Crazy Cats!!! (and Dog!)

We were cracking up this afternoon. Our many thanks to Greg and Melanie for providing today's entertainment. G & M gave the cats a "fishing pole" toy with feathers on the end for Christmas. The cats loved it, in fact, they kind of went berserk - especially Flatt who is the more gonzo of the two kittens anyway. It took about 10 seconds for the girls to realize this was a toy that they were allowed to play with and after that, Flatt took flight. She started jumping to heights we'd never seen her reach before and then, since she had no control over where she'd land, she'd often end up by landing on Scruggs or Elmo.

This frenzy of play by Flatt & Scruggs got Elmo all excited and worked up. He wanted in on the action too. Since he can't jump and reach the feather toy like the kittens (nor was he all that interested in it), he instead located the closest kitten toy he could find (thank you Mark & LeAnn for what you didn't realize was both a cat toy AND a dog toy!) and started bouncing around with it in his mouth. The small black and white item in Elmo's mouth is a "cow" cat toy, meant to be chased around like a stuffed mouse.

Once the girls started to get tired (Flatt actually started panting - something I don't think I've ever seen in a cat) and started to slow down, Elmo was still pretty wound up and wanting to play. He wouldn't leave Flatt alone. Even though he looks like he's pretty scary in this shot, it's really just Elmo in his doggy play-stance; goading Flatt on to more play. Both kittens have learned to play with Elmo and to realize that even though he's still significantly bigger than they are, he's pretty much a pansy who can be pushed around - or ignored depending on their moods.

One of the interesting side effects of playing with the girsl, especially Flatt, is that their pupils get HUGE when they start to play . Chris took this shot and it wasn't until we uploaded it that we saw the amazing effect. The stars in Flatt's eyes are not due to any special modifications on our part... that is how her eyes showed up straight from the camera's flash reflecting in her eyes. Truly amazing and pretty funny to boot. She looks like something straight out of a bad horror/sci-fi movie... attack of the killer kitten zombies!

I really can't convey well in words how funny and crazy all this was when it was happening. I just hope you all enjoy looking at the pictures - we sure had fun taking them.

Merry Christmas

Christ is Born!

Glorify Him!

As Orthodox Christians, we are in the middle of the 12 days of Christmas that lead to Theophany (Epiphany as it is known by most people) on January 6.

I hope all of you enjoyed a very Merry Christmas. For us, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are always a little chaotic, but mostly joyous and fun.

The kittens had fun this year too. However, their fun was focused mostly on the wrappings and ribbons that came off the packages.

Celebrating Nativity Orthodox-Style

I posted an article from Beliefnet.com to my other blog about celebrating Christmas with a more Orthodox mindset. If you'd like to read the article, you can check out my Orthodox blog.

I liked this article written by an Orthodox priest on Belifenet.com - reminding us that Christmas is first and foremost a Christian religious holiday, not a secular one. I think that's a good reminder as I have lately become concerned about how many of my Christian friends only pay lip-service to Nativity as a religious holiday, but don't actually go to church and otherwise remember the birth of our Lord.


Celebrating the Nativity Orthodox-Style
By Father John Mack

"Christ is born! Glorify Him!" These words express the great joy Orthodox Christians experience each year as they celebrate the Nativity of their Lord. The wonder of Christmas is more than our minds can comprehend. And thus, for Christmas to be understood it must be experienced in our hearts. It is in our hearts that we understand, and it is with our hearts that we share the joy of Christ's Incarnation.

In the modern world, Christmas has been reduced to the sensual pleasures of the flesh. Each year, Christmas becomes less and less an event of spiritual substance. The joy of Christmas is now centered on what we eat, what we hang, and what we receive.
How different the spirit of Orthodox Christianity.

St. Gregory the Theologian explains: "This. . . is this what we are celebrating today: the Coming of God to man, that we might go forth, or rather that we might go back to God, that putting off the old man we might put on the New; and that as we have died in Adam so we might live in Christ, being born with Christ. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not after the manner of a pagan festival, but in a godly way.

"And how shall this be? Let us not decorate our porches, nor arrange dances, nor adorn the streets. . . . These are the ways that lead to evil and are the entrances of sin. Let us leave all these things to the pagans. But let us who are worshipers of the Word of God, if we must in some way have luxury, let us seek it in God's Word and in the law and the scriptural stories . . . ." (Oration 38)

This does not mean that the extras associated with Christmas are inappropriate. There is nothing wrong with decorating Christmas trees, hanging Christmas lights and enjoying wonderful Christmas treats.

What is important, however, is that we understand why these activities are associated with Christmas. Orthodox faith is worked out in the fabric of our lives and involves more than our worship in the Temple, extending from there into our homes and other surroundings.
Sadly, in our modern era, many of the connections between Temple and home, between faith and life, have been forgotten. We no longer know why we put lights in our windows. It is no longer obvious to us why we hang ornaments on our trees.

It is this division between "sacred" and "secular" that Orthodox Christians must reject. Satan would like us to leave our worship of the Christ Child in the Temple; he would like us to live disjointed lives. Our struggle must be to bring our worship home with us; it must be to connect every aspect of our lives with the Divine Liturgy and the Holy Altar.
Thankfully, we do not have to figure out how to do this on our own. Our tradition is full of wonderful customs that already do it for us.

So, for example, in the Russian tradition the fasting meal that is served on Christmas Eve is eaten only after the first star appears in the sky. It is a joyous experience to watch the children peering out the windows into the sky looking for that first star. The anticipation of the centuries finds its counterpoint in the eyes and hearts of the children as they wait.

The fasting Christmas Eve dinner is also served on a table adorned with straw. We eat our dinner with the cattle and the lambs, in the cave eagerly awaiting the coming of the Messiah. The sights and the smells take us back in time to that first nativity.

Many of the more familiar Western traditions also come to us out of the bosom of the Church. The lights that we put in our windows are signs of hospitality for the Christ child. There is room in our homes and our hearts, we say to a watching world, for Christ to be born. The ornaments remind us of the fruits of the Spirit that Christ's incarnation has brought to us. The tree itself, with its evergreen needles, is a testimony to Christ, the life of the world.

Of course, these things get out of hand. Instead of supporting our spiritual celebration, they can divert our attention. Do we really need to put lights everywhere? Does our tree have to be perfectly adorned? Should we spend less on the "extras" so that we might give more to those who are in need? These questions are very much a part of our Christmas celebrations.
Even the tradition of gift-giving has to be considered. Do our children really need to be given things they don't need? Would they not experience more of the Christmas joy if they were taught to give more and receive less? What is important is that everything surrounding Christmas be judged by the spiritual joy it gives us and our loved ones.

It can and should be fun and enjoyable, but that which is lesser must always serve the greater. Let us keep the Feast, not in the way of the pagans, but in a godly way.

The downside of travel

OK, So what I failed to mention in my previous blogs on Disneyworld is that I came down with the flu on the flight home. It was a miserable trip home, I ached the whole way and was naseous. Unfortunatley (for me), it wasn't until we were only about 15 minutes from landing in Portland that I actually threw up. The good ol' barf bag really came in handy! Thanks to my dad who had one in his seat back... mine was missing. YIKES! Actually, I wish I had done that much earlier in the journey, I felt much better afterward.

However, that wasn't the end of my illness. I spent the next several days battling the bug. Even after most of the symptoms were over, I was still so exhausted; I assume this was mostly from not being able to eat hardly anything over the course of about 2-3 days.

On the bright side, I gave all those people sitting around me on the plane something to talk about with their friends and co-workers the next day! I aim to entertain!

Pictures from Orlando

Here are the pictures from the trip to Disney World. My thanks to Heather for many of these!

Back from Orlando

Well, we're home from Disney World. It was 5 days of fun and complete over-stimulation. It was a great trip with my parents, my brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew. It was great seeing my brother and his family as we hadn't seen them in a couple of years. Walt Disney World (WDW) is like nothing I've ever seen before. It's HUGE. There are 4 traditional amusement parks, 2 water parks, plus "Downtown Disney." The kid in me was tickled by all the rides, the colors, the "glitz" of the whole place. The grown up side of me was awed by the smoothness with which the entire "World," as they call it, operates and the attention to minute detail everywhere you look... this goes even down all the way to the individual rooms. One evening when coming back to the hotel after a long day of playing in the parks, my niece came home to see that the housekeepers had been looking after her "babies" making sure they had a nice place to stay along with everyone else.

Another thing I was amazed by is the amount of time we spent in the parks. Each day we were in the parks anywhere from 10 to 14 hours. More often than not, we would close the parks down each night and be on one of the last buses back to the hotel at night. At the end of every day, the kids would fall asleep on the way back to the hotel and we would all have horribly swollen and aching feet, but the next day we'd all happily get up and do it all over again. It was great fun to be a kid and ride all the rides. WDW has some pretty spectacular rides, again with meticulous attention to detail - even the lines you wait in to get up to the ride are filled with all kinds of interesting features that pertain to the ride you're about to get on. It makes even standing in lines more bearable.
It was great to be able to go to Florida and enjoy the balmy weather (in the 80's every day) in December. It was also great to be able to spend time with my family. OK, so riding all the rides and seeing all the sights wasn't too bad either.

Flooding in the Pacific NW

As many of you may have heard and some of you even experienced, we had a major storm up here this week that pounded much of Oregon and Washington. In fact, it closed down I-5 which is the major north-south thoroughfare that goes all the way down into southern California. The pictures were taken by one of Chris' customers up in Centralia, which is right where the flooding on I-5 occurred. They don't think that I-5 will be open to traffic again until sometime late tomorrow or Friday. I heard this morning that they are calculating the financial impact (due to trucks not able to deliver their loads) at around $4MM per day. I've lived here for 18 years now and I can't remember anything quite like this. I am amazed at the power of the water and it's ability to push the concrete lane dividers around like they were made of plastic.

Sophia

This is Elmo's girlfriend Sophia. She belongs to our friends Greg and Melanie. Sophia is another great corgi. Whenever she comes over to our house, she is always sure to make herself at home as well as put Elmo in his place... poor Elmo... always at the bottom of every hierarchy he's a part of. Still, Elmo likes Sophia and he gets all spunked up whenever she comes over. Alas, she hasn't been over in quite a while as we all lead such busy lives. Seems none of us human parents consult the "kids" when we filling up our schedules... they would definitely have different priorities. Sometimes I wonder if we should take our cues from our dogs... we'd probably live healthier, stress-free lives.