Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler...

As of December 1st, I have been working full time at San Diego State University. I actually work for the SDSU Research Foundation, and not the actual university, though they work closely together, and many people don’t even realize they are separate. I work for LARC, the Language Acquisition Resource Center, within a program called CLIP, the Critical Language Immersion Program. I have learned so much about languages in the last two months, including how to greet in Pashto, the language of Afghanistan. “assalam aleikum” “como walle salam” We teach many languages, including Arabic, Iraqi, Pashto, Filipino, Russian, French, and Persian. One thing I really enjoy about the job is learning about cultures. I am always trying new foods, and just yesterday enjoyed some Turkish candies. We run a language lab that is always full of students, and also host summer intensive language programs, trainings for teachers, conferences, and anything and everything in between, including publishing a magazine and textbooks. My first few weeks were pretty overwhelming as I was always learning about another program that we host. It’s very exciting! Our website is currently down, because someone hacked into our systems, but as soon is it is back up, I will post it so you can see all of the exciting things we are doing!

Feliz Navidad....Prospero Ano y Felicidad

Since we’ve been absolutely crazy over the last two months, I still wanted to catch everyone up on some of our holiday festivities. Especially because it involves me buying a new dress, my absolute favorite thing about the Navy! Our Christmas Ball was held at a beautiful waterfront Hyatt in San Diego, and it was actually fun because it was the entire ship, not just the officers who think we are too young. We avoided all of the tables that said Reserved for Officers, because we didn’t want to sit by ourselves, but ended up at one anyways. James took the sign down until we realized we got free drinks at those tables, so the sign went back up. :) It was great celebrating the year with coworkers who are so fun, and I was sad to see them all move away to their new ships. Hopefully James’ new division will be as enjoyable to work with.

Birthdays with Barbies and Balloons!

Since Angela’s late December birthday often gets lost in the rush for Christmas, we had a special dinner just for her! She also found a pink tree to put up, so that will forever more be her “birthday” tree as inspired by my younger sibling who nearly shares her birthday. Given that we also happen to have boxes of Barbie and Disney princess ornaments, the tree is quite precious. In any case, I made 15 bean soup (it has been “chilly” for Southern California) and invited a few people over. We haven’t been able to make many friends so far here, but know some great people! I was also super excited to find a one use helium tank, and proceeded to fill the house with balloons, which go everywhere in the vaulted ceilings. AJ was characteristically curious of the growing balloons, but was ultimately scared of the flying objects. Really, what would make a small object quadruple in size and float?? Must be hard to comprehend. But Congrats to Angela, our newest quarter century girl! and thanks for all the gifts!

Baking a Bundt Orange Bowl

I finally baked my first cake. I married into a family of talented cake bakers, and have been spoiled by their prowess with the oven. Last summer, Angela came across a bundt cake pan in the shape of a football stadium, which we felt would be great for hosting during important Hokie games on ESPNHD. I had a terrible shopping experience and did not purchase a bundt cake mix... so we improvised. We have wonderful kitchen gadgets from our wedding I still have not used, so mixing the batter was fun, my biggest problem was in filling the pan too high with it. Since we were trying to create a specific shape I pressed in as much batter as I could, and threw it in the oven to bake. We had green icing for the actual field and Reese’s pieces for the Orange and Maroon fanbase, while using food dye to create a gray paste. As preparations to decorate were going on, I glanced into the oven to see the batter dripping over the side of the pan. This presented a rapidly gooey oven that was emitting small amounts of smoke. Thinking ever so quickly I placed a cookie sheet under the pan to catch the excess batter, but the top of the cake was going to get burnt. I (correctly) figured that the bottom of the cake could be cut off and still maintain its desired stadium shape. After baking twice as long as the directions said to bake all the extra batter, Angela managed to coax the cake out of the pan. Gray icing fixed any structural discrepancies creating an eye-popping cake. We will not eat it, so I do not recommend myself as a baker, but it was a good New Years cake.

DECOM dinner

After over 30 years of service life, the USS Tarawa (the second one!) has been deemed too old for use in the modern Navy. While it could be used for many years to come, it must not be cost effective. Part of being in the military means honoring traditions and customs, including official dinners. Former shipmates and original crewmembers were invited to San Diego for a final dinner, honoring the gray hulk that had brought us all together. Angela and I were fortunate enough to sit at a table of former crewmembers, who had remained friends after several decades. The most interesting people we met was an older couple, current local residents, who had served as an original crew member on the first Tarawa, an aircraft carrier of World War 2 construction. He had great stories about his entire life, including his wife (whom he kept showing ‘scandalous’ pictures of). She just laughed. The “mandatory fun” was actually quite interesting as we met great veterans.

Holla at the Hokies!

When we can’t go to our Bowl Game, we bring the bowl game to us, by making a Hokie stone stadium cake full of screaming Hokie fans! That’s right...we made an awesome Lane Stadium Cake! Here’s to our Hokies....ACC and Orange Bowl Champions!