November Stuff...

The Christmas fun has begun!

Love it, love it, love it!!

But back in November...

Shane spent a week in Tegucagalpa Hondorus working on the Temple.

I feel bad that I rarely post pics from his "trips".  So here are a few...

Apparently Tegucagalpa is one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

He wasn't smart and kept telling me all kinds of crazy stuff WHILE he was there...

Like that their "driver" kept forgetting to come get them so...  they just walked places.  Followed by, "It's crazy here... a ward member told me today that they AVERAGE one murder a month in their WARD."

Me... "Oh, sweet it sound like 4 american men should be walking places by themselves...?????"

CRAZY!!

He also said this was one of the 1st temples he's been too with several round the clock armed gaurds on the grounds.  Most had machine guns, this new "friend" of Shane's was packing this...  He looks like he's 12... actually 19... and this picture just looks wrong to me!!

I was glad to get him home!

He reminded us on Thanksgiving how thankful he was that we live where we do, and have so much less to worry about.

Speaking of Thanksgiving...

It was great and yummy and totally different than other years.

It looked like this.

Yep... that's it, minus me taking the picture of course.

My mom and dad were off in Hawaii with Steve and his girls.  So Andy and Missy joined us for a nice quiet meal that we tried to make it as normal as possible.

The girls found it very strange not having all the cousins around.  I reminded them that growing up my Thanksgivings were always like that...  Our family, Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Pauline.  That was it.

My girls are now used to chaos, and it didn't seem the same to them...

It was a nice day.

A yummy meal.

And a lazy relaxing afternoon.

So thankful for SO many things!

At dinner Andy and Missy surprised the girls with some super exciting news!

We are so so happy for them!

The next day we were off for an adventure to get, "Our Tree".

This is the warmest year that we have ever done our "tree hunt."

It made it quite enjoyable.

We headed up with the Carlsen's and Missy.

And we each came home with a great tree.

But only after buying the last permit in Preston, and the Carlsen's having to go to Montpelier to get 2 more!

So we didn't really search for our trees altogether. :)

Walking around in the snow is super tiring.

But in the end our tree was perfect.

There was ZERO complaining all day.

And we are loving our "totally cozy Christmas house!"



Over Thanksgiving break we also FINALLY made it to the JumpZone.

The kids have been begging to go for quite some time.

It was a blast.

Josh came with us which made it extra fun.

Lydia was in heaven and had NO fears!

They all practiced some tricks...



And were totally tuckered out by the end.

Lydia refused to get in the above pic because she didn't want to stop jumping!

We are ready for all the fun stuff that December has to offer.

Looking forward to building memories and thinking of others.

I'll end with a classic family picture of what a typical night at our house looks like DURING scriptures...

Not sure how much our girls are really getting out it.

But we'll keep trying. :)