Wow! I haven’t finished with our Russia trip on here yet, and it already seems so long ago! We’ve been keeping plenty busy. We hosted Thanksgiving for my family at our house again this year, and that went swimmingly. Everyone pitched in.
Big Helper
Mom did her part to save the environment, Dad and Sarah fixed our garbage disposal, even Bertie helped make sure the dishes and floors all got clean! And there was plenty of quiet relaxing time too.
And family togetherness. 
It was a nice long weekend. Josh and Sarah and I went Black Friday shopping and the Strums came over to play for a while Saturday, then we put up the tree and the Hintzes joined us for dinner on Sunday and taught me how to play Settlers of Catan.
Then it was back to our regular weekly schedules, except this week also included eye doctor appointments, dentist appointments, making all the plans for Elise and Jacob’s birthdays along with all the usual holiday planning and Jacob has his first band concert tonight! I’ll try to add a picture. So I’m ALMOST ready for this weekend, but in a way I am already exhausted!
Thanks for the wonder pictures. And thank-you so much for hosting us all. I had a wonderful, relaxing, enjoyable time.
Mom
PS Elise looks pretty foxy in the Christmas tree picture! Do you usually decorate the tree while dressed up? Hope we see a picture of the concert-boy in his new glasses–now that he can clearly see the conductor!