Fondue Fun

So our week this week revolved primarily around preparations for our Fondue party on Friday. Shopping, planning and organizing took up quite a bit of our week. On Friday evening we cleaned and decorated our humble home, chopped and prepared enough food for twice the number of people we were expecting and welcomed our lovely guests. The evening was spent around four fondue pots, representing four bags of chocolate chips and three pounds of cheese. It was absolute taste bud luxury and probably an extreme abuse of our arteries. Conversation flowed late into the night until it was only the three of us VSers and a few other girls. We continued to exchange valuable life experiences, sound advice and book recommendations until 1:30 AM. The evening was a success and we fell into our pillows, fully and pleasantly exhausted.

Job Update
We spend a lot of time discussing our lives outside of work so here is a little update on our professional lives.
Tiffany is beginning her third week at HeadStart and has already found it to be an extremely rewarding and challenging place to work. While her 3 and 4 year olds are at risk kids with a lot of behavior issues, she has come to adore them and looks forward to dedicating 6 more months to them.
Heather has only three short weeks left at the St. Louis Mennonite Peace Center. She is looking forward to the end of her term with both fear and excitement. She has enjoyed her time there whether working alongside elementary school children in the garden, observing mediations or tutoring 1st graders. She's ready to embark on a new adventure but sad to leave a very valuable job.
Amanda has faced many challenges since unexpectedly becoming Clinic Manager at La Clinica. She has honed her leadership and organizational skills and found herself capable of much bigger things than she would have ever expected. While being in management as a volunteer has its ups and downs, she finds great meaning in her job and is truly humbled by being able to provide medical service to a very vulnerable population.

Gettin' Out

We've found lately, that our once quiet, TV-filled evenings are becoming fewer and fewer. We've been working on becoming more involved and spending less time in front of our TV. Amanda and Heather attend step classes at the gym a couple times a week and we've all signed up for a cultural dance class at the community center. It feels good to us to get out into our community as much as we can.

Hummus with Friends
On Wednesday evening the three of us went to a cute little Mediterranean cafe with two of Amanda's work friends, Becca and Lindsay. The hummus, baklava and good company was enjoyed by all.

Support Meeting
Friday night we had the monthly meeting of our VS Support Committee. We had a fantastic curry meal (compliments of Scott) accompanied the delicious side dishes supplied by our other committee members. How did we manage to get a committee with such good taste? The meeting went pretty late with lots of issues and information being shared and compared.

Sunday Special
Sunday was a busy day. We went to church in the morning, appreciating, as always, the closeness of our church family. That afternoon we had our monthly Ed-Rec activity. Ed-Rec stands for education and recreation and each month we VSers have $10 each to spend on an activity that we, as a unit, can enjoy together. This month we went to a see "27 Dresses." Yes, it was our second movie of the month but what can we say? There just happened be some great movies this month and, incredibly, we had the resources to see them. After the movie (which was fabulous) we had a planning meeting for the young adult Bible Study that's soon to be starting up. After a couple of hours of discussion we decided on material and format that we're all really excited about. We'll be studying the books of Judges and Ephesians in an effort to compare community building in the the Old Testament to that of the early church. Our other goals are to become more familiar with often overlooked Old Testament literature and to overhaul our often less than sparkling opinion of Paul's writings. We are very excited to get started!

Fit and Fun

Our proud announcement this week is our new found affection for physical fitness. Amanda and Heather resolved that in 2008 they would go to the YMCA near our house regularly. Tiffany made no such resolution having a deep and long-running hatred for "the gym" (said with a grimace). However, her move towards healthy living comes in the form of Pilates videos. Sometimes all three of us do the fast paced video together, laughing at our "gracefulness." It's a good feeling though. Makes us feel much better for the cake, cookies and breads that are our constant counter top decoration.

Dinner Par-tay
On Friday night, we had Clay and Dave and Quinci over for a dinner party and game night. We had a fabulous curry meal and played some crazy rounds of Hoopla, Whoonu and Slapagories. It was a great evening and reminded us how fun our friends really are.

Saturday Movie
Courtesy of Heather's boss, Mary, the three of us went to see "Juno" in theaters on Saturday afternoon. The movie was hilarious and strangely touching and we couldn't have been happier to indulge in an MVS rarity.

Sunday School...it's Cool
Our Sunday School at St. Louis Mennonite Fellowship is, in our opinion, one of a kind. This fall we began a "potpourri" Sunday School in which different topics are discussed each week, each of them issues that all of us as Christians and human beings deal with on a regular basis. Some of the topics have been responsible consumerism, Mennonite history and racism. This Sunday, we talked about Sin, Salvation and The Church. Three huge topics that needed much more than a 45 minute class but the discussion was incredibly valuable. We truly love the way that our church gives respect and validity to many broad and varied opinions and that questioning even some of Christianity's most foundational doctrines is expected and appreciated.

Home Again

Well hello there loyal blog readers. After three weeks of holiday induced blog neglect, we are back in our fair city and eager to report our post-Christmas events.

Home Sweet Bitterly Cold Home
Just before leaving for Christmas break, our decrepit little heater's motor decided to quit. Thus, one half of our house was left without heat during our absence. We hoped it would be fixed when we returned but tragically, Heather and Amanda arrived on Dec. 31 to a half frozen house. When Tiffany got back on the 1st, heat had still not been restored and the three of us effectively transitioned our lives to one half of the house. Since both Heather and Tiffany's rooms were on the cold half, we enjoyed a couple of impromptu slumber parties on the other half of the house. By Thursday though, Reyes (our heater guy) came bearing a new motor and made our house whole once again.

Mokabees
Amanda's friend from home, Greg, stayed with us for a few days after bringing Amanda back to St. Louis from Virginia. We tried to give him an enjoyable St. Louis experience (not easy since the guest room was also on the heater-less half of the house). So on Tuesday night the three of us and Greg went to Mokabees, a cute little coffee shop a few blocks from our house. We sat, drank hot chocolate and played hearts for a couple hours, basking in the sweet, coffee shop aura. It reminded us of why we like living here. Cute, hole in the wall places that only the locals know about.

The Debates
On Saturday night, we invited Clay and Dan over for the Republican and Democratic debates on TV. We couldn't describe all four hours as riveting but it did give us a feel for the candidates and incite some interesting discussion/critical commentary.

Something New
Today Tiffany began a new placement at a HeadStart program not far from the VS house. Edgewood was a very good and beneficial experience but she wasn't able to stay there. And so today, she was immersed into an entirely new environment. It's exciting for another VSer to be working close to the neighborhood and getting to know the community through her work. It's a different culture, one where whites are a minority and gang crime is commonplace, but it's a beautiful one. One that Tiffany would say has a whole lot of really cute kids.