and we "put up our Christmas tree"... which means we plugged in our tree that is always there strung with lights. I know it's sort of redneck (how did we ever get that name?), but I like the ease of just plugging in our Christmas tree every year and then just simply unplugging it and waiting. Anyway... I made Ben take a shot with our Christmas tree and wrapped presents. He is doing his famous "Razamataz" pose. In fact, when I showed him the picture after taking it he said, "Razamataz"... whatever that is! Isn't he the cutest? See the boxes in the background? Those are my presents that have been delivered, but I'm not allowed to look in there. Last year I went by the grocery stores and got free Christmas tree branches just to get the smell in the house. Maybe I'll do that again this year and just live with my own version of the Christmas tree.

Random Feats of Destruction

What happens to a hard drive when it dies? I hear people asking me this question all the time... actually I don't, but just bear with me for storytelling effect here.


At my company, when hard drives die and go to that big motherboard in the sky, we beat them until they cry like a dachsund eating a hot dog.... just to make sure that the data is completely irrecoverable.

FYI: The goggles are for my protection, not just to show off my studly good looks.



















The problem with this technique is that hard drives can be tough little blighters. We had to bash them with a small sledgehammer for several minutes before they opened up. Then we salvaged the super-powerful neodynium magnets for our fridge and made sure the shiny drive platters had a few final dents in for good measure.

Here's the finished product: Two irreversibly damaged hard drive platters. You can also see the needle from one of the drives. Incredible engineering!

In case you haven't seen enough pictures of Ben-cho Libre yet...

Nacho Libre costume plus scooter equals fun! On my way home from work that day I even had a guy in a van shouting out calling me superman. Ahhhhh, good times!

Our Anniversary

It is our three year wedding anniversary today. It has been a wonderful three years for us. Because of our responsibilties on Wednesday nights at church, we went out last night. First of all, Ben got me a present of garnet earrings. I had a pair of garnet earrings that Ben bought for me in St. Thomas when we were on a cruise. I was very sad that somehow I lost one of those earrings. They were sentimental to me. So, these were meant to replace those that I lost one of. What a wonderful guy right? He also took me to the Red Fish Grill out on Matheson Hammocks. I'd never been to the restaurant, but the food was excellent and then we took a walk around the little lagoon they have there. From there you can see the Miami skyline and you are surrounded by water... very nice. It was the place where Ben and I had our first kiss too, so it was really nice. I was overwhelmed with the thought that he put into the whole thing. I love Benny!

Beethoven

Tonight I have a concert at Florida International University. I went there for my master's degree in voice. We are singing Ludwig van Beethoven's (1770-1827) 9th symphony. It's official name is "Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Opus 125", but most of you know it for the "Ode to Joy" tune. When I decided to sing it with this choir, I had no idea what I was getting into really. I've never sung this particular piece. Of course I've heard "joyful, joyful we adore thee", but this is 10 times more difficult. By the end of it, the sopranos feel like squeaking chiwawas! This piece is very popular, so popular that in 2003 someone bought an original manuscript of it for 3.3 million dollars! What is truly remarkable is that Beethoven composed it when he was completely deaf.

Here are some interesting Beethoven facts:

His father was an alcoholic and his first music teacher. His father would often come home after a night of drinking and drag Beethoven out of bed for him to play piano for him. His mom died when Beethoven was 18. Tragic!

Beethoven started to go deaf when we was 28. I've heard some theories that he was going deaf because of his father's abuse.

Beethoven didn't get along well with others. He never married, although he wanted to. Marriage was a complicated issue back then it seems. He had very unusual behavior such as wearing dirty clothes, but washing all the time too. AHH!