Surprise!

I've been behind on blogging lately because after two days in Berlin, Eric and I flew back to the United States to surprise our families for Thanksgiving!  We managed to keep it a secret from everyone except Eric's dad and a few friends.  There were hugs, tears, and some screaming.  (My brother and sister's response?  "Way to show us up on Thanksgiving, Laura."  My mom always says siblings are there to keep your ego in check.)  It was a wonderful way to end our eight months of travel.

Waiting at our gate at Berlin's Tegel Airport

Since then, we've been spending time with our families and starting to set up our lives back on US soil.  I feel like I'm still moving around as much as when we were on the road, but I do appreciate that I have access to my full closet now.  Soon we'll be settled in and I can finish blogging about the last few stops of our trip! 

Rome, Venice and All the Pasta

September seems to be a recurring month of few posts for me.  This year, I have a good excuse.  We divided the month between five countries: Greece, Italy, the Czech Republic, France and the United Kingdom.  The days blurred together as Eric and I celebrated his birthday in Paros, flew to Rome to meet his parents for their vacation, and then traveled with them through Rome, Venice, Prague and Paris. 

Eric's 31st also included stuffed grape leaves, Greek meatballs and chocolate croissants.

T-21 Days

On March 19, Eric and I are leaving for Southeast Asia.  We're flying from New York to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and plan to travel around the area for the rest of the year.  (If you read Eric's blog, The Wandering Lawyer, this may be old news.)  We'll be back in December — I don't want to miss Christmas at home — but so far the itinerary is intentionally vague.  Depending on employment opportunities, we may stay in one city for a longer period of time, but so far nothing is decided.  There are a lot of places to see.  I'm ridiculously excited.

A photo of Eric's from the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia.

Christmas Surprises

Before I arrived back in Lexington on Wednesday night, my mom told me that she really hadn't had time to do too much decorating.  She'd been busy working, choosing amazing Christmas gifts for everyone, and baking the best cookies of ever. (Not just the cinnamon cookies with the chocolate kisses, but the Italian flag cookies and Linzer tarts!)  Oh, and also she did all of this:

My mom makes this cranberry wreath and it always looks nice against our white front door.
I think she even made the bow!

The Polenta Story

Christmas Eve is one of the few traditional celebrations in my family.  All of my siblings come over and my dad makes polenta for dinner.  Polenta is a dish made from corn meal, water, cheese and butter.  It takes some time, since you need to heat and stir the ingredients until the mixture becomes mostly solid.  When my dad was growing up, his grandmother would make polenta in a huge copper pot whenever he and his parents came over for dinner.  To serve it, she would flip the pot upside down on a towel in the middle of the dining table.  Everyone would cut a piece from there.  In order to celebrate our French heritage – my grandparents emigrated from Europe in the early part of the twentieth century – my dad makes polenta on the holiday we always spend together.  It’s the one part of my French heritage that has survived through the years.  Unlike my grandmother, though, my dad serves the polenta on a plate.

Vive la France!

Sunday Morning

On Sunday mornings when I was little, my dad always read the comics pages to me. We'd laugh at Garfield, wonder what would happen next with Spiderman and puzzle over Zippy (I still don't understand Zippy). I would always pour myself a bowl of Berry Berry Kix for breakfast, then I would sit and listen to my dad read the bubbles over the character's heads. By the time I turned back to my cereal, it was a big pink and purple mush that I wouldn't want to eat. After a while, my mom started refusing to buy Berry Berry Kix.