Picture with Santa

We visited the same Santa again this year.  We just love this Santa!  He is the one that was a missionary in China so he speaks Chinese and some Cantonese.    Since Elisabeth has been taking Chinese language lessons she was able to tell him Merry Christmas in Chinese this year.  Sheng Dan Kuai Le!

Christmas Tree Adventures

The weekend after Thanksgiving we traveled to the Boone/Blowing Rock area and cut down our Christmas Tree.  We love doing it and the kids especially love it.  There's nothing like the smell of a fresh Fraser Fir in your house at Christmas time.   It was a mild weekend and even border line hot when we got the tree this year.  Kind of weird picking out a tree when it is so warm!  It is a VERY tall tree and looks even taller when it isn't on the hill in the middle of the mountains out in the wide open yonder.   We had to get out the big tall ladder to decorate the top and even then we couldn't reach it very well.   I hope everyone is having a Merry Christmas season and taking time out to remember what it's really all about (and I don't mean Santa)   :)

 I love fudge!!

 Wow!  That's a tall tree!

 What Fir Christmas Tree Farm in Boone, NC

 Yep....that's our tree.  It's taller than the 10' pole.  Oh my.

 The tree was so big and heavy they had to pull it through the machine with their car. 

Love a good Christmas hayride

90th Birthday

 John's Grandmother, Louise, celebrating her 90th birthday at our house

 Susan, Rick, Ansley, Elisabeth and Porter

 Jan and Rick

Ron and Rick

Time to open gifts!

Anna and cute little Porter

Family photo

A few days after Thanksgiving we celebrated John's Grandmother's 90th birthday.  All 3 of her kids came to our house and surprised her as well as one of her granddaughters (and her husband) and her great grandson.  We had a good time eating barbeque from Jim and Nicks (YUM!) and spending time with each other while celebrating Louise's birthday. 

Red Sea Project

Ansley has been studying Moses and the journey of the Israelites out of Egypt and into Canaan.  In conjunction with this her class had to do a diorama showing the exodus and the parting of the Red Sea.  Ansley worked very hard on this project!  We hate to take it apart but we used Elisabeth's PlayMobil people and she wants them back!   So we took some pictures so we can remember the project and thought we would share them with you.   This is the scene where Moses and the Israelites are going through the Red Sea that God parted and the Egyptians are in pursuit behind them.  The Angel of the Lord is between them and the cloud of fire is also between them that put darkness on the side of the Egyptians and daylight on the side of the Israelites.

Halloween

What a busy busy weekend!  We had fall festivals, Halloween parties, Halloween parades, Trunks or Treats and then Trick or Treating.  Our kids don't need any more candy!  :-)  And being in the house all day with the bag of candy staring at me is very very tempting.  I'm going to have to hide it from myself! The dentist is going to love us on our next visit....

John carving Ansley's pumpkin

 Getting ready for the neighborhood Halloween parade (Elisabeth, Ansley and their friend, Molly)

Our neighbor's dog, Clyde

After the parade there were refreshments at the pool parking lot.  They even set up a little pumpkin patch and each of the kids got to take one home.  Cute idea!

Saturday night we did "Trunks or Treats" at the church.  It was alot of fun and the kids got alot of candy.  Once the sun went down it was soooo cold.  Elisabeth was the warmest one with her furry panda suit on!

 John decorated the porch and the bushes with spider webs and spiders.  I hate spiders so I'm not sure why I bought all this stuff.   It did look creepy though.

Our little trick-or-treaters ( a hippie and a panda)

 Trick-or-treating with friends in the neighborhood

Our pumpkins

 We had a fog machine, 2 strobe lights, spider webs everywhere, candles and spooky music playing.  The kids LOVED that we did all of this and had a blast handing out candy! 

Renaissance Festival

Definitely not my favorite place!  I haven't been to one of these festivals in 20 years or more when John and I were dating. Now I remember why! A few weekends ago we decided to take the kids and spend the day at the Charlotte Renaissance Festival.  It was a beautiful day and parts of the festival were fun but overall it's just not my cup of tea.  It costs alot to get in and once you are in they nickel and dime you to death!  Plus lots of the entertainment is just lewd and crude and didn't make good entertainment for the kids.  The kids did enjoy the jousting and I really enjoyed the people watching.  There are some very INTERESTING people there that's for sure!  I hope the kids enjoyed it because I don't think I'll be going back year after year!

Where else can you see a storm trooper in a kilt?!

Swallowing swords......so very creepy to me