Happy Thanksgiving

Hello all. I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday. Derrick and I have very much loved the break from work and school this week. It has been a really nice siesta from real life. We stayed in Boston for the holiday and celebrated it with a few other people that we have met since moving here--the Calls (yes, we are distantly related) and the Bassetts. They are great people and we enjoyed a delicious meal. After dinner we went to the new James Bond movie--Quantum of Solace. We actually saw the movie with some friends about a week ago, but Derrick was somehow able to fenagle another viewing. :)--he is a huge James Bond fan (I don't think we'll be seeing this one 6 times in the theater like the last James Bond movie--sorry Derrick!).

This picture (above) is actually not of Thanksgiving, but a picture in Ipswich that we took when we went to the Chowder fest about a month ago. Chowder fest is a yearly event held in downtown Ipswich on the riverfront. It is a great time. About 15-20 restaurants offer samples of their chowder and you vote on your favorite. Yum! The festival was happening during peak leaf-peeping season as well so it was a beautiful day to see the countryside north of Boston.

This is Derrick's last week of school before finals. It's hard to believe that he is almost finished with his first semester of school already! Yay!

Musings

I am too lazy to put up pictures this week and, let's face it, noone wants to see different views of what Derrick looks like studying in the kitchen, studying in the office, studying in the living room, studying on the bed, playing mario brothers (old school version) on his computer while taking a break from studying, etc. :) He's had a lot of tests lately!

Last night we took a break from it all and went to "Sushi Express" in Boston. It was a lot of fun. We walked home from the restaurant because it was so warm yesterday. I wore a T-shirt yesterday and it's mid-November. I hope it lasts for a while! We also saw the Warren Miller movie and it made us both homesick for Utah mountains and skiing. Derrick has been reading the free ski magazine and looking at pictures ever since. Boston is wonderful, but we definitely miss the mountains.

There has been a lot of hullabaloo out here in our ward because of prop 8. Many members of the congregation were wearing gay rights ribbons to church and have been very vocal about their disagreement with the church's stand on the issue. It's been a tough one for me to think through. I understand that everyone is entitled to equal protection of the laws and that all men are created equally. However, perhaps the framers of the constitution simply did not contemplate a society that wanted to abort its children and promote same-sex relationships. When you start getting into these types of issues, then the constitution does nothing to prevent it. Accordingly, it seems it should be allowed under our currently-existing laws. It is very difficult to legislate morality (what one person defines as morality compared to another is also a discussion for another day). It seems to me that all people should be able to use their ability to choose the way they would like. I think the difficulty really lies in the challenge of separating emotion and religion from human rights/equal rights when the rights that others are trying to promote are repugnant to your own belief system. I'm open to thoughts on this. :)

We love and miss you all and hope things are going well for everybody!

Mel and Derrick