South Africa Summer

I finished setting up the new blog for Julianne's missions trip this summer. I'm looking forward to documenting her adventure there, and I hope you will enjoy reading about it.

Check it out: South Africa Summer

New blog coming soon

I have been working on setting up a new blog for Julianne as she prepares for her missions trip to South Africa this summer. It's nearly finished, so check back here soon for a link. It is similar to the blog I used when she went to Belize, but I think this new one will be even more useful, in part because I didn't wait until she left to start it. :-)

Our weekend has been uneventful, but nice. We've played Nerts the past two nights and had lots of good family fun and laughs. Nothing specific worth blogging about, just good family time.

Now it's time to hit the hay and get ready for the last day of 2007!

Girls Night Out

Pico (Hong Kong) was here in Coquille as an exchange student last year, and is now attending college in Coos Bay. Pico's host family is now hosting Yara from Israel, so the girls are [sort of] sisters. Both Pico and Yara spent the night at our house, and we girls had an evening out. We had fun goofing around, we shopped a little, and went to a movie. It was a great evening!

Oh..did I mention we got a little crazy?

Stormy day at Shore Acres

The day after Christmas was filled with cries of "Let's do something!" so we considered our options. The weather had been alternating between hard rain and blue sky, but regardless we decided to head out to Shore Acres. I read that it is whale watching time, and that this migration was supposed to be unusually good. In addition, we hadn't yet made our annual trip to see the Christmas lights at Shore Acres. So we bundled up and headed out there.

There wasn't a whale to be found, but what we did find was even better. The stormy days had created a very rough ocean, and it was a spectacular sight to see! These pictures are great, but I don't think they convey how huge the waves really were. Depth perception isn't very good in the pictures either--we were not in danger of being swept away. :-)

Christmas

Christmas is always my favorite time of year, and I think this was one of the most fun Christmases yet. We started off by doing the usual holiday baking. It's even more fun now that I have helpers in the kitchen.

On Christmas Eve we had our traditional turkey dinner, which was absolutely delicious and we all ate too much. In the evening we opened our new pajamas and read our advent story, Jotham's Journey.

Pico, from Hong Kong, was one of my AYUSA students last year. She is now attending college in Coos Bay, so she spent Christmas with us. It was so much fun to have her here, and she really enjoyed it too. She plans to introduce some of our Christmas traditions to her family in Hong Kong.

Christmas morning is always early for us, and this year was no exception. The festivities began at 4:40. We had so much fun exchanging gifts, talking, laughing, and eating. Hap, Laurie, and Braidon arrived around 6:45 and spent part of the day with us. Uncle Brad got to read him a story (or two, or ten, or a hundred...)

To see more of our Christmas pictures, click here.

Merry Christmas from us!