Why I Changed My Name

Hi. I just wanted to clarify why I changed my name for my feminist professional friends, since I've been enduring a fair amount of teasing on the subject... :)

1. I can't very well hyphenate. Can you imagine how bad Wilson-Olson would be? Very bad indeed.
   
2. It would be really confusing to have Wilsons and Olsons in the same house. People would still call me "Celia Olson," and they'd get confused and call Keith "Keith Wilson." Annoying, yes? Changing my name simplifies social matters for both of us.
   
3. I really don't feel that changing my name is degrading myself. I'm sure if I made a big enough stink, Keith would take my name. I love him and I can trust him not to look down on me because I'm a woman. He respects me, and I respect him.
4. I also don't feel that I am losing any professional status by changing my name. Those who matter will remember my first name which is unique enough. Furthermore, I doubt too many people will notice that I changed my last name, since it's really not all that different...
   

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We've been having a very relaxing time with Keith's family in Iowa.

I made some tasty cardamom bread (Tess, this is for you!)

Keith enjoyed playing with the new video camera we got from Celia's mommy and daddy for Christmas.

We got all dressed up and went to the Christmas Eve service. Keith, Celia, Sarah, and Rebecca sang in the Choir. (Keith and Celia also played Gounod's Ave Maria together on cello and organ at church on Christmas morning.)


Here's the whole family! Too bad Joseph and Catherine couldn't come. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas Letter

Greetings, friends! Several important pieces of news:
1. Keith gave his final presentation on Wagner's Parsifal on Thursday. He worked really hard, and I have to say that the highlight of the presentation were Keith's fantastic MS Paint drawings of the plot of Parsifal.
2. Keith graduated last Friday, on December 16!! Yay! He didn't actually attend graduation, since we didn't feel like making all our friends and family sit and be bored for several hours.
3. We moved out of our apartment in Grand Forks. We're spending Christmas with Keith's family, then we'll be with my family for a few days, then we move into our new apartment in Vancouver, BC! Of course, this means we have a new address that I'm not going to post here, but if you want it, email me. Our permanent US address is my parents' address in Washington. We still have our cell phones, but we'll have a new phone number in the beginning of January.
4. In January, we're starting at Regent College where both of us (not just Keith) will be studying Theology.
5. We wrote a Christmas letter this year! We hope you enjoy it. Please click on each page to enlarge and read. Merry Christmas!

Sugar Beets: Edible or No?

We received a sugar beet as a gift of sorts from a friend (Kyle) who was driving a beet truck during the harvest. He assured us that there were many old Norwegian recipes that could be found online. So, we took the thing with the intention of serving it to him the next time he visited... Take note: the sugar beet is actually white beneath all the dirt. Have you ever seen one this clean??

Mmm... can't wait to eat it!

We're finding it a little hard to cut through.

Now it's all chopped up and ready to go. All we need is a recipe... nothing on the internet... except a hint that you can use them in place of parsnips...

Woohoo! A wonderful dish of sugar beets (they were supposed to be parsnips), carrots, onions, rosemary, and garlic! Who would have thought it possible? When asked if they would ever eat a sugar beet again, all those polled said a resounding "no." I didn't think it was THAT bad... it was certainly a worthy experiment.

Wedding Pics are Online!

Hooray! We finally got the first batch of wedding pictures up on Shutterfly for your viewing pleasure! You can order them if you would like. They're pretty cheap on Shutterfly.

Coming soon: the preparation of a sugar beet to make it fit for human consumption... we in North Dakota are easily amused.

Wedding Pics

Hi! Just to let interested parties know, I will be posting wedding pictures on Shutterfly soon. Our photographer will be scanning our favorites. This is a great way for you to see our pictures, and if you wish, purchase them inexpensively. I'll send you an update as soon as I get them up on the web!