Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving!  I was sick before and after, but I felt ok the day of Thanksgiving.  One of the families from church had us all over to their house for Thanksgiving.  Everyone brought something.  It's   funny how we all think of Thanksgiving dinner differently.  We have pretty much the same food, but it's fixed differently, depending on which part of the country you're from.  But it was great!  And what made the day even better, we woke up Thanksgiving morning to our first snow!  It snowed all day, and has snowed every day since then!

We woke up to snow!

Our backyard

There was so much food!  And it was delicious!

I made green bean bundles, cornbread...

mashed potatoes...

pumpkin swirl bread...

and oreo balls!  Yumm!!!

After dinner, they broke out the Rockband!  It was fun :)

Jeremi's rocking out!

Freedom liked the music!

It was a good day!  I hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving as well!  Be prepared for more snow pictures coming soon!

Jesse's "Super" Birthday!

Well, Jesse's birthday has come and gone.  It was yesterday.  A couple of weeks ago, I asked him what kind of cake he wanted.  When he responded, "NERDS cake,"  my response was, "DUH!"  Haha.  It's his favorite.  I know that.  But I meant, how did he want it decorated.  His response, "I don't care."  Typical man, typical Jesse.  So I pestered him ;)  Here's how we decided.  None of his sports teams were doing well this year.  So he said red.  If you know anything about tinting icing, you know that red is not fun...  It takes a LOT of color to turn a whole batch of icing red.  So I said I would not have a completely red cake.  He needed to pick something to go with red.  So he said blue.  Then it hit him, "Superman!!!"  So, he got a Superman NERDS cake!!!

Super Jesse Birthday cake!

The yellow, red, and blue stars made it look more "comic bookie"

It came out pretty good if I do say so myself!  I still need to practice my writing, but other than that, I'm pretty proud of it!

Our afternoon service starts at 2:30 here, so afterwards, we invited everyone over for cake and coffee!!  And I threw some piggies (pigs-in-the-blanket) in the oven.  We enjoyed it, and there's only one small piece of cake left!  Thank goodness.  I was afraid we would be eating cake for a week (Jesse wouldn't have minded; he loves cake!).

Jesse's cake, birthday card, and present (2 cd's he wanted from iTunes)

The "Super" Birthday Boy and his "Super" cake!

No I didn't put 24 candles, there are 2 on one side and 4 on the other.  That's 24, not 6 ;)
(We didn't have any  matches, so he pretended to blow them out...  oops...)

All is going well!  Turkey day is Thursday!!!  Eat well :)

Halloween 2010

Well, Halloween has come and gone.  But I'm just now posting about it...  Oh well.  Better late than never! We had a themed Halloween party.  The theme was, "NERDS"!  It all started months ago.  Jesse and I were sitting around the table with our friends Kevin and Amanda.  Somehow we started talking about the NERDS candy and, Jesse's favorite, NERDS cake.  The idea was born there.  So we had a NERDS themed party with NERDS desserts and everyone dressed as nerds!  It was great!  Here are some pictures from the party!

NERDS cake

The mouth is made of NERDS boxes!

Big spider

Dessert table

Pumpkin & Werewolf cupcakes

Mummy & Dracula cupcakes

NERDS rice crispy treats

HUGE bowl of NERDS

Marshmallow witches :)

Nerds only!  And yes, those are NERDS boxes :)

Ok all you Office fans!  The sign says:
QUESTION? What do you call a line you stand in for punch?
FACT: A punch line!

The food!

Just a couple of nerds :)

The hostesses!

What nerds...  ;)

We ate lots of food, and played games including:
- costume contest - everyone voted on the nerdiest costume, and the winner got to pick the order of the games!
- "chubby mummy" - like "chubby bunny" with marshmallows
- the paper game - this was hilarious!
- "apple on a string" - they had to bite the apple
- scribble scrabble!

Lots of fun was had!  Great memories!

Italy!

Continuing with our travels...
Saturday we left Salzburg to drive to Udine, Italy.  The drive was beautiful!!!  There was a lot of snow once we got up in the mountains.  And once again, the trees were GORGEOUS!  I took a lot of pictures, but none of them captured how beautiful the colors of the trees were.

We got to Udine that afternoon and walked around with our personal tour guide, Lorenzo, Jesse's friend from FC (who is from a town near Udine).  I love Italy!  I fell in love with it 2 1/2 years ago when we went there for the first time!  We really enjoyed our time there.  The main reason we were there was for Jesse to preach at the church in Udine.  Jesse preached the lesson while Lorenzo translated.  This was the first time Jesse preached with an interpreter.  He did great!  It was different for him, but he adapted well.  The members of the church were so warm, inviting, and hospitable.  Even when we didn't speak the same language!  But things went really well.  We had dinner each night with people from the church.  It was great!  Real Italian meals.  That means a LOT of food.  They serve it in courses.  And it was all DELICIOUS!  I loved it!!!  I probably gained 5 pounds, but it was worth it :)  Here are some pictures from Udine.

Lorenzo, our personal tour guide!

Biggest potted plant EVER!

 Monday we caught a train from Udine to Venice.  It was about a 2 hour train ride.  We did not have the best weather for our trip.  It was raining.  And it had been raining.  So... Venice was flooded.  And when I say flooded, I mean, they had platforms for people to walk on all throughout the city.  It was quite comical.  The funniest thing was these "rain boots" they were selling everywhere.  And I say "rain boots" because they were just a step up from wrapping trash bags around your legs and shoes with duct tape.  They were different colored plastic that came up to your knees with plastic to wrap around your feet...  And people paid 10 euro for them...  Wow...  But we still enjoyed it.  I even saw a pink boat :)

All of the stairs are NOT usually submerged. 

Pink boat!!!

Tuesday we drove back to Germany from Italy (about 8-9 hours).  And boy had it snowed more!  It was crazy how much snow was on the ground.

It made us want to go skiing!  We stopped at this cute Autobahn restaurant in Austria for lunch.  It had a great view!

Wednesday morning we took Jessica to the airport :(  We really enjoyed her visit!  The puppies were very glad to see us home.  They were staying with our friends Amanda and Kevin.  I think they thought we left them again.  They have some separation anxiety now...

Next post, Halloween party!!!