Christmas Spirit

Now that Thanksgiving has passed, it's time to get in the Christmas spirit. Meghan and I put up some lights today as well as our fake Christmas tree. I wrapped the door in a red table cloth and put some ribbon on it and we're going to make some snowflakes later to decorate inside (keep in mind we are on a budget hence the homemade decorations). We have Christmas music playing now and will until we go home in just over three weeks! Here are some pictures of our apartment.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Today was quite the day. It was my first year away from home for Thanksgiving so it was a little sad but I still really enjoyed myself. This morning, Meghan and I went to the Run for Hunger in Sacramento. I did the 10K which was a great way to start the day off. I didn't feel quite so guilty eating so much. When we got home, we started cooking! We had decided to make our own Thanksgiving meal and invited Dana, her sister, friend, Andrew, and Mike over. Neither Meghan or I had ever cooked our own Thanksgiving meal but we were all ready for the task.

Meghan made a grasshopper pie while I peeled potatoes for mashed potatoes. I got the turkey going in the oven and made some squash. Butternut squash is my favorite but they didn't have it in the store so I ended up with carnival squash. It wasn't quite as good but it worked out. I also made my dad's famous biscuits. I had never made those before but they came out pretty well, although not as good as when my dad makes them. Around 5:30, our feast began. We had delicious turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, squash, corn, green beans, biscuits and stuffing. Then we had apple pie, chocolate strawberries, and grasshopper pie for dessert. It was a lot of fun having everyone over and having successfully made our first Thanksgiving feast. It was an acceptable second best to being home.

SOA

This past weekend, I went down to Georgia to protest the School of the Americas. Up until Sister Maria invited us to attend, I had never heard of it before so I did some research. I learned that individuals from Central and Southern America trained by the SOA have been responsible for many acts of human rights violations. We left bright and early on Friday morning and arrived around 4 PM for some teachings about the SOA. Some of the other Mercy Volunteers who we had met during orientation were also there so it was really good to see them. Saturday we attended some talks in the morning and then went over to the gates of Fort Benning later on in the afternoon. Saturday night, we attended a mass with everyone who was there which was really nice.

Sunday morning was the main part of the weekend. 25,000 people gathered outside the gates of Fort Benning to stand for a few hours and then we began a slow procession. All 25,000 people walked up to the gates and put a cross up on the fences in memory of someone who had died as a result of the SOA. All the names were read out of those who had lost their lives and the entire procession took over two hours. It was very moving, especially when those who had died could not be identified by name or age but were simply identified as "child." Overall, it was a very interesting and eye opening weekend and I'm glad I could be a part of it.

Game Night

Last weekend, we had a party/game night at our house. We invited one of the JVCs houses and a few other people and played Apples to Apples. It was a lot of fun, it was nice to have a kind of relaxed night where we didn't have to get all ready to go out and we could all just hang out. We decided we're going to have game nights more often.

The Car Wrapping

It was Andrew's birthday last week (the old MVC) so Meghan, Dana, Erik and I decided it would be a good idea to do something special for him. We wrapped his car in saran wrap! We got it from the dining room at Loaves and Fishes and then we added on some stuff that was in Dana's car. There's a picture of the final result below...I'm just a little nervous for what may happen on my birthday.