Thanksgiving Dance

                                         

I am only sharing a few photos of the Thanksgiving dance, because most of mine turned out blurry, and just horrid. The reason I am sharing any at all, is because I take photos to capture the memory...bad quality or not. (though I do try to make them as good as I can get)

I would like to thank the Mack Family for all of their hard work in organizing this dance. I had a wonderful time. :)

No, I do not know what they are talking about...

:o)

God has blessed me with an amazing Church family.

The Christmas Bizarre

The day after Thanksgiving, all of the gals went Christmas shopping at the Christmas bizarre in Portland. That was an absolute blast!!! But before we started out, we went with the guys to check something out in Home Depot.  Turns out my wonderful Grandparents bought a brand new refrigerator for my mom's Christmas present! She was so surprised. 

After that the guys went home and us gals stopped at Starbucks, then off to the bizarre!  

Shopping...

I think my favorite stand, was called, 'Za Zen." It is actually a store, and they brought some of their clothes to sell at the bizarre. VERY cute stuff. You could probably compare it to 'Romy's.'

There were these Christian brothers selling barbecue stuff called, 'king of Cajun.' They were so nice!

Ha ha ha- little Nickolas Maximus...he was sure having a blast in that new elf hat Caitlin got for him!

Lazy elf...

I came home with-

A National Geographic book that I won

A necklace and earring set for $3

A Christmas present for Papa (nope I'm not telling what it is. )

A cute sweater from 'Za Zen' for $5

And a whole bunch of makeup from an Avon stand

Then...

We came home to a HUGE surprise from the guys.

While we were gone they had made dinner...

Put in new lights...

got a whole new village...

And had decorated the outside of our house with Christmas lights!!! Wow- oh- wow! Everything was so beautiful and so Christmas like, that we all had to go upstairs and watch 'ELF.' -one of our favorite Christmas movies.

...And relax from the fun and eventful day!

Thanksgiving feast

The cook

...and the cooks helpers. :o)

For those of you who live in a big family, you should know that sparkling apple cider does not last long...or at least...when you only have 5 bottles of it. This Thanksgiving my Grandparents made sure that we had plenty for our family, the Nguyen family, Cassandra, and themselves. By the time the day was over we still had 5 left over! wow-

The table is set.

Before we ate Papa read from the Bible, and then we all went around the table and said what we were thankful for.

After a prayer of thanksgiving, we came to one of the very best parts of the day- eating!

passing the food...

My Sparkling apple cider...

I like the bubbles at the top. :)

After the feast, every one helped clean up.

Then we all went outside and practiced with our guns. Yes...that is such a Koch thing to do. :)

Uncle Tony

Even Levi tried out one of the guns.

...We like to start them young.

And to top the whole evening off, we all gathered around and played pictionary. Adults against the kiddos. Because kids have such a creative imagination, we are the CHAMPIONS!

This was actually earlier that morning, before we all headed to Church.

Hope you enjoyed the photos!

First snow

Sorry it's late! These are a few photos I snapped of our first snow this winter. And if I heard correctly, this is the first time in 8 years that it has snowed before Thanksgiving. Pretty neat!
~Enjoy~

This adorable little boy is Luke Turner. My family and I had the joy of having the Turners over a little while ago. They are old friends from way back.

I love this look! The turn of fall into winter....so pretty!

It started snowing while we were at Church, so I got a few photos of the kids enjoying it. :)

Isn't he handsome?

I like the angle on this one.

Me. :o)

One of these nights the moon was really beautiful. Especially in the fog, and with the tree outline.

Birds-are so beautiful!

That's all for now!