Spreading Christmas Cheer

We've been baking cookies for a month. And tonight we invited just a handful of musical friends to join us in serenading our neighbors with Christmas carols and gave each of them a plate of homemade cookies.

At the butcher's shop they are very festive so we decided to start with them. They were already wearing santa hats to match their red aprons!

Then we visited the pharmacy, the flower shop, the delicatessen, the bakery, the hotel, and then ...

We ran into our friend on the street so he joined us for the Christmas caroling fun !!! He asked where we got this wacky idea. No one does this it's really odd, but kinda fun. We should do it again. Then we continued our Christmas caroling at a café, a law office, and a restaurant...

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VIDEO COMING SOON

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We're making lots of friends. One guy tipped us 20 bucks, one guy offered us free dessert, one of the singers we recruited paid for our dinner, and one guy invited us back to his apartment to warm up at the end of the night. We had a blast spreading Christmas cheer!

Toilet Troubles

This is hilarious!!!

The plumber messed something up and we have no running water to our toilet. So we have to flush it by pouring a bucket of water into it each time.

I think it's just as funny as can be, I just feel bad for our house guests...

Combine Worship Service

Saint Nicholas Day

Christmas Tree

France Team

Thanksgiving Retreat 09

"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." - Benjamin Franklin

The beautiful sunrise helped motivate us to get into the kitchen and get the bread started before breakfast.

The baking continued all through the day!

Special anti-tear onion slicing goggles!

Dad's favorite chocolate meringue pie from scratch. This time we actually had crisco to make it and BOY does it taste better with crisco!

Now that's how you make pumpkin pie!

American goodies will give our feast an authentic taste!

The beautiful Chateau de Saint Albain!

Watching the Macy's parade (my grandparents recorded last year's event on DVD so we could watch it a year late;) They even sang one of our gospel choir songs, and we sang along!

Cinnamon Rolls and Blueberry Muffins for Breakfast!

Cookies!

(Another treat that really profited from the crisco. At home I usually substitute butter, they taste great, but they are flat as a quarter. So it was fun to watch them puff up and stay all crinkly.)

Gramie's rolls have never turned out better in France!

Our Thanksgiving table !!! With plenty of room for all 29 in our extended family this year! Everyone shared something they were thankful for. For many, it was a first time experience. One friend just thanked us again last night for introducing him to the concept of Thankfulness.

Now that's a Turkey!

29 lbs is a BIG beast of a bird!

Yum, yum, eat'em up!

Everyone pitched in to do the dishes.

Nap-time.

Walking off the calories.

S'mores and Games!

Nichole raking the kitchen - a minute earlier you couldn't see the tile for the pile of leaves that had accumulated.