How we spent a Christmas gift

Last week, Tracy and I were talking about how we needed to have the missionaries over more often. Then on Sunday, while I was sitting in church (Tracy wasn't with me since she stayed home with Nora), the missionaries' meal schedule happened to end-up in my hands. I noticed that there was an opening on Thursday night. I knew this was more than a coincidence since we were just talking about feeding these guys and I happened to have that day off of work.

I promptly signed up for the day. When I got home, proud of my accomplishments, I told Tracy what I had done. She then, gently, reminded me that she and the other two girls had a previous engagement and that we would have to cancel the missionaries meal. I told her not to worry, and that Nora and I would go ahead and entertain.

When Tracy was leaving on Thursday night, I still hadn't formulated a meal plan (go figure). I told her not to worry, that I would take them out for some fast Mexican food at Taco Cabana. She then reminded me of a gift certificate I had gotten for Christmas from my youngest sister, Valayne (that would be sister #8, or child #12, however you want to look at it). So, Nora and I took the missionaries out for dinner. We had a great time with them. What's cool is that one of the missionaries is from Vallejo, CA - close to where we lived at Travis AFB. One of the waiters told us he had just received his mission call and would be leaving in January.

We had some good ol' Mormon style fun. I know the missionaries appreciated the meal since both told me they hadn't been to Olive Garden for a few years.

Our night of caroling at the River Walk

Tonight was an awesome FHE event. We went down to the River Walk, in down town San Antonio. We started the evening by taking a picture of our family in front of the Alamo, followed by a great dinner to include homemade rootbeer at a German deli called Schilo's. Later, we joined some friends down at the river boats and rode along and carolled the night away. The girls all agreed that this will have to be our family tradition while we are here in TX. It was a fantastic night for everything since the weather was nice and warm. It was a lot of fun and a great way to get the Christmas spirit going!

Dancing Queen(s)

December is such a busy and fun month! I expect we'll make a few more posts before the end of the year. The other night, we were treated to a dance recital for Halee and Nora. Our girls really love to dance! Our girls have been taking dance class from someone in our ward, out of the garage of someone else in our ward. Sounds weird but they really enjoyed the classes. It was great how the whole thing came together in the end since the dance space in the garage was very limited. Both of them participated in 3 dances.

Halee loves trying to be graceful - and while she's at it she makes some pretty funny faces and moves. Its fun watching her grow-up.

Nora is pretty good at dancing and practices pointing her toes and keeping her lines straight. She's progressing well with her dance.

I have uploaded a couple of videos of thier recital for your viewing pleasure!

Nora dances to "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend"

Halee dances to music from Anastasia

Our Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was spent here in San Antonio. Tracy told me that this year, she was not going to cook so we had better think of something to do. She wasn't snotty aobut it, just that she wanted to do something different. At first, we had discussed going and breaking bread with the military members down at the USO - since they were putting on a free turkey meal that day. Sounded fun, but impersonal.

We then had some friends invite us over for the day. We spent the day at the home of Rick and Rochelle Williamson and shared company with them and with a 3 0r 4 other families. There was tons of food, lots of kids and plenty of good conversations to break into. The kids got to do some arts-n-crafts, creating pilgrim or indian attire, thanks to Cassie White. We had a great time eating outdoors and roasting marshmellows (despite the total burn-ban for the area - keep that a secret).

Overall, Thanksgiving day 2008 turned out to be a great success! We went home that night with our bellies full and with plenty of leftovers to carry us over a few more days!