This is the new building from the outside.
This is one of the handpainted ceilings in the new building. Beautiful!
This is a portrait of Mater, or Mary. This is hung in every school of the Sacred Heart around the world. It is modeled after a mural in a chapel in Rome. Ben and I saw the real one on our honeymoon. This one is special because of the background. It's like you're looking out of El Jardin.
El Jardin interior.
El Jardin exterior.
If you ever need a way to silence that spoiled child, this is it. One gift like this and they'll never demand anything ever again ... or they'll become the most twisted child in the western world and make Damien from "The Omen" look like a bunny rabbit eating marshmallows.
Former California State Assembly speaker, Herb Wesson, kicks Zhang Xiao Ju in a spat over who has the biggest Star Wars collection.
I'm just glad buddhist's don't play poker!
I don't really have much going on right now, but I was looking through some of our old photos on our computer and I wanted to share them. I think they are very interesting. Maybe you will think so too! This one is of Ben jumping off of a swing at church. We took this photo on a cell phone camera. We entered two different contests with it and won a free dinner for four at a nice Italian restaurant in town!
This is a photo of some early graduates of the first Sacred Heart school in St. Charles, Missouri. We went and toured the school. The headmistress used to be a director at our school, so she showed us around. I think it's so neat how they dressed back then. This is later 1800's. These girls spoke French in the school.
You would walk along the path and suddenly come up to some glass art. Beautiful!
This is a fun one. This is some of the glass art again. This piece is called Carnival Boat. Notice the iguana on the limb above the boat? We saw lots of them today... they give me the creeps. Apparently, they are really a big pain because they eat all the plants and stuff. I asked Ben why they don't just "accidentally" poison them.
These little onion shaped pieces are called Walla Wallas, but they reminded me of the candy from Willie Wonka. It was pretty.
This is a glass sculpture. One of the many on display. They say that you can come at night to the exhibit and they are all lit up. This sculpture weighs literally about two tons.
My mom was really generous this Christmas and sent us a huge rack of ribs by mail. The barbequed ribs and brisket were made in a restaurant in Kansas city that she swears is that absolute best in America. Well of course, Meredith has tasted some pretty fine BBQ in AL, so I think mom had something to prove.
Ben and I decided that we would try out his Christmas gift to me- a pasta maker. I've never made homemade pasta before, but in the instructions it says that with practice you can make pasta like a real Italian! So here are some pictures from tonight's adventure with pasta making. The pictures really don't do justice to how it tasted. It was good. Oh, and also I will include my recipe for meatballs... they are good!
water. Once you have the dough, you cut it into sections and make flat sheets. Ben liked this part.
Then you run the flat sheets of pasta through the cutting part of the machine. We decided to make linguini style noodles tonight. I've seen on TV how cooks put their pasta in "nests" or little piles... so here are my nests.
or 4 minutes, you mix with sauce and it's ready. Here's Ben giving his vote. When he saw this picture he said "now, why does my head and my fist look unusually large?" I thought it was funny.
My dad. I gave him a Bob Hope DVD set.
My sister Stephanie and my mom. While we were home we took some photos.
My nephew, Clay. He is so handsome and has the prettiest teeth you've ever seen. I asked him to show me his "pearly whites" and he smiled and then seriously added "I'm kind of gorgeous". I thought it was so hillarious.
My niece, Chloe Anna. She is so small, but so strong and she's also super charming. She can sing all kind of songs and talks all the time. One day when mom and I picked them up from daycare, Chloe called out to her friends "bye.. bye... happy New Year". I thought it was very cute.
I have many photos and many good friends who were there that night, but this last one is of all of the children that were there that night. We've all changed and been very blessed!
was home.
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!
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oddly enough it tasted just like pecans!
