Iowa Winter

New Traditions

Some dear friends sent us a beautiful project to assemble. The Chrismons were desiged by Paul Berkbigler, and printed with help from his wife Cory and some former Concordia classmates. They are a wonderful reminder of the true meaning of CHRISTmas.

Open House and an Anniversary

Last Saturday was a BUSY day. I held my annual Creative Memories Christmas open house. I was so pleased with the turnout. I had put together 12 gift bags for all attendees and I only had ONE left over! I am so thrilled with this since I've only been here since August.

After the open house concluded, Jason surprised me with a special evening out to celebrate the anniversary of our engagement. It began at a wonderful restaurant in Biloxi called Mary Mahoney's. Mary Mahoney's has been around for over 40 years, surviving two hurricane's and serving some of the BEST food I have ever tasted. (They have markers for where the water line was from the hurricanes and both were WELL above my head. It's astonishing!)

Anyways, after eating we walked down to the Biloxi town green to look at the light dislplay. I loved the dolphins pulling Santa's sleigh! That evening was also the annual boat parade. Boats were lined up all along the harbor decorated with lights! It is something so unique to living on the coast and I'm happy we got a small glimpse of it. Enjoy the pics!

Christmas Decorating Early

We broke my rule and put the tree up before Thanksgiving. But we had the boys, so we wanted to be sure to include them in the fun. Ian was very excited about it. Donovan, not as much--but he did put up ornaments when we got to that point. Afterwards we watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Love that show!

Thanksgiving Fun

Thanksgiving was fast and furious. I brought the boys back with me from my SA wedding weekend. It really takes a couple of days to adjust to being back together, but we managed to have fun even with that adjustment and my being exhausted from the 10 hour drive. (Yep, 10 hours in the car, just me and the boys. They were great. Got antsy, but who wouldn't?)

We had some fun at a playground. Then it wouldn't be us without a major project. Painting the boys' room. Jason had this idea, I did not. He wanted the boys to be able to help with it. Great in theory, but it was too huge of a project for them to help with the whole thing. Attention spans were limited. But the final outcome was/is fantastic!

Ian's 10th birthday fell on Tuesday of that week. I made cupcakes, we sang and ate pizza. Fun times for all!

More Home Improvements

The weekend before leaving for SA was spent finally painting the living room and bedroom. I was dreading the mess, but I got the bedroom wall painted on a Friday. Saturday morning Jason and I started the process. He tapes and I roll. While I finished rolling one wall, he was busy moving the furniture around (we flipped the room). It only took about 3 hours to get it all finished! I was amazed and love them both. Patience paid off--I have a green room! We still have some items to hang, but overall, things are in place. Yea!

SA Wedding

There is nothing like being with people you know and love. My trip back to SA was brief, but jam-packed with fun. Lunch with great friends, shopping with great friends, rehearsal dinner and wedding festivities celebrated with great friends! I could go into great detail, but I'm not in the mood. But the trip started with some time in Houston with my mom. Happily Erin and Micaiah were able to come by for a morning of blowing bubbles and chit-chat. Micaiah is getting so big and amazed me with all the words she knew. She immediately saw the bubbles and never forgot them till we finally went outside and blew them. She had done that at mom's house several weeks ago and loved it then too!

I will also tell you that the couple happily married, Blake and Lydia, met through me. It wasn't my intention to hook them up, I just thought Lydia was cool and should join our Bible study. Blake wisely took it from there. The other random fact regarding this couple, Blake is one of my former students--from the class of 2004. It was marvelous to see so many of his classmates at the wedding. They were a riotous class, but I loved them! Enjoy the pics!
BUBBLES!!


Class of 2004
Blake and Lydia