Moritz Life

The old year is quickly coming to a close. How fast time passed this year. I am looking forward to the New Year as an opportunity to grow and learn and become a better person and follower of Christ. I truly wish you all the best in this New Year. May your life be full of God's richest blessings. Love to you! Kathy

Another Christmas Day has passed. We had a quiet day at home with just the 5 of us. We don't expect to have many more Christmases with just our immediate family and everyone we have, we are grateful for. We were able to speak with all of our family today. We called Eddie & Helen, Myron & Betty, my mom & dad, Doug & the girls (Gisela was at work), Ken & Ginny, Lori & Darryl and Auntie Hilda. Actually it felt like we were on the phone most of the day. It was great to touch base with everyone, I'm not sure why we don't do it more often.

We had a wonderful turkey dinner, played PIT and Risk (2 holiday favorites) and ate all the goodies I've worked all month to prepare. Luke is now preparing all his things for his trip. Before we hit the hay, we will look at some slides from years gone by or perhaps our Europe slides in honor of Luke's trip.

I hope you all had a wonderful day and that you'll enjoy your families.

so I am bloggin again. so since I last blogged I have applied to 3 schools for next year, Fresno Pacific University, Fresno State University and Warner Southern College(in Florida). So far I have been accepted to Fresno pacific University and I have yet to hear from the other schools. I dont know where I am going to go yet. So I hope everybody has a good Christmas and New Years.

So, it is now just over 2 days until I leave for Europe, and the most fortunate thing is that I am actually going! I received my passport from the Fed Ex delivery guy at 12:20 this afternoon. Tomorrow is a holiday, obviously Christmas, and the day after is a holiday for most businesses including Fed Ex, so today was the absolute last day possible to get my passport without having to drastically change my trip.

The thing is though that I am extremely fortunate to have my passport at all. Just a week and a half ago I called the Canadian Passport office to find out the status of my application, I found out that they had rejected my picture! This was no good, especially since I was planning on leaving in less than two weeks. Well that day I went and got a new picture taken, and sent it via Fed Ex overnight, faxed the passport office proof of my departure so they could hurry the process, and waited. I called the passport office after they had received the pictures, and they said they had a senior examiner on it, and it should be finished in time for me to go to Europe. I phoned back every day to check on the status, and each time I called back they couldn't tell me anymore, and often couldn't even tell me that much. I was getting worried when it was 5 days before I was supposed to leave, especially when the person I talked to at the Passport Canada office told me that there was no way I would be able to get my passport in time. I kept my hopes up though, that I would still be able to get it and possibly join my friends somewhere else in Europe. I called again yesterday (Friday) and got a hold of the best passport office worker possible. She listened to my problem and went to talk to her supervisor. She came back and told me she would send a memo to the examiner and CC the supervisor in charge to let them know of the urgency of my application. She had her supervisor walk it over to that department, and she took my phone number. She said they would try and finish it that day and send it out so I could get it the day after (which is today). I was ecstatic, cause I still had a chance to go to Europe, and go on the entire trip. She called me back a little later, and told me that the examiner couldn't find my pictures, so I gave them my tracking number from Fed Ex, and she said they would find them. She also gave me her direct phone number so I wouldn't have to wait in the queue if I needed to phone back. So I phoned back a little later in the day, and she told me they had approved the photo, printed the passport, and were just in the process of double checking it. She called back a little later with the tracking number.

I was very happy until we tried the tracking number, and it said the expected delivery was on TUESDAY!!! This would mean that I would have to change my flight, and meet up with my friends later on in the week. So we waited until this morning, and checked to see where it would be in the morning and maybe we could drive somewhere to pick it up. When we checked the tracking number this morning it had gotten to Oakland at about 5:30am, and didn't show any movement for a while. I called the Fed Ex number, and the lady told me that it wouldn't be leaving Oakland until Tuesday, and wouldn't get to Visalia until then. So this was disheartening, until later on in the morning I saw that it had arrived in Visalia. This was very good news, so my Dad and I were in the car on the way to Visalia to see if there was any chance that we could get it from them there, just leaving Hanford, and my mom called us. She had checked the tracking number shortly after we had left and they put the package on a truck for Delivery. Well I called the Fed Ex people again and the lady said, "yes, it is the intent of the driver to deliver it today". This was very good news, so we turned back and came home. Shortly after that I got the package, and my brand new passport.

Merry Christmas!

Alright, so our weather might not be all that frightful, but our dog Yoshi doesn't like it when it is this cold. So we bought a sweater for him. This is a picture of him in his cute little sweater.

Merry Christmas!

As most of you know, every year we include Christmas traditions from another country into our own celebrations. For 2005 we have chosen Greece! We are currently learning about Greek culture and traditions, and are planning for a special feast on Christmas Eve. Watch for more details coming soon. 

I got a call today from the Dean's office of the Craig School of Business. I have been selected to be a member of the next class of the Business Honors Program.

I am already a member of the University Honors Program, which is the big/full scholarship that I got. This is a little different, as it is Business specific. This entails that during my last three semesters here I will be working on a research thesis project. Along with the research project I will get $2000 of scholarship money during my senior year.

I am quite excited to be a part of this as I enjoy researching and learning new things. I have not picked my topic yet, but that will be done sometime next semester during the first part of the program.

On Friday night, Lemoore High School Tigers Football team won the Division III Valley Championship! What an awesome game. I chaperoned the band bus for the 2+ hour bus ride to Oakhurst where they beat the Yosemite High School team by a whopping 48-16. This is Lemoore's first valley championship since 1925! That's 80 years. It seemed like the whole school and half the town of Lemoore was there to support the team. It was lots of fun and not even too cold. (38F). That's just a couple of degrees above freezing Lori.....

I got a call from my sister (Lori) today. Apparently, Darryl James has asked her to marry him! How exciting. I met him briefly and he seems like a great guy. Lori certainly thinks he's good - she accepted! Wedding will be sometime in May! Congratulations Lori & Darryl!

I am a member of a new club on campus called "Red Zone" which is a booster club for Fresno State Athletics. The cool thing with this is that I get credentials (a pass) to get into the Sports Arena for all Fresno State Athletic events. Plus the pass allows me to get into the belly of the arena (although it isn't necessarily supposed to). Here's a picture of the pass.

As you all know, or should hopefully know by now, I am going to Europe in less than 3 weeks (assuming I get my passport by then). But anyways, I really love Europe, and I hope to do lots of traveling there in my lifetime. I also think other people should go travel there too, so I have a site to inform people of some of the things that are necessary to know when going to Europe and when planning a trip to Europe. Check it out.

http://www.squidoo.com/jukey/

Squidoo is a new site that let's people create there own pages on certain topics so people can learn about something they are interested in. It is still in the Beta right now, but I would encourage you all to check it out and if you are interested in something enough, create your own "lens".

Well, turkey day here in the USA has come and gone and we are into the Christmas season full swing. Jonathan did his usual setting up the tree and putting on the lights - as always, a fine job! Luke and Andrew put the outside lights up - lighting up the garage and the roof line above it on the second story, all the bushes and wrapped two of the palm trees with lights. Andrew also set up a spiral lighted tree in the front. Andrew ( my bestest Christmas helper) also put all the ornaments on the Christmas tree. I put out all of the rest of the decorations and helped Andrew with the tree. Lloyd - we're not sure what he did...

And now the Christmas parties begin! Last night (Friday) we had a Pastor's & Spouses Christmas Dinner at the house of our Central Association Area Minister - Roger and his wife Pat. We had a lovely dinner and sat for several house just talking and visiting. We are excited to have new to Central California Mike & Theresa Farmer who have just moved from Prince George, BC where they pastored for 7 years. They are a wonderful couple and miss their Tim Horton's coffee just as much as I do. It's so funny (weird) to be able to talk to someone about Canadian stores and institutions (like Tim Horton's) down here! Anyway, we're looking forward to getting to know them and their family.

This evening we had the traditional "Hanging of the Greens" (decorating the church), a lovely turkey & ham dinner and Christmas Carol Sing. We had a great turnout and a fun time!

Ok, so I finally shaved off my beard.

Here is the before shot...



Here is the final product...



I am not actually planning on keeping the mustache very long, but a couple of my roommates and I are going to keep our mustaches for a while, just to say we did and we can.