We had a very nice Thanksgiving this year. We celebrated on Thanksgiving day with Elizabeth's family up in Noblesville at her brother Craig's home. On Friday, we visited with my dad's side of the family in Shelbyville. On Sunday, we visited with my mom's side of the family in Shelbyville after church. That's a lot of Thanksgiving! :)
We also used the holiday break to get Christmas decorations up. We decided to buy a new Christmas tree this year. We looked around last year after Christmas thinking that we'd be able to get a good deal, but it was impossible to find any nice ones after the holiday. This year we just broke down and bought one. It was on sale, but still! It is a "Hadley Pine" pre-lit tree from Sears with 800 clear lights. It's very pretty!
The other really special Christmas decoration that we have is our Nativity set. We have collected the pieces as gifts from Elizabeth's parents over the last several years. They are from a store in Kokomo called The Op Shop. They make and sell opalescent glass for stained glass work. Not only is the set beautiful, but it's fun that it comes from Elizabeth's hometown! Check it out.
My cousin, Katie, got married on a Carribean cruise in October. The rest of my family went, but Elizabeth and I decided we wouldn't have much fun if we tried to take the kiddos. We couldn't stomach the idea of being that inaccessible for 7 nights either, even if we could find a babysitter. Even though we didn't get to celebrate on the cruise, we were able to attend a tropical-themed reception at the Maxim Events venue in Shelbyville at the beginning of November. The venue is owned and run by the same folks that have The Fiddler's Three restaurant, so the food was great. They also have a lighted dance floor, which the kids absolutely loved. Here's a couple of pictures of them dancing it up.
Here's a not-so-exciting video (I like it though) of the kids walking around the dance floor backwards. I'm not sure what started it, maybe they learned how to do it at school??
My uncle (Katie's dad) asked me to help him put together a photo montage video for the Father-Bride dance as I did for his other daughter. It's fun to be able to contribute something so meaningful to the celebration. While I'm on the topic, I want to show off my Photoshop skills. I also did a video for him for his parent's 60th wedding anniversary. In this video there were a series of professional portraits that had been taken at other milestone anniversaries; however, they hadn't had one taken for their 60th. So, I took a picture of them that had been taken with my cousin Nicole at her wedding, cut Nicole out, created a fake background using the all of the power of Photoshop and even added some texture to make it look like an authentic picture. Take a look at the before and after shots below. Some weird stuff happened with the resizing, so if you click on each picture you can see the a correctly proportioned one.
It seems to be an annual tradition now. Me getting the stomach flu or food poisoning, having the gross symptoms that go with those ailments very bad for a period of time, getting so dehydrated I'm barely able to function, then my trip to the ER.
I had just been going on about how I made it a whole year without having to go to the ER. I guess that's what I get.
The kids had been sick on Wednesday and Thursday last week with a little bit of V&D (trying to spare you the gross words) from each of them. Friday night I had trouble sleeping due to pretty severe abdominal cramps. Saturday morning about 6 am it started. By around noon I was on my way to the hospital. The usual IV fluids and Zofran did the trick. I was back home by 6:30 or so Saturday evening.
Now that I finally have a couple of minutes to breathe, I'm planning on a number of posts to catch up. Stay tuned; I'll probably be working on them all at the same time, but posting each one as I get it done. Lots of stories, pictures, and even a video or two. How fun!
