A trolley and a special dinner

As I'm worrying away the last few hours between the NFC Championship game between my beloved Packers and the evil Chicago Bears, I figured I'd take advantage of this opportunity to do a blog posting. Yesterday was a lovely day, and I had an Arkansas Archeological Society executive committee meeting up at Toltec Archeological State Park, so we made a family trip to the Little Rock area. We had some time to kill, so we decided to take the kids on a trolley ride around the downtown Little Rock/North Little Rock area. Kenny and Beth had ridden the train before in years past, but we hadn't taken Stephen on it in some time (perhaps ever over the course of his 3 years). Below, Stephen awaits the arrival of the trolley:

Here it comes!

Beth and Kenny were pretty excited, too, but y'all will remember that Stephen is the kid who goes around constantly carrying his little toy trains. Stephen is absolutely in love with the Thomas the Tank Engine animated series, and spends hours on end playing with his little trains and tracks, so we knew he'd love this. Below, Stephen awaits the beginning of the ride:

Several years ago, Little Rock added this electric trolley system that runs on a rail between various parts of downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock. The trolley cars are replicas of historic cars that used to be common sites in many communities a century or so ago. The interior of these cars are beautiful, full of natural grain wood finished to a high polish:

The ride is a little bumpy and noisy, but the kids had a lot of fun. It takes about a half hour to 45 minutes to complete the loop we were on, and the trolley driver provides little blurbs about the history of the area, including that of many buildings. Stephen enjoyed the ride considerably, but he clung to me pretty closely for the first part of the trip, till he figured out what was happening:

I then went to my meeting, and we hurried back to Monticello, because we had a special dinner to attend that night. We hired a couple teens to watch the kids, and Hope and I went to our church's annual International Dinner. We've probably raved about this to most of you at some point--people make dishes based on cuisine from various parts of the world (pot-luck style), and everyone tries something new. St. Marks is a small parish in a predominantly Baptist and Methodist part of the world, so we are very close knit. We also have a surprisingly international component to our parish. Some of this is because we are in a university town, which attracts international students and faculty. It is also due to other factors, like a large contingent of Philippinos, who tend to work in the health care industry. We also have a large Mexican and Central American component, some of which are transitory and tied into the agricultural and forestry businesses, and a growing component associated with restaurants, the poultry industry, and other industries. Below is a picture of part of the room that the Philippino community dresses up to celebrate their country. They usually have art and maps to talk to people about, as well as probably the most popular set of foods at this dinner:

Sorry for the blurry picture--my cell phone doesn't do a good job of taking pictures. The TV in the background is for another popular feature of the Philippino room--karaoke!! Our most recent international component to St. Mark's is our new pastor, Father Pius Ajunwa Iwu:

Father Pius (now a US citizen) comes to us from Nigeria, and has served in the US as a priest since the late 1990s, mostly at various parishes in Arkansas. Part of the reason Father Pius is our pastor is his ability to speak Spanish as well as English (and several African languages). His energy, passion, and faith has helped to reinvigorate the parish, and we blessed to have him (as well as all of the other priests that have served our small Catholic community, like Father Chet and Father Phillip).

St. Marks is an integral part of our life here in Monticello every since we moved here in March of 2000 (yes, almost 11 years now!). Ever since the beginning, the parish has embraced our family, with a warmth and hospitality that is hard to describe. We have all watched each others' children grow up, and have been there for the highs and lows. Now, after more than a decade here, we truly feel like locals. At last night's international dinner we sat with a couple that had moved to Monticello within the last year from Michigan (he works in the UAM surveying program, she works in the UAM chancellor's office). Remarkably enough, even though we didn't know him then, we overlapped with him at Michigan Tech (he was in the land surveying program, graduating in 1995, the same year as Hope). Anyhow, we shared our common past, and talked about what Monticello had to offer, and hopefully now things have come full circle and we are letting them feel the welcome that we got all those years ago.