A Thurston Hosted Dinner and the Annual Bailey Christmas Party

The Thurston's hosted our December 13th dinner
and Dwight was the master chef for the evening.
He created quite the exotic meal!

We had Vietnamese soup, spring rolls, pork and seeds, and some other wraps that I can't remember what they were called....but trust me they were yummy.

There they are on the counter where Amy is working away assisting her man in anyway she can.

Tom and Katie were amongst the guests.

Amy worked hard to make the tables look festive.

Here she is giving out the seat assignments.

Morgan digs into one of those wraps I was telling you about.

The following are some of the attendees:

Miss Wini

And Wolfie

Along with parents, Morgan and Sara

Here's Teddy looking wide eyed.

Good buddy cousins, Ella and Hazel

This handsome guy is Thomas

And this cutie is Atticus

Sorry to those who didn't get their picture in this post, but I couldn't figure out how to turn the pictures the right way and so those that only had a sideways picture taken got left out. Please don't be offended, just vow to come and teach this old lady how to blog properly.



On December 20th, the Strasser's hosted our annual Bailey Christmas Party and White Elephant exchange. Again I had a problem with many of my pictures being turned sideways, so some guests may not be pictured....please be patient with me.

Calvin was amongst some of the guests that night.

Casey and Holly contributed not only to the fun, but brought some extremely yummy appetizers too. And I must tell Holly in this blog that her tin of goodies she sent home with us were deelish!

Tom and Katie joined us too and that might be why the guys won that Trivia game.

Here are some of the guests getting in some visiting while eating some of Sara's fantastic soup. Who needs the Olive Garden when you've got Sara!
That's Bailey with his back to us, then David, Sara, Amy, and Dwight (looking very much in the spirit of the season with his Santa hat)

Wolfie had a fun time running around dumping out people's drinks. But he was too cute to get anyone too worked up over it.

Madison, Theresa, Holly, and Tessa

Here's Ella trying to convince Katie to take her dad's earlier choice (Lady's Anti-Monkey Butt Powder) instead of that gift she's about to unwrap.

And the hit of the night....David modeling his fancy ladies panties. I'm sure it was done during an unprecedented lapse of judgment on his part.

A better look at the prized underwear. Note the "full figured" tag. Perfect for my handsome brother's physique.

We ended the evening with a game of Trivia, where the guys somehow managed to triumph over us women.

A shout of thanks out to the Thurston's and the Strasser's for hosting these two events.
We hope all of you are having similar fun times and enjoying this holiday season.
Merry Christmas to you all!

Sunday Family Dinner

We had so much fun getting together for Sunday dinners last December, we decided to do it again this year. Gus and I
took the first Sunday and I was so clever to lay out my camara so that I would remember to get lots of great pictures
of our fun evening together. But, sadly, I still forgot all about the pictures until the Strassers had already left and the
Thurstons and Morgans were packing up their broods to leave. I managed to get them to gather by the tree before they
left so that I could get at least two pictures to record the evening for posterity!

Tom, Katie, Thomas, Violet, Hazel, and Atticus Morgan

Dwight, Amy, Howie, Ella, Bailey, and Calvin Thurston

Sorry I don't have a picture of the Strasser family to share, but they were there!

We had a great ham dinner, played a couple of games, and visited. I'm already looking forward to
next Sunday at Amy and Dwight's. Dwight's already working on some exotic dishes for the night.

A Visit With Santa

Thanksgiving with Family

My favorite gatherings always include these people. . .

. . . who always bring along these people!

Sara cooked this bird to perfection and Morgan carved him up for us all.

Sara did a beautiful job setting up the tables and even made the water look special.
(Notice the water pitcher lined with oranges, limes, and lemons!)

There's lots more, but my blogger will only let me put up 4 pictures at a time.
But trust me, it was a great meal and great day.

Innsbruck, Austria (#9 Germany)

We saw some very beautiful sights in Austria, but Innsbruck wasn't really one of my favorite spots. The city was much larger than I had pictured it in my mind and very crowded. But the day wasn't a complete waste as we did venture into Italy from here and found a very pretty town, not to mention the beautiful countryside we traveled through on our way there.

When we first arrived in Innsbruck, we were approached by a very persistent carriage driver wanting to give us a tour of the city outside the old town (they aren't permitted to enter the old section of town with their carriages). We decided to go for it, mainly because none of us could understand him well enough to realize what we were getting ourselves into.
Our guide took this picture of the four of us in his carriage.

This is the only picture I took on our ride. It reminded me of the Arc de Triumph.

Our driver tried very hard to give us a real informative tour, but as I said before, we couldn't understand him. He was constantly asking us if we understood what he said and we soon learned that if we answered in the negative, we only got a long repeat of something that we still couldn't understand. So we learned to just smile and act as if he was giving us some wonderful information that was greatly enhancing our visit to Austria. He was not even Austrian. He was from Bulgaria!

This is our first view of the old town area of Innsbruck.

An ornate building in Innsbruck's old town.

My token picture of myself by a fountain.

This is Peggy by an amazing mime. That girl stood upon the pedestal, perfectly still the entire time we were walking around Innsbruck!
The hotel in the background (with the gold-leafed roof), is where Liz and Greg stayed the last time they visited Innsbruck.

Street view.

I loved this shop sign. We all took several pictures of clever shop signs throughout our entire trip because they were all so cute and unique.

View of the hills around the town.

Beautifully carved building.

I liked the paint job on this building.

The next 2 pictures are random shots of the streets as we walked along.

We did meet up with a very nice missionary couple as we toured these streets. They were from Utah and were working exclusively with the youth in Innsbruck.