Thanksgiving 2008

This Thanksgiving was very special to me because we were able to spend it with my grandparents/uncles/aunts/cousins + kids that I haven't seen for at least four years! So we drove up to New London, IA (13 hours and a completely different story!).
It was good to see that my grandparents are both getting around pretty well for being in their late 80's.
We arrived on Wed. night and had a huge Thanksgiving feast with Grandma and Grandpa, aunt Dinah, uncle Kevin & aunt Gail, uncle Randy & aunt Avis, my cousin Matt and my second cousin Jim. It was a great evening as Bethany hadn't met Randy and Avis who left us all in stitches and shared some interesting information with us (see poll to the left).

Here's me with my cousins Matt and Ben. I haven't seen Ben since I was in middle school!
Ben and his wife Holly arrived on Thanksgiving night with their two kids Anna and Zach. Zach was a typical boy; bashing, tackling, smashing and punching everything. Here we are with "Hulk gloves" duking it out. At least it kept him from his favorite target- his sister!
Anna couldn't be more of a little princess and Bethany can DEFINITELY relate to that. The only physical contact in their memory matching game was when Zach tried to kick the memory cards all over the place... We discovered that BOTH of the princesses can TACKLE!
Another game we enjoyed with my grandpa and Dinah was Skip-Bo. Dinah won both games, of course. She loved to ask everyone, "I'm the winner, right?"
A trip to Iowa isn't complete without plenty of my grandma's sourdough pancakes! Bethany insisted on a trip to McD's BEFORE this ritual for her own breakfast. (She's not the only one who doesn't like them, though; sourdoughs seem to be an aquired taste in my family.) Here is grandpa and me pounding down just a few. I think I made it up to 8. Grandma still won't tell grandpa my record... which even I've forgotten from many years ago, but some things grandparents never forget.

Bethany was our navigator for the trip, and she somehow found the ONLY Caribou coffee between Ft. Worth and New London. It's in Kansas City just off of I-35 for any of you northerners desperate for it on a long roadtrip down south.

The Twins!

We stopped to visit our dear friends, the Pattersons, on our way out of town on Tuesday night, so Dave could finally meet the twins! Kimi said that Dave wouldn't have the "full effect" of the boys unless he was holding them both at the same time...and so, before he knew it, they were both in his arms. :)

An Early Thanksgiving!

After church on Sunday, we got together with many of our sweet Keystone friends for an early Thanksgiving! We don't know why we didn't think of this several years ago, but we definitely have a new tradition! Since Thanksgiving is usually a holiday focused on family, it was fun to have a Thanksgiving feast with friends! Here are a few pictures of our time:


With these three guys, you never know what they are up to...though they're probably discussing the economy or, more likely, XBOX 360. :)Here's Ryan demonstrating how to carve the perfect turkey!
Love this sweet picture of me kissing on Caden! The kids were all attracted to the stairs, so we spent a lot of time there after dinner. :)
Such sweet friends....unfortunately, we realized too late that we hadn't taken a picture of our whole group, but here are the girls, minus Tiffany!

Women's Fall Dinner

Our church hosted a wonderful fall dinner on Tuesday night, "Thankful for the Journey." There were so many small details and touches to the evening that made it amazing! Each table was decorated differently, and I wish I would have taken pictures of the others, but this is the table that Jenny and I decorated. Actually, Jenny decorated, and I just supplied the linens and dishes. I am so thankful for our church that provides these amazing events where we can connect with sweet friends & the Lord. l - r: Holly, Jenny, me, Kimi, Alicia, & Ann Marie

Family Pictures

We had been wanting to do family pictures for quite a while now, but since we always assumed we'd be pregnant "just next month," we never had them done...until a good friend of ours encouraged us to have family pictures done now, even though our family looks nothing like we imagined it would at this point in our marriage.

So, on Saturday afternoon, we went down to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens where our dear friend Jenny did our pictures! She also edited them, and we are so pleased with the results! Here are a "few" of our favorites! Thank you, Jesus, for the sweet times You give us together, even when life is hard.

Halloween!

My team members and I dressed up as dalmations for Halloween on Friday at school! A lot of our students asked us if we were cats(?)...but at least we thought we were cute! You can't see in this picture, but we also had adorable tails!