Christmas Events!

It's been an eventful week, the highlight being our nephew decided to come on Christmas Day! We're all still in shock, but thankful Isaiah, Lesley, and Chris are well!

Jason had the whole week off. I took Tuesday off so we could visit his aunt Frances in Mt. Airy with his dad and his friend Jeff. We ate at Snappy's downtown and walked around to a few stores. I only had to work half day Wednesday, which was nice. We had a lot of kids Wednesday night, but it went well! Thursday, we went down to Statesville early to see Grandma and Grandpa and watched "White Christmas." We had a nice Christmas Eve with everyone and had fun playing dirty Santa. Friday, we had breakfast with mom and dad, while waiting on the progress of Lesley's labor. We headed down to Statesville around lunchtime to hang out with Lee, Linda, and Gary. We played out Wii there for awhile, mostly to distract me (was a bit nervous until about 3:30 when I heard Isaiah was born!) For dinner, we went to Mooresville to visit the Bost side of the family

Saturday, I tagged along with Jason, Lee, and Sarah for squirrel hunting in the woods behind Lee's house. A bit disappointing since we only saw one squirrel. We watched the UNC bowl game until half time before heading back home. Today, we visited my uncle Kent, cousin Jake, Kelly, and their daughters in Lexington. We had a nice afternoon with them. We traveled a lot this past week and are worn out for our work week!

Let it snow!

We got snow on Friday! I got to leave work early, but Jason had to stay late dealing with a snow plow! Molly seems to really like the snow, while Chip isn't show thrilled! Here's them playing!

We walked the dogs a bit Saturday morning. Then, I stayed at home and read a bit of this book called "Crazy Love" while Jason went hunting with Lee. They didn't see any deer. :(

Sunday, we went to Dobson to see the Fulk side of the family, which was nice! Then, we went to TNT, which was about our need to control the things in our lives and working on giving them over to God. It was a tough topic, but good to discuss!

Earlier this week, I went to a Corinth Women's luncheon with my friend Abigail. It's nice to finally know a lot of women at the church!

Christmas Parties!

Our internet has been down a bit this week (I found out due to a Charter upgrade), so that's why I've haven't posted thusfar!

We had a fun week last week! Admist the dealings at work, we had our CFA Christmas party on Thursday night! (12/10) Picture of us above.




For the past 2 years, we've done an employee only party, but this year, we ate at Catawba Country club for dinner and got to invite guests.




We played a game where each of the employees had to pop a balloon by sitting on it. (I had to cheat and use my earring!). Some had money in them and some didn't. It was quite entertaining because my co worker Mike popped two balloons with no money, so he had to go again. He jumped on one balloon for about a minute before it popped!




We had some of by boss Lori's friends play songs. We sang bits of everything, form Christmas sons to a few 80's.

Highlight of the night: My co worker Amber and Lori sang "Baby Got Back." (Lori had the song on her ipod.) We've seen Amber sing this before, but it's just as good the second time around!




We had a great evening of just relaxing with one another!

We discussed "love is not rude" for life group. It really applied to my life since that week, the phone run non stop at work! I know that's a good thing, but it can be very annoying when you're in the middle of concentrating. I've had to watch my tone of voice when I answer the phones to make sure I'm not conveying rudeness.




Saturday, we went to Chapel Hill to see Newton Conover high school football team play in the state championship. Our friend Greg is the offensive lineman coach, so we rode with his wife, Abigail and their 6 month old Lincoln. It was extremely cold and they lost terribly, but we enjoyed the fellowship!

Sunday, we went to the contemporary service, which we haven't been to in awhile. We alternate now between traditional and contemporary services, but haven't been able to go to the last two Sundays. Ther sermon talked about how we don't have the excitement of Jesus coming into the world.

In the afternoon, I went with Liz, Deda, my great aunt Peggy, and mom to see "Miracle on 34th Street" at the theater. Cute play! Jason stayed at home to make a cheesecake for the TNT Christmas party later that evening. We had lots of people show up and had great soup! We wrapped the presents we bough for our kids from the ALFA organization and did a gift exchange. The "regulars" of TNT were very excited to have such a great turnout!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We put up our tree today! We had hoped to go to Boone yesterday to my mom's cousin's tree farm and pick out our tree (like we did last year), but it snowed 3 inches there. We were a bit disappointed, but maybe next year!

Here's a few more Christmas decoration pictures!

It's been cold this week and Jason & I are feeling it! We've had sore throats and sneezing! But we are thankfully not sick.

Jason's work will probably get busier, since his co worker retired on Monday. He had to work overtime two hours on Wednesday, but will be off the whole week of Christmas. Everyone else took off, so Jason is using 12 hours comp time and 1/2 day of vacation. It works out great!

We talked about humility and Christ's sacrifice in life group. We're on the "love is not boastful" line of 1 Corinthians 13. Saturday, I worked at nursery for church, which was easy. Jason worked out in the yard for a bit.

Yesterday afternoon, we watched "Beyond the Gates of Splendor", which I borrowed from my co worker. It's a documentary film about the 1956 murders of five missionary men in Ecuador by the Waodoni, a tribe of violence that has since become peaceful.

I'm familiar with the story since Jason and I watched "The End of the Spear" back when we dated. It's one of my favorite films and made a huge impact on me. The five men wanted to befriend the Waodoni to share Christ's love, knowing that no outsider had made peaceful contact with them.

A few years after the murders, Elisabeth Elliot, her daughter, and Rachel Saint moved into their territory, living with the men who killed Elliot's husband and Saint's brother. Evenually, the tribe members came to Christ, and stopped killing others.

The documentary had each widow tell really sweet stories of their young marriages and life in Ecuador. The hardest part was one of the men from the search party talking about seeing Nate Saint's body. He couldn't even put the rope on him to pull him out of the river.

It's such a remarkable story. Nate Saint's children were later baptized by saved Waodani men who killed their father. What a true representation of the power of Christ's love and forgiveness!

I'm doing the Corinth Women's newsletter and I want to profile Elisabeth Elliot's books about this story and these films since they died on January 8th.

Saturday night, we ate at Panera Bread, then went to Kohls to shop for a child that CFA has adopted from the Family Guidance Center (which has a shelter for women coming out of domestic violent relationships). We enjoy buying clothes for her! Before Thanksgiving, we shopped for a child from the ALFA organization (deals with people and families impacted by AIDS) that our TNT bible study adopted.

Then, we went to Abigail and Greg's to celebrate his birthday and enjoyed watching football and playing Apples to Apples. I think we're going to go to Chapel Hill on Saturday to watch Newton Conover play in the state high school championship. Greg is one of the coaches.

Today, we've spending some time resting since we've decorated the tree. We're watching "King Kong" tonight at TNT.

Last week, we had some friends over to play Wii, which was fun! Here's some videos of boxing!