Joel and Laurie in Texas: Thanksgiving

Well, I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving. It was a little sad for Laurie and me as all of our family was on the East Coast this year. As many of you know, Thanksgiving this year was also our 4th anniversary. Praise God that he provided a "foster family" for the holiday. Our Pastor and his family had us over for most of the day and it was a great time (especially watching football on Bo's 53" HDTV; that was Laurie's favorite part =). We ate a lot of good food, and we passed on an tradition to a new generation. One thing that I (Joel) was sad about it not getting any of Grandma's world famous (well at least family famous) gingerbread man cookies. Growing up that is one thing that always made Thanksgiving seem right to me. We would gather at Grandma's house and she would make gingerbread men and icing for us to decorate them. Oh the great times we had around that table decorating those cookies! Thanks GRANDma! That is one of my favorite growing up memories. Laurie and I decided that we would try to carry on the tradition so we got Grandma's recipe and tried our best (of course we couldn't make them as good as G'ma, but they were still pretty good!). The fun part was that we took them too the Thompson's house with us and I was able to pass my tradition on. The Thompson's have 3 girls (8,10, and 13 I think). Bo's best friend Bobby and his family were also there and their 11 y/o daughter Emma also got to participate. It was a little different with me and a table full of girls, but it was fun, and the girls absolutely loved it! The sad part is that during the night their dog snuck (is that a word? Sneaked? whatever) downstairs and pulled all the cookies off the table and bit all the legs off and licked the frosting and the got sick and threw up on the floor...Ah memories...

We are very thankful to our Lord for ALL the things that He has done this past year. He never ceases to amaze us! We miss and love you all!!!

Here are some pictures from our Day: