BABY UPDATES
report by Dorothy
I thought you would all like to see a couple of the latest baby pictures I have had shared with me. The first is one is of a Mellon cousin. Now you probably remember from our past episodes of family history that my mom was a Mellon. Little Aiden is my Mom's great, great, grand nephew if I have it correct, so he is my first cousin three times removed.
Aiden Montford at 8 months
by Dan and Nancy Mellon
The second picture is of a great niece on the Anderson side. Her parents are Brenda and Nathan Hill -- and her grandparents are Dwight and Janie Anderson. (Dwight is Don's brother and Brenda is our niece)
Jazmine Hill
Jazmine is wearing the overalls that Dwight wore when he was about that age. They are getting pretty delicate, so she only wore them for the picture so they wouldn't have to be washed! She was 7 months old when the picture was taken in December and she's 9 months old now.
She's turning into a real clown! She loves to walk holding onto someone's hands. So she walks a few steps, then stops to kick one leg up in the air, walks a few more steps, stops to do a little dance, and "sings" most of the time!
STUDENT UPDATE
by Eric and Leona Anderson
I'm really, really sorry we don't write much, but honestly there's not a whole lot to tell. Life is pretty routine for us right now. It's all pretty much work and school. We don't have much time or money for fun stuff, so we stay in quite a bit or just get together with friends at Leona's work.
For both of us this semester is mostly just filler classes. I'm going Mon, Wed. and Fri. in the morning and Leona goes on the same days just all day. She'll be wrapping things up probably by the end of this year and then she'll start looking for a full-time job. I've got another year or so before I can get a better job.
As far as work goes, we're both trudging on. Since we can't work more hours neither of us is up for a promotion, but we're both enjoying our work at least.
Well that's about it. I promise I'll let you know as soon as something more exciting happens.
Tonight we're going to dinner with 3 other couples we know and tomorrow we'll be seeing Dad and Patty. It'll be nice to have a fun weekend.
Eric
Editor's Note: The occasion was Eric's 24th birthday on Feb. 28--DMA
Travelogue t
The Bolivian Beat
By Kjirsten Swenson
I'm still here...
I'm very anxious to get to Morochata, but it's been wonderful to catch up with friends and wander the streets of Cochabamba and eat humintas and go to aerobics with 40-year-old-Bolivians and eat piles of potatoes and buy mangos in the market...
Carnaval begins in about 10 days. I'll be going to Oruro, an Altiplano city famous for its fiesta. Apparently it involves lots of stunning costumes, folkloric music, and dancing. Meanwhile, Bolivians have an unexplicable custom that involves throwing water balloons at each other in the days leading up to carnaval. So Cochabamba is now the site of a city-wide water fight... I've been a target at least 8 times today, but only hit once. Perhaps I ought to arm myself with retaliation materials!
A friend from last semester is still here, helping/doing research with an ngo that works with women and reproductive health issues. So it's been great to spend time with her; today she cooked an amazing lunch in her apartment. It's also been fun to meet some of this semester's sit students, including a guy from Rice I didn't know.
So that's my life for the moment. It's weird to have so much free time! I walk everywhere I go and sleep for 9 hours per night because I can :) I've also been frequenting the markets a lot. Yesterday I selected a pile of photos and had Kodak print them so I can show curious friends where I had "lost myself" for two months.
Too bad your weather is icky. I probably shouldn't gloat about the perfect 75-degree weather here... I bought a beautiful arrangement with over 30 roses plus other flowers for my friend who cooked me lunch today. I didn't even try to bargain when the market woman quoted me the price of $2.50 :)
Mom and Dad
(Even though this picture doesn't correspond with the day, it is a picture of
Dad and Mom at the restaurant which is part of the resort.)
Cayman Islands J
Sunday
by Kim Johnson
Well ... Sunday was pretty laid back as well. The option of finding a rental car and driving to the 2 Sunday meetings on the island were crushed, we were kind of stuck ... until we called the elders. They were SO kind as to come and pick up our troop (Big troop) and drag us to and from meetings! So this fine Sunday morning, we all got our clothes and hair ready for meeting and then stood around in the lobby for the elder to come haul us away. But then this lady came up to us from the dive shop at the resort and started to chat away. She seemed nice and, well, pretty open to talk to us weirdos all dressed up on a island where you would normally lounge around in bikinis and drink smoothies. She finally asked us if we were going to meeting ... She was professing, but couldn't go to meeting Sunday mornings because she had to work. That was a pretty nice surprise to meet her, because we would probably see more of her later. :) But as the story goes ... we headed off to meeting in 2, yes 2, cars and then after meeting one of the ladies asked us all to eat at her place. But to make a long story short, we went to their Sunday night study meeting as well at the place of a man named Charlie Brown ... and then headed for the resort. We all enjoyed another day on the island!!
The Miss Kitty Letters*
By Miss Kitty
Good Luck & Prosperity – That's Me!
Sure enough, Miss Jerrianne and Miss Kathlyn went to the "Purr Rendezvous" cat show last week but Pretty Kitty and I stayed home. It turned out that we could have gone, too ... it wasn't just for cats with pedigree papers, after all. But I'm not feeling bad about missing out on all that commotion ... and I don't need ribbons ... especially since Miss Jerrianne said, even after seeing all those beautiful kitties, she still liked me best of all.
I heard there were lots of interesting cats in the show ... Abyssinians and Russian Blues and some other cats that look a little bit like me, in one way or another. But Miss Jerrianne said she didn't see any that looked like me overall, so I might have done quite well, if I had gone. There weren't any of those Korat "Si Sawat" (good luck and prosperity) cats from Thailand there, though she would like to have seen some. She wonders whether one of those silver-tipped blue Siamese cats with green eyes, if it met up with a ginger colored cat of some other persuasion, might have produced female kittens that look something like me ...
Although such a pairing might seem an unlikely coincidence, we do seem to have certain features in common -- especially our strong opinions and our very large greenish eyes. All kittens are born with blue eyes and, except for Siamese cats, most of them turn toward yellow after a few months, but green eyes then come on gradually and take up to 2 to 4 years to develop. My eyes are definitely getting greener, now that I'm getting close to my first birthday. They are already close to the yellowish-green color of "peridot," as a Korat cat's eyes should be.
According to tradition, the Korat cat's fur is "the color of rain clouds" with a silvery sheen and "the eyes shine like dew drops on the lotus leaf." Some say their eyes are the color of young rice plants, signifying a good harvest. That all sounds lovely to me. As for luck and prosperity, I think I've found it. I know a good thing when I see it!
http://www.cfainc.org/breeds/profiles/articles/korat.html
And speaking of birthdays, Miss Jerrianne's came along and one of her friends presented her with catnip toys! Now I think that's an excellent birthday present and I must say I'm enjoying them a lot more than the chocolate carmel nut confections from Miss Kyra ... because I get to play with the catnip toys but I haven't gotten so much as a taste of that scrumptious candy.
As I mentioned before, this Saturday is the start of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, officially 1049 miles long, from Anchorage to Nome. There are reportedly 91 (or is it 87?) teams starting the race and I'm sure Anchorage will be a much improved city by Sunday. But I'm wondering ... if we can send 1,350 dogs from Anchorage to Nome ... why can't we send ALL the dogs from Anchorage to Nome? Now I think that would be a splendid idea!
For more Miss Kitty adventures visit my web log:
http://www.jlowther.com/Pages/kitty/index.html
Miss Kitty
This and That
6
by Elaine Wold
Wahpeton, ND
Math problem...
1. Get a calculator, if needed.
2. Key in the first 3 digits of your phone number.(not area code).
3. Multiply by 80.
4. Add 1.
5. Multiply by 250.
6. Add the last four digits of your phone number.
7. Do it again.
8. Subtract 250.
9. Divide the number by 2.
Recognize the answer?
Elaine,
Shari was asking about tropical foods for her wedding and I remembered a Honeymoon Salad that I learned to make before I left Minnesota. If you can run a can opener, this goes really fast and it's easy to remember, because it's just "one of everything."
Jerrianne
Honeymoon Salad
Ambrosia from Xanadu via Minnesota and North Dakota en route to Florida
1 can Mandarin Orange Slices, drained
1 can Pineapple Tidbits, drained
1 cup Angel Flake coconut
1 cup miniature marshmallows
1 cup sour cream
Stir ingredients together and chill the salad in the refrigerator overnight to let the flavors blend. No cooking ... and there is nothing critical here ... you can extend it with a can of fruit cocktail (drained) or similar fruit and/or vary the amount of any ingredient to suit your taste. I brought some to a pot luck wedding reception in Alaska last summer because the bride was from Minnesota and I thought she might enjoy a taste of home! (Yep, they're still married!)
+ LETTERS TO THE EDITORS?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks again for putting together and sending The Bulletin ... love reading about everyone's travels!
Barb Dewey
I think Caity has gotten the wisdom of words in her already too. What an article (about the new dog) -- for her age, to be able to write that ... how nice ... she does well!
Elaine
If you receive a second set of pictures as an attachment to The Bulletin, just highlight the portion from the word "Bulletin" to the end (not including the attachment photos). Click on File, Print and then Print Selection ... and you don't have to print the pictures twice. Then you can delete from your mailbox, so they do not take up space. That's how I've been doing it, anyway. I LOVE the pictures being in The Bulletin. Hope this works for you.
Donna J.
QUOTATION FOR THE DAY: Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. --Cicero
EDITOR'S POLICY: If you wish to subscribe to The Bulletin, simply send me a statement of that fact. If you wish to keep receiving it I hope you will contribute to one of the columns that are running in this family epistle (at least occasionally!). My e-mail address is dma49261@juno.com
This Bulletin is copyright Dorothy M. Anderson; the contents are also copyrighted by the authors and photographers and used with their permission, and the contents are not to be used for any commercial purposes without the explicit consent of the creators.