ひさしぶりだね

Well, it's been a long time... Christmas break and the weeks surrounding it have been excellent. Hilary came and visited in State College, then we flew back to Seattle together. Had a great time at Christmas with both her family and mine... interesting and somewhat nerve-wracking trips over the pass during bad weather, relaxing and unstressful time with my family... I took minimal photos this year, but here's a collection of some of the ones I did take, along with a bit of commentary:

Taking infrasound measurements in the frozen wilderness hours before Hilary arrived at State College. After driving miles on icy frozen ledges and setting up camp, my equipment broke down. [The story ended well though]

Having dinner at my place with Hilary, Chenggang, and his wife Tiantian (we had a pot roast)

In Harrisburg airport - 0ur original flight was canceled, so we spent the [wonderful] day at the Holleman's (where Hilary was staying). Ash took us to the shuttle at 3:30 am which took us to Harrisburg for our flight to:

Minneapolis. It's cold there.

We flew over this weird double valley with a ridge between them. I want to google earth it...

Tired but hangin in there

On the shuttle from Seattle to Yakima - because of the snow the bus was hours late. The wind over the pass was over 70 mph, and it closed right after we crossed. The shuttle was cooooold, but we met some cool people

Hilary talking on her cell

Next morning we went to church

Christian missionary alliance church

Peter and Emily

Christiana and her friend Sarah (I think that's her name...?)

Singing at church

Kate, Emily, Hilary - dressed like marshmellows to go sledding

Hilary fixing up Christiana before the Christmas Eve service

Christmas eve dinner - Wasterbroaches!

An immense pile of presents: 12^2 = 144, and then some... it took us roughly till 3 the next day to open all of them, but they were so great! Examples:

a big block of cheese
a giant Papaya
cool knives
journals
art
socks
napkins (?)
a billion chopsticks
one giant pancake griddle

Headed solo over to Grandpa Deffenbaugh's house to see the family...

Port orchard actually got a lot of snow this year... this was just the last little bit before melting

Marston Christmas at Kent (where Myron grew up)


Myron picking a gift out of the white elephant pile... turns out we randomly grabbed each others gifts

Myron's girlfriend Lori, she fit right in with the family

Myron owning us all at some game involving the economics of power grids and gas lines

After this last shot my camera lense broke down... never fear though! I got a new one, it came in the mail yesterday, and has been inspiring me to annoyingly take photos of everything [everything] again. Hopefully, things to be posted soon, with the new lense!

But, in summary, it was a really excellent Christmas break. I'm going to be defending on the 21st, hopefully graduating, then moving to WSU for a post-doc!