What do you do after Thanksgiving dinner? Get ready for Christmas, of course!!
Lillie and I visited a flower shop/nursery here in Maryland months ago, that is quite famous in the area. I told Keola we should stop by and see what's happening for Christmas and this is what we saw.

First, there were countless theme decorated Christmas trees, with all the decorations for sale. There was also a cute Christmas village and hundreds of poinsettias in various colors. Then, what Lillie was most interested in, the elaborate train set up.

We also found a wintery Christmas scene to take pictures in front of.

And after the wintery scene...

Santa!!! This was the FIRST time Lillie took a picture with Old St. Nick, all by herself!! All be it was for a split minute, it was enough time for her to blurt out what she wanted for Christmas and for me to take a quick picture. I'm so proud of our little girl!

After such a fun morning with Santa, we had to come home and decorate the house.

This is our "Childhood Tree" The majority of the ornaments are ones that Keola's mom saved from when Keola was younger, and sent to us years ago.
Here's the front of our fireplace with our stockings and these cool glittery, red trees we found earlier that day.

This is our "Red and Gold Tree" Over the years we have found various red and gold decorations to add to it.

This is Lillie's advent calendar. We filled each of the pockets with her favorite candies - milky way, Reeses peanut butter cups, lollipops, and Swedish fish.

This is our "Homemade Tree". Years ago, I was really into making crochet thread snowflakes. We decided to decorate a little tree with my creations. So there are snowflakes, garland, and a tree skirt that I crocheted, some wooden spoon snowmen that I made at a Relief Society activity, and a crocheted snowflake to top it all off.

This is the top of our bookshelf. Keola and I sometimes laugh at the fact that the "greenery" stays up there all year long and we just switch out the "holiday" color - fall leaves, holly berries - I wonder what will go up in January?? ha ha

This is our little "Rustic Tree". We filled it with ornaments that are all a little worn and distressed.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

For the big Turkey Day, we went to a friends house (the other counselor in the stake presidency), and ate to our hearts content. It was so delicious and Lillie had a grand time playing with some of the grandkids.

Of all the years we have been married, we have never made a REAL Thanksgiving dinner ourselves. We were either in Las Vegas, at a restaurant, or at a friends home. This year we decided to take the plunge and actually try the whole deal. For years we had all the sides under our belt - mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls, and green bean casserole - but we NEVER tried a whole turkey. Like I said, we spent Thanksgiving at a friends house, so we were not brave enough to try the real deal on the actual day, but we did make Thanksgiving Part II on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

So here's the BIG BIRD!!

I have to say, we were pretty impressed with ourselves. I think we may actually be able to have people over to OUR house next year!!

Here's the rest of our feast.

Special Visitor

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, we received a phone call from the church office building in Salt Lake City. We were told that Elder William R. Walker of the First Quorum of the Seventy would be visiting our mission. That alone would be an exciting and special visit, but what made this occasion even more wonderful is that Elder Walker was Keola's mission president from Japan!

We were very excited to hear he would be touring the Washington D.C. missions and wanted to visit with us. We were able to set aside Sunday to meet with Elder Walker and his wife as they attended our ward and came to our home after to relax and later have dinner. We made them sukiyaki which was fun and delicious. With all the excitement (and nervous-ness) of having our special guest, this is the only picture we took.