Skype

Hey, just wanted to let everyone know that we finally gave in and created a Skype account. For those of you who don't know what Skype is - it's an online communication device that allows you to either instant message people, call them using an internet-based phone like Vonage, or (its most popular feature) video chat with people using webcams. It's very popular among military families because it helps you stay connected over long distances for free!!

So if any of you have a Skype account - add us as a friend! My name is KimberlyWentzel and James' is JamesWentzel.

Or, if you're interested in setting up a Skype account so you can talk to us, let me know and I'll help you out!

Christmas in California

We recently returned from our trip out to California to spend Christmas with James' side of the family. We were excited that we got to spend so much time with so many of his relatives! James' older brother Sam, his wife Alison, and their little daughter Madison came up from San Diego to spend Christmas in Santa Barbara, and James' aunt Kathleen and her family also came down to see James' grandparents, so there were all kinds of people to hang out with. Most of our time was spent visiting, eating, and following Madison around with our cameras in front of our noses. She is a little bundle of energy and provided hours of free entertainment for us all! I'm pretty sure the only person who did not love having her around was Smeagol the cat, who had to endure being yanked around on a leash everytime Madison went outside.

On Christmas Eve, James and I spent most of our time with the immediate family. In the morning, James and I went out to breakfast at the Mesa Cafe with Sam, his family, and some of Sam's friends. Many of James' family members have worked at the Mesa Cafe at some time or another, so it is tradition for us to go back and visit while we're in Santa Barbara. After that, James' step-father Bob took the guys out for a long walk around down-town while the girls stayed at home and wrapped gifts. Around dinner time, Sam and Alison headed off to spend the night with Sam's mom while the rest of us went over to James' grandparent's house for a spectacular holiday meal. I love his grandparents so it was good seeing them again. After that, we went to the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service at the church James grew up in and sang Christmas Hymns till our voices were tired. All in all, it was a fun and festive day!

Christmas morning started at Bob and Nancy's house, where we opened most of our gifts - or, I should say, where we had fun watching Madison open most of our gifts for us. ;^) I think she enjoyed (or will enjoy) the gifts we gave her. Alison mentioned that she hadn't yet found any children's Bible stories that she liked, so we bought Madison a Children's Storybook Bible that they can read through in the coming years. We also got her a little peg-board puzzle with all of the letters of the alphabet and accompanying pictures of something that starts with each letter. Baby toys are so fun to look at that it was hard to limit ourselves to just those two items.

James and I only asked for travel money (which we received plenty of, thanks to our generous relatives!!) but a few people went ahead and sent us packages anyway, so there were a few things for each of us to open. James was particularly excited about the Japanese language books that his brother Jon and sister-in-law Claire sent him, and I was spoiled (as usual) by my husband. He gave me some fun camera accessories, and some books and movies to keep me occupied. =^)

After we finished opening gifts at the Phinney's house, we got dressed and headed over to James' grandparent's house to open gifts with the extended family, eat lunch, and enjoy the beautiful weather that afternoon. I was excited when Alison asked me to take a nice family photo of the three of them. Since Madison never sits still, that was quite a challenge! But they managed to scoop her up and I had about a 20 second window in which to snap as many pictures as I could. She didn't look at the camera, but I think the family portrait turned out well, regardless.

The rest of our time over the next couple of days was spent in a leisurely fashion. Our main priority was spending quality time with family before we move in April, and I think we accomplished that.

Since we had our own car out in California for the first time, we decided to take advantage of the freedom that offered and spend a day seeing the sights in Hollywood. I had seen some of the bigger attractions while driving from Santa Barbara to San Diego with James' parents, but I really wanted to get out and experience them. So James indulged my tourist desires and looked up the route to the place where you can get the closest to the Hollywood sign so I could get a picture in front of it. Then we went down Hollywood Blvd and walked around in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theater where we got to see all of the signatures and handprints in the concrete, and then went inside the Kodak Theater where they hold the Oscars every year. After that we grabbed some lunch inside the famous mall at Hollywood and Highland. We also wanted to take a tour of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the organization that gives out the Oscars and houses the Hollywood archives) but they were closed for the holidays, so we continued on down to San Diego and spent the rest of the day with Sam and Alison.

Our time at Sam and Alison's was also pretty laid back - which is just the way I like my vacations. At the time we arrived, the Broncos game was on TV so we watched them lose while eating some fabulous home-made buffalo wings. Then we had a big and tasty dinner with Alison's parents, Gary and Devorah (I hope I spelled her name right!!) After dinner, Madison went to bed so James and I got to have a nice long talk with Sam and Alison. I don't know that we've ever spent that much time with the two of them so it was great reconnecting, and in some ways forming a deeper bond with them.

Over all, it was a great trip, and I'm really glad that we've had so many opportunities in the last year to go out to California and spend time with our niece. It's kind of too bad that we'll be out of the country when she's old enough to actually remember time spent with non-immediate family members. But at least we've got plenty of pictures to prove that we have been a small but awesome part of her life so far!

Bible Babes and their Babies

As I've mentioned a few times that my good friend Jordan Cienski and I started up a ladies Bible Study for other student pilot's wives this year... But I haven't been able to post any pictures of them yet! Yesterday (Tuesday) we hosted a baby shower for two of the women in our group - Julia Wilhoit and Natasha Buchenroth - who are both pregnant with their first child. Julia is having a girl and Natasha is having a boy so we had a lot of fun going out and shopping for gifts, playing games, and generally celebrating this next step in their lives.

Since it was an important celebration, all eight of us were in attendance. So I whipped out my birthday present from James - a new tripod for my camera - and made sure to get a good group shot before we left the party. I have been so blessed by the fellowship of these women and sincerely hope that at least one of them will follow us to Japan so we can continue the close bond we've formed over the last few months.

From top left to bottom right: Lynn Gertiser, Jordan Cienski, Me, Anne Grotjohn, Natasha Buchenroth, Julia Wilhoit, and Nacole Wilson.

Carbondale at Christmas...

Three days after James and I gave spoke about The Grinch at church, I got to fly back to Carbondale, IL to see some of my college friends and give essentially the same talk to my InterVarsity chapter. Since it was their last meeting of the semester, they agreed to let me repeat myself and deliver a Christmas message instead of making me write and learn two separate talks in such a short time.

On Wednesday night when I landed in St. Louis, one of my best friends from the film program named Will Strang picked me up from the airport and took me out to dinner with his new wife Marci. They didn't start dating until a few months after my last visit so I had never met her before. It was nice getting to know her a bit. They decided to take me out to one of the best pizza places in St. Louis. (Apparently President Obama ate there when he visited the city so it must be good, right? ;^) Actually...the pizza was great, and I had a lot of fun talking and laughing with the two of them. They seem very well matched and I hope I'll get a chance to visit them again sometime in the future.

One of the things I was most looking forward to about the trip was revisiting some of my favorite restaurants. Thursday afternoon, the girls I was staying with took me out to lunch at my beloved Steak 'n Shake. Even though it was freezing outside, I got my usual peanut butter cup milk shake and spicy chicken sandwich. Mmm... my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Too bad they won't have anything like that in Japan. =^/

My talk on Thursday night at IV went really well. I really wasn't sure whether the college students were going to buy into a message based on a kid's movie - but thankfully they all love The Grinch as much as I do and so it was a meaningful trip down memory lane for all of us. I also think that they took the message more seriously than the middle and high schoolers did, so I'm glad that God was able to speak through me once again!

Afterward, they hosted a big gingerbread house-building competition. That was particularly exciting for me because I started that tradition two years ago. Glad to see it's caught on. I served as a judge, which was difficult since there were so many creative ideas. There was a particularly good rendition of the Nativity scene that won the prize for "most artistic". However, my favorite was made by a team of sci-fi nerds like myself. It's an edible replica of the U.S.S. Enterprise from Star Trek!

The best part of the whole trip was getting to spend a lot of quality time with friends. I stayed with Leann, the freshman who I mentored my senior year. She and I were really close at the time that I graduated, and she even traveled all the way out to CO for my wedding! Now she's a junior and serving as the president of InverVarsity! We always joke that he was kind of my mini-me (or protege, if you want to be more politically-correct.) It was very funny to see that we even have essentially the same haircut now. haha.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was reuniting with a couple more of the guys from my film classes that I was close to. It was a tradition for all of us to go out for pizza at Quatros after tests or big film shoots. We have a whole series of photos of us in front of this restaurant. So we took this one, and held out our arms signifying how much we missed our other amigos. =^/

After that, I hopped over to the IV Ugly Christmas Sweater/Mustache party that was being held at our youth pastor Patrick Langan's house. In addition to hanging out with him and his wife Nettie at the party that night, Nettie drove me to and from St. Louis, so I got to spend a lot of time talking with her. She discipled me my senior year so it was great catching up and talking about all that God is doing in both of our lives. =^)

Over all it was a crazy whirlwind of a trip, full of late nights and a lot of laughter. But that's exactly what I was looking for - one last chance to go back and sort of re-live my college days before we leave the country and all of my friends graduate and move on with their lives. I have been so blessed with these opportunities to go back and keep contributing to the ministry, and I hope that door will open up again when I come back from Japan.

Till then, I have some great memories to hang on to... =^)

Using 'The Grinch' to Save Christmas...

One of the most significant things we have done this Christmas season is delivering the main message at all four youth services at church the weekend of December 5/6th. For their Christmas series, the youth leaders decided to have youth mentors like ourselves pull God themes out of popular Christmas movies. So James and I spent several weeks putting together a 30 minute talk based on one of my favorite Christmas movies ever - the new version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey.

I'm not going to lie - it was a lot of work, and I really don't envy ministers their job. Preaching four sermons in a row is exhausting. But it was totally worth it when we got to see and hear how much God was able to use what we said to speak into the kid's lives and help them remember what Christmas is really about.

If you would like to watch the video of us speaking, you can see it here:

http://pvcstudents.com/wp-includes/Message%20Video/120609_Video.htm

Otherwise, I could email you our outline if you would like to read it. Enjoy!

Decorating for the Holidays

Things have been so hectic over the last couple of weeks that I haven't had an opportunity to tell you all about how our second holiday season as a married couple is going. I think we've done more decorating, watched more Christmas movies, and been to more Christmas parties than either of us have ever before so... I think it's fair to say that we're up to our eyeballs in Yuletide spirit!

One cool thing that happened this year is that the base had a program called "Trees for Troops" where we got to go pick out a real Christmas tree - free of charge! The pick-up time was pretty early on a Saturday morning, so James selflessly volunteered to go get our Christmas tree while I slept. (Normally I would have gotten up and gone with him, but as that was the day we were delivering our first talk to the youth at church, we figured it was best for me to rest as much as possible. :-)

Since we are not actually staying in Phoenix for Christmas, we decided ahead of time that we didn't need a big tree - just a modest 5-6 footer that I can have fun decorating. So, you can imagine my shock when James came and woke me up around 9:00 am to take a look at our tree, and I was greeted by this evergreen monster. It's 7.5' tall! (To give you an idea of the size, that lamp next to the tree is taller than I am.) But, as James pointed out - if it's free, why not go big? Anyway, we're planning on buying a small, fake tree in the after-Christmas sales that we will take with us to Japan, so we might as well enjoy having a real one while we are able.

I also had fun decorating the rest of the living room. I turned the pass-thru from the kitchen to the dining room into a mantle, complete with stockings and other decorations. I also took the strand of blue Christmas lights that I used to hang in my bedroom while I was growing up and wrapped it around our bulletin board. It's fun to have some other blinking lights to balance out the tree.

One of our new, favorite little decorations is this little guy here... They handed them out at our squadron Christmas party. It's a little rubber duck with a santa hat on it, to help remind us of our time with the Wild Ducks of the 309th!

Hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas season as well!

Thanksgiving and Birthday Weekend

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone! We had a great break, even though we just stayed here in Phoenix. Our good friends Caleb and Jordan invited us over to eat and watch football with them, so we didn't spend the day on our own. Jordan's parents were in town so it was a nice group to eat and laugh with!

I offered to bake some sweet potato casserole (James' favorite Thanksgiving dish ever since we visited my grandparents last year), as well as some fresh rolls (with dough from my bread maker). Both of these dishes were made from scratch so I started cooking as soon as I got up and didn't finish till right before we headed over there at 2:00. TOTALLY worth it though - Jordan and her mom said those were the best sweet potatoes they've ever had and demanded a copy of the recipe. =^)

In addition to my meager contributions, we had smoked turkey, ham, stuffing, green bean casserole, real mashed potatoes, cabbage salad, and a peach/mango jello that replaced the cranberry sauce that none of us really care for anyway. Later, we enjoyed some pecan pie and pumpkin cheese cake. Jordan had the dining room table all set with festive decorations. Each leaf on top of the napkins have our names written on it - very creative place cards! It's kind of hard to see in the picture there, but she also had a butter dish shaped like a turkey. =^)

While we ate, Caleb suggested we go around the table and talk about what we're thankful for. There were the typical answers - for my spouse, my family, my job, etc. But I made sure to point out how thankful I am for the wonderful friends we have here. I think the friendships we've formed with some of the other couples here at Luke goes deeper than a typical friendly relationship. These are not just people we call up when we want to go out and have fun. They are people with whom we have true Christian fellowship - a strong support system of people who love each other unconditionally, who we share everything with, and with whom we can be completely honest and transparent. It's been such a big blessing and I will really miss them all when we move.

The next day (Friday, Nov. 27th) was my 23rd birthday! I had mostly asked for money for cold weather clothes since I will need them when we move to Japan, so James graciously agreed to take me out and braved the crowds and lines at Old Navy so I could get the most for my birthday bucks. (I let him stay home on Saturday when I went and spent the rest at JCPenny.) I got some really great stuff though - a new heavy winter coat, a couple sweaters, two long sleeved shirts, a new hooded sweatshirt, a couple new pairs of jeans, and some blue gloves that actually match my beanie. (I had been walking around in college with a brown coat, turquoise hat and bright red gloves. Very strange...) Needless to say, Thanksgiving left-overs tasted really good after all that craziness.

Later that afternoon, James took me out to see The Blindside. It's definitely the best movie we've seen so far this year. It's based on the true story of a young African American boy who was taken in by a white, southern Christian family and went on to play football in the NFL. It's a very compelling story, which talks very frankly about what it means to truly follow Christ regardless of what our society thinks, and Sandra Bullock's performance is definitely worth watching.

After the movie, James took me out to dinner at Chipotle, and then we went home and started decorating the house for Christmas. It's very strange getting in the Christmas mood when it's sunny and warm outside and there are palm trees lining every street. Not that the locals don't try... below is a picture of the palm trees lit up across from the movie theater. Tomorrow we're going to go get a free Christmas tree from the base so maybe it will feel a bit more real when all of our decorations are complete.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and we look forward to seeing some of you over Christmas and New Year's! Enjoy the season!