Updated: O'Hares/Riddles 2013

URGENT BREAKING NEWS FLASH: The O'Hare/Riddle 2013 picture has been updated.

The most current O'Hare/Riddle family picture. Ya heard??

O'Hare/Riddles 2012

Ahh, the fam. Looking good!

The Can

This is the toilet seat that the school for provided us in our dorm room, which we've been using all semester. Thanks, guys...

Ergonomically designed

Santa and His Sleigh

Earlier this week, Santa loaded up his 21-speed sleigh and delivered Christmas gifts to a local family that we're friends with.

Jolly Ol' St. Nick rolls a little differently in the Himalayas...

Aleluia, Aleluia! Earth to Heav'n Replies

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!"
Luke 2:13-14

For lo, the days are hastening on by prophets bards foretold, 

When with the ever circling years, comes round the age of gold

When peace shall rule over all the earth, Its ancient splendors fling

And the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing!

merry christmas from the rooftop of the world

Thank you, Patagonia

This awesome article on Patagonia's website is a great reminder that Christmas should be about more than stuff: Take Back the Holidays

Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church in Texas, takes it a step further in his first sermon of Advent from a few weeks ago and helps to give some perspective in the midst of the Christmas madness - A History of Darkness and Depravity [This is a great sermon, definitely check it out, and I also recommend The Village Church's Advent guide for this year]

Christmas is friends and family and Christ and hope.

The Perfect Space

"I wanna fit into the perfect space..." - Avett Brothers

This, my friends, is what a perfectly arranged space looks like. My desk. This is where the heavy lifting gets done...

the weather here

I'm not really ever sure what the temperature actually is here.  I gauge temperature by the clothes I need to wear when I go outside:

In the mornings:  as much as I possibly can

During the day:  No gloves or toboggan (i don't mean a sled, yanks) while riding a bike.

In the evening:  Almost as much as the morning, with a little less - unless we're planning on sitting in a place without heat for a while.

So when Aaron and I ride to friends' homes at night, here is what we wear:

this was his reaction when i told him what i wanted to take pictures of

Peace on the Earth, Goodwill toward men

Yet with the woes of sin and strife

The world hath suffered long;

Beneath the angel strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not

The love song with they bring

O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing!

"I like it a lot" - Lloyd Christmas

"Feels good to mingle with these laid-back-country-folk, don't it Harr'?"

how we celebrate

This is footage from a Christmas party I attended this Christmas season.  It doesn't seem like Christmas parties in China have changed much since I attended my first one in 2006.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXwYDnqWAho (in case the video below takes a while to load)

Mac Attack

Happy birthday, Micah! We love you, miss you, and are sorry we can't be there to celebrate with you!

The (older) O'Hare boys this summer in Memphis

Hung by the fire with care

Biking GN

This past Saturday, my friend Justin (of Hiking Gambo Mtn. fame) and I set out for my most ambitious scheme yet - a 70-mile round trip bike trip, including an ascent up to 14,000ft. to a remote monastery.

We set at at 8:30a and the temperature was in the mid-20's. It was freezing cold, still dark, and honestly, pretty miserable. Within 5 minutes, my CamelBak water reservoir had frozen solid and it wouldn't thaw back out again until close to 11:30a.

Justin and I thawing out during our first break. The sun had only just risen over the mountains.

After a little over an hour, we stopped to rest and thaw out. I'll be honest, I was miserable at this point - I hadn't felt my pinkie or ring fingers for over an hour. On top of that, I had turned down an offer to go to a natural hot spring with some friends for the day. The irony was as thick as club-hands felt.

After a quick snack, it was time to start the climb....

...which I was hoping would help thaw me out.

Stacy's step-dad Erik had sent some trail mix granola bars from America, a treasure for sure, and I was carrying 3 with me. At the foot of the mountain, I downed two of them and finally got my water unfrozen, and then began the climb.

Hopefully you can see from the picture that the climb was brutal. It just kept going up and up and up, something like twenty or thirty switchbacks, and because of the elevation, I had to stop at nearly every cutback to catch my breath.

Taking a picture is a great excuse for catching your breath...

After nearly an hour and a half of grinding it out, we finally made it. Probably the happiest I've ever been in my life to see a Buddhist monastery...

The monastery is there behind me, in the saddle of the mountain

We ate lunch, saw some of the local monks doing their thing, and then turned around and headed right back. I must say that the 23-minute ride down the mountain was the polar opposite of the climb up - it was pure bliss.

The ride back, not as cold or seemingly far as the approach, was uneventful. A solid 10 and 1/2 hours later, just as the sun was going back down, we made it back to town.

I should have gone to the hot springs...                                                                                 ...or not

This makes me happy

One of the only Christmas-y things I can buy here (Who cares if I can buy them year round?):

And here's one of the best Christmas commercials ever, featuring those lil' guys:

Call me the lucky one

Because I've got a great wife.

Stacy's mom has got it going on (It's true)

Happy Birthday to my beautiful Mom! (Belated post - her birthday was actually Sunday).

so 80's. so cute.

I love you and hope you had a great birthday!

S(L)SO!

On Saturday, I went for a 70 mile bike ride which included climbing a 14,000ft mountain on my bike. As I was enduring this pain, I casually mentioned to my wife in a text that all I could think about was fried chicken and waffles.

I arrived home from my 11 hour travail to find that... she made it happen!

Stacy (Leigh) Shepard O'Hare - incredible beyond words. In fact, incredible was a lame attempt at securing a fitting word.

A Christmas Tradition

As soon as we returned from our honeymoon in Greece,  I was ready to set up our Christmas decorations, and realized as most newlyweds figure out their first Christmas together that:
A) we had no christmas decorations

2) we had no christmas tree

and D) we had no money.  (home alone reference anyone?  and yes I've seen that at least once every year (most years multiple times) since it came out during my childhood)

Thankfully family gave us some of their old decorations and there was a Food Lion right down the street where we bought a $25 tree with our VIP card.

Our first Christmas together, Aaron gave me Home Alone.
It was the longest I went a Christmas season without watching Home Alone.
My previous Home Alone was on VHS and we had upgraded to a Blu-ray at this point.

Our first Christmas tree....also, I look like I'm in 9th grade in this picture.
No seriously, I wish I could post my yearbook picture.  you would agree.

Our first Christmas together.
Notice - no VHS capabilities.  It was a sad season until Christmas morning.

Anyway, that Christmas we decided to start a Christmas tradition of getting a new Christmas ornament every year, so we could slowly add ornaments to our Christmas tree.  So this year - this is what our tree looks like:

this year's tree

Here's a sample of some of our ornaments from the past 5 Christmases.  (the first two are MIA because I left them in America, afraid they would break or get lost over here).

2010's ornament.  I love this little guy.  He always makes me smile.

2011's ornaments, our first Christmas in China....we spent a lot of time on bikes and dodging electric scooters, so it seemed appropriate.

And the cloud ornament below is this year's ornament.  We bought them from a local artisan's guild here.  You see clouds like that in decoration (painted as trim on walls) all around the city.

I look forward every year to picking out a new ornament.

And here are some pictures from our previous Christmases together:

2008, Aaron's parents' house

This happened right after:

2009

I miss this house

2010, first Christmas in China

since we just moved into our house I didn't have much to decorate with
so I made one festive corner

2011

I'll be honest, I don't miss this house.