Catching Up

It's been a while, let me catch you up...
Back in early October (Yes, it's really been that long!) we took a trip to Orange County and stayed a long weekend on Balboa Island.  Our Central Coast family joined us, along with Papa Doc and Gigi from Texas.  It was obviously a really rough weekend, but one I think we could all get used to.

After Balboa came tirck-or-treating and costumes, and in a nut-shell, Sam LOVED halloween way more than we anticipated.  He was a monster (a very nice one) this year with his cousin.  He loved getting candy, loved giving candy & was quite the social butterfly for the evening.

We rolled right through November and found ourselves at the Thanksgiving table, hardly believing it was actually the end of November.  This year has been full and has left us with many, many things to be very thankful for.  To name just a few, this year we are especially thankful for a healthy and happy Samuel, families who love us dearly, Texas Tech and all its given our family, Southwest Airlines, an outpouring of support from our friends, a church we've recently decided to call "home", our new house, and the constant reminder that God is in charge of our lives and provides for us abundantly and always on time.  Here are a few pictures from the day... not sure what Dylan was doing with the mug shots, and I won't even begin to tell you how many attempts it took for us to get that family photo with all three of us looking at the camera.

The day after Thanksgiving we continued our tradition of going out and getting a real Christmas tree.  Little did we know that this would prove to be a more difficult task than we ever imagined.  We quickly realized that our only option for a real tree was Home Depot.  And although it felt like cheating a bit, it was still worth it for a real Christmas tree.  So, here we are, loading it up and decorating it with Sam.  Apparently, he loves Christmas just as much as his mom and dad.  (And just to clarify, because I know someone will comment, our tree is full of sentimental ornaments we've received through the years.  In fact, Dylan's first ornament is on our tree and several others we had as kids... anyways, the Texas ornament was one of those I got growing up and it just happened to be the one that found it's way in our picture.  We're not obsessed... promise.)  And of course, it wouldn't be Christmas without a few carols around the piano... Samuel is taking care of that for us these days!