Souvenirs

First the excellent news:  I haven't had a sinus infection since March!  Sinus issues, yes, but no actual infection requiring antibiotics!  In less fun news, apparently the gods of illness were disappointed with my coming to Montana and not immediately getting the head cold/sinus infection/bronchitis from hell, so they decided to gift me with stomach issues.  Yep, again.  I woke up yesterday feeling nauseous and crampy and didn't feel completely human until this evening.  Blah.  It was less than fun.  But at least now I'm feeling better, and I can show you the tree I decorated on Thursday night:

This is the tree in Mom's office, and it has all of the ornaments she has collected from places she has visited.  Or, in some cases, ornaments from places we kids have visited and gotten ornaments for her.  She started collecting them 20 years ago when she and Dad and I drove to Washington DC and about a million other places.

Here is a close-up of one of the ornaments so you get a better idea.  Some of them are just gold, but others have lots of color on them.

I don't have a travel tree, so I thought I'd look for shoes from places I've lived or visited.

Montana!  These are U of M Grizzly shoes.  UM is my alma mater.  Plus, people tend to think that Montana is full bears that just wander around so everyone sees them on practically a daily basis.  I lived in Montana from birth until I was 24 and then I moved to 

 

Texas for 3 years where I lived with my aunt.  I also lived there again for a summer while I did my chaplaincy training at Children's Medical Center of Dallas.

 

From Texas it was off to seminary in California for the first where I have now lived 3 separate times.  Look!  More bears!

These are Penn State shoes.  I lived in Pennsylvania for a year for internship.  I don't like to talk about it.  But I won't hold it against these cute blue and white striped shoes.

 

I haven't lived in Hawaii, but the BSF did her internship in Honolulu, and I got to my 3 week cross-cultural experience for seminary on Oahu and stay with her.  My choices were Hawaii in January or South Dakota in January.  Um...duh.  Flip flops are perfect to represent Hawaii.  Except there they call them slippers.

I've been to Washington  DC three times:  Once in High School (the first time I ever flew and ever traveled by myself--totally freaked out the flight attendant with my crying), then that trip with the parents and all of the driving, and again in College for the Lutheran Student Movement National Gathering.  I would love to go back.

These are actually New Orleans Saints shoes, but I just like them for the fluer de lis. I've been to New Orleans twice. First for Mardi Gras when I was 26.  That was interesting.  Although my memories tend to be a little fuzzy...  The second time was as a pastor, taking kids to the National Youth Gathering.  I would also love to go back there, as I really haven't seen much in terms of touristy stuff.

I've been to lots of other places, but this seemed like enough for one post.  Now I'm possibly off to bed, but with the amount of sleep I've gotten in the last 2 days, I'm not sure how soon I'll be able to sleep tonight.