Christmas Photo

Thought all of you would enjoy David's and my official Christmas photo this year:

Sadly this is about the only photo we took of us together officially on Christmas this year, though we have tons of photos from Christmas events and different things, as well as one good "formal" photo we took several weeks ago in front of our tree for our Christmas card. One of those is about all I can talk David into each year. :)

Christmas this year was great, although I can't believe its already over! December has gone by really fast. For those who'd like to know what we do for Christmas overseas, here is how we spent the holiday this year.

On Christmas Eve, David and I spent the day cooking all sorts of wonderful treats and dishes for a big dinner that evening. David baked 4 different types of desserts/treats/cookies (since baking is HIS specialty), and I made green bean casserole, David's mom's dish called "Corn Corn," and mashed potatoes. We arrived at our teammates Josh and Danielle's house around 5:30 and shared a delicious feast with our whole team: the Shelley's, the Greene's and Ellie Wilson. See Josh and Danielle's pics here. After dinner, the Greene's kids, Kayleigh(2) and Zeb (8 months) watched Charlie Brown Christmas (or part of it) while the grown ups talked. Then we all read the Christmas story together, lit the final advent candle and sang Christmas carols. We all got to request a carol. I requested David's favorite "O Holy Night" and he requested my favorite "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus." Kayleigh requested Jingle Bells! After the kids went to bed, we all watched Home Alone (the original) together. I hadn't seen it in about 10 years, which made it surprisingly entertaining!

Today, on Christmas, we all gathered at the Greene's house around 9:30 this morning for a big breakfast. David and I brought monkey bread, and the Greene's fixed bacon, eggs and a delicious fruit salad. After breakfast, we exchanged gifts as a team (we do "secret santa" every year, although this year we all knew exactly who was getting a gift for whom)! David got the book "River Town" from Josh, which is supposed to be excellent. I got coffee, a coffee mug, and a gift certificate for a pedicure from Alisa Greene--all the ingredients needed for a lovely day of pampering before the baby comes! In the afternoon, we lunched on leftovers from the feast the night before, played Scategories and eventually watched the movie Wall-E.

It was a relaxing day, spent with some of my favorite people in the world. I know for all of us, its enjoyability was tempered by the rememberance that we were far away from our families and friends at home. But God is good and blesses us wherever we are in the world, and for that we give him thanks and praise. Love and miss all of you!! Merry Christmas!!