Thanksgiving and Lights

So we had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Holland... Michigan. : ) We went to visit Weston's aunt and uncle and had a great time relaxing and not worrying about school too much. Mostly he practiced killing people in Call of Duty with his cousins while I played primary songs as background music : ) And tried my hand at the game and failed.... Weston did a GREAT job of not stressing too much for his quiz on Monday morning that wasn't worth hardly any percent of his grade.


This is proof that we were there : )


While we walked and shopped (they shopped) in downtown Holland I quized Weston on his anatomy (well, I read the answers off of the flashcards he's holding).


I finished grouting most of the dinning room right before we left so we were able to let it sit while we were gone and seal it when we got back : ) Here's what it looks like with grout! I'm so happy with how it turned out! The color matches PERFECTLY with the tiles and it really hides the imperfections in the spacing due to different tile sizes and it helps make it more continuous in the places where some of the tiles are higher than the others : )


So my parents had bought a bed for Snowy when she mostly had concrete to sleep on and gave it to us. We tried to put it downstairs but it never got used. We tried to put it at the foot of the bed/ in the hall/ in our room to see if she'd go on it rather than our bed. Didn't work. But then I put it in the side table by our bed and she likes it! For like a week she would go in there almost all the time INSTEAD of our bed! It was great! We would kick her off the bed at night and she'd go in there. So, we're glad we found a place she can call home. : ) She hasn't been in it much this last week (I think she missed us at Thanksgiving) but we're hoping she'll get back to it.
Before it got too cold we decided to go to the "Lights Before Christmas" at the Toledo zoo. They were fun! There were a lot of original shapes and some moving ones with awesome synchronized tree lights with good Christmas music. Here are some pictures. Our favorite lights for those here who have gotten to see them were:
The singing frogs near the carousel by the monkeys
Obviously the synchronized tree lights that Key bank did
The huge tree in the botanical gardens
The bear trying to catch a salmon in the botanical gardens
The swimming shark coming down the ramp near the bird house
The meteorite-like blue lights near the carnivore cafe- we'd really like some like that
The blue and green ones by the seals and polar bears (those are our favorite colors)
The lizards chasing the bugs on the reptile house and the kangaroo's nearby
The spider weaving a web
And the animal shapes were cool as well, but there's way too many of those
The fading crocodiles were a little scary if you suddenly were standing by one :)


We're so excited for Christmas!

Oh, and we have super wonderful friends here. We are so blessed to have been given people who really care about us. The Felts and Tollers are wonderful people. And we went to a party with people in our ward that was pretty fun on Friday. They had a really cool opening game to try to feel objects in little pouches and figure out what they were : ) We enjoyed spending time with people we don't really know. Hopefully we'll get to know them a little better over the years, it's just hard without kids.

And again, I'll end with CHRISTMAS IS HERE! I love the time before Christmas way more than the actual day. I love the feeling and the service that people give. Hopefully we'll get to do something being home for Christmas.