Gobble! Gobble!

The Fellas of the South came up for turkey day with the Fellas of the North. All the way from Gulf Shores, Alabama. Nana and Papa have been braving the snowy weather to spend five days with us. We fried our turkey, which we have done once before. It turned out awesome. Then we tried something new and fried up some sweet potato fries, then sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar. Can you say, YUM? Of course no Thanksgiving is complete without the funeral beans a.k.a. green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and burn & serve rolls. We skipped the cranberries because no one really likes those, do they? We topped the meal off with Rachael Scott's famous (at least in my house) peanut butter pie and some apple streudel. We were going to make a pumpkin pie but the recipe we wanted was online and the internet was too jammed to get it so that'll come later in the visit because Jane says she's not leaving until she gets some.

We headed to Runyans Tree Farm in Clio on Friday to partake in our family tradition of cutting our Christmas Tree. We voted for a Balsam Fir and found ourselves the perfect 8 footer. We warmed up with hot chocolate and indulged in some gingerbread cookies afterwards.

Christmas before Turkey Day

Christmas came early with Grandad and Granda Linda this past week. We celebrated with Lasagna and Apple Cinnamon Streudel. Naomi took extreme interest in smelling the candles on coffee table and would only hang with Grandad when he fed her icecream. They will be heading for warmer climate the day after Thanksgiving.













It was a great opportunity to get a picture of the girls together

Dedication to Our Lord

Sunday was baby dedication day at church. We are so happy that this day has come. Of course it couldn't go without some kind of strange occurance. It just so happened that during that 10-15 minute span I felt a vibration from the phone I was babysitting for my friend Rachael in the choir because her sister was coming in from out of town and wasn't sure she knew the way. Knowing that she was probably in need of directions I tried to decreitly get Rachael's attention on the stage behind me so she could get the phone. Her husband, Pastor Ben, playing the keyboard, indicated I should try to slide it over to him... that didn't work out so well so JD, another band member, had to sneak over and pick up off the stage and give it to Rach. I'm not sure if Pastor Jim was completely oblivious to this drama as he prayed or just extremely patient. He knows me by now and probably expects such things. Either way I'm grateful for his kindness.

Earth calling Jo-Jo

Teenage heartthrob Luke Benward (How to eat fried worms & Minutemen) was in Grand Rapids with the iShine Live tour so I took Jo and a couple of her friends to see the show designed for tweens since I had to be there for the radio station anyways. She was a bit starstruck but has finally returned to earth.
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Band Survey

Starring Jing Ying

Naomi demostrates her "bear hug"

Meet JingYing

Big sister Brooke is good at spoiling her younger sisters. This week she took Naomi on a little girls day out to lunch and to Build-A-Bear. Her red pantie wearing panda bear is named JingYing which was her Chinese birth name. She just loves this bear and gives it "bear" hugs all the time.

Hey, Halloween's Over!

So how would you like to meet this guy in a dark hallway? Yea, that's what happened to me. Although he is a very nice fellow and has some very annointed music, I couldn't help but jump a little when I turned around and he was standing there. I probably gave him a scare with my reaction. We both seemed a little stunned to find the door that seemed to go backstage blocked by a big trunk. That was my excitement for the evening of the David Crowder Band concert. It was a great show and I was grateful for the hotel room that the station hooked me up with and that Mike, Jo and Naomi were all able to go too. It was our first big event on the west side of the state. Our new station over there should be up and running shortly and we'll probably be doing many more, it's a good thing I like Grand Rapids!

Welcome November

What a week! My birthday, then Mike's, the Light the Night event and more. I wacked out my back so I'm hobbling around. We went to Journeys coffeehouse in Midland to see Michael Maher play on Mike's birthday. The Maher clan sang a great rendition of Happy Birthday to him. They are much better singers than they are cake deliver-ers. I had them take the cake with them so it could be a covert operation and surprise the birthday boy but I'm not sure what happened after that. Let's just say that it still tasted good. Friday was crazy with the Light the Night deal. I was the Linden team leader and responsible for keeping things running smoothly. I spent most of the night cruising between the 3 homes because two of the 3 were getting blasted with visitors. Which of course is a good thing. Mike took our little ladybug to one of the homes and stayed there. Jo-Jo was doing the "hippy" thing and hanging with her friends. The daylight savings time threw our schedule for a loop on Sunday. We planned on going to a birthday party but Naomi decided it was time to take a nap so we missed out on that one. I'll be making a drive to Grand Rapids this evening to work the David Crowder Band concert. I'll be spending my drive with Jesus discussing the candidates and praying for wisdom for myself and all of America's voters. Tuesday will be a big day...for the world.