Saturday, December 31, 2011

Thanksgiving Day

On Thanksgiving we went to Jeff and Maria's house.  There were lots of fun things to do, like make crafts (Oreo/candy corn turkeys)...


... visit with relatives...

... hang out with really cute cousins...

... and eat!

There were cute chocolate / marshmallow / cookie pilgrim hat placecards.


Jeff carved the bird.


Yum!


 Mom and Dad dishing up.


Everybody enjoyed adding leaves to the "thankful" tree.


We tried taking some photos to use for Christmas cards.  Here are some outtakes.  I think this one actually worked fairly well -- but with the low winter sun, it was so darned bright that everybody had a hard time keeping from squinting.


This one worked out pretty well, too, I think.


Rachel didn't get the memo about it not being a goofy photo. :)


I'm not sure why, but I kind of like this one.  It kind of looks like an album cover photo or something.


Jeff and Maria grew some seriously big pumpkins.





Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

20 candles


Rachel's birthday was the week of Thanksgiving.  It's a nice time for a birthday for a college student, because we get to celebrate with her while she's home for Thanksgiving.


The day started out with lawn decorations instigated by one of her good friends.



For her birthday dinner, we went to Chile's.



Ready to dig in!



Daniel attacking a massive slab of ribs.



Intently opening some presents.




She seems to like the new watch!



Instead of a cake, Yumiko made her a pretty lemon creme pie.



Happy birthday, Rachel!