Last week couldn't have been better...unless of course my break was longer! Last week I only had school 2 days and then had the rest off. It was wonderful! I was so excited for Wednesday I almost couldn't stand it. That morning I made Aaron breakfast and then sent him off to work. I went shopping in the morning for him for Christmas and ran some other errands. When I got home I baked, cleaned and did laundry. It was so nice just to be at home and get things done! Wednesday night Aaron's family came for Thanksgiving. We celebrated his parents' birthdays with cake and presents. Thursday we relaxed and had our big meal for lunch. My first Thanksgiving meal and I think it turned out well. To those of you that were there, if it didn't, let me know! :) Thanks for your help! Aaron's parents had to drive home that night but his sister, Samantha stayed with us. Friday morning we woke up at 4:00 for Black Friday shopping. Aaron does it all the time and I had never been so we pretty much didn't have a choice but to go. We went to Walmart first which was nice because we didn't have to wait outside because they are open 24 hours. We then went to Kohl's JC Penny, and Walgreens. After about 3 1/2 hours we got home and went back to bed until 10:15. I had some free time so I decided to put up some Christmas decorations. I just couldn't wait to do it. Once they were all up I decided that I didn't have very much. I guess I need to go find some more! We left for Illinois that afternoon. Saturday we had "Thanksmas" to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with Aaron's extended family. It was fun to be with them again but of course it was too short. We had to leave early to get home at a decent time. That is always frustrating for me. Driving is such a waste of time! The weekend went by so fast but I wasn't too distraught about it because I knew we were going to get our Christmas tree on Monday! When Aaron got home from work we went to get the tree. Putting it in the stand was a challenge. It's still a little crooked so hopefully it won't fall over! We got all the lights and ornaments on and it is beautiful. I love Christmas!

3 weekends...3 fun events. The first weekend this month we drove across the state to see my good friend, Jenny, get married. We met in college and were unit sisters. We drove 6 1/2 hours that day but it was worth it to be there for their special day. John & Jenny Wise

The second weekend we went to a student leadership retreat at our church camp. We have many student leaders in our youth group but only one was able to go. That was disappointing but we still had a good time. This retreat was set up differently than in the past in that rather than having the pastors lecture the whole weekend, the students were to give a presentation of certain chapters in a book. Each group of students was given 2 chapters from the student leadership book to read, discuss, and present in a creative way to the rest of the group. The youth pastors and leaders split up to "supervise" the groups. As an adult leader it was nice not to have a lot of responsibility because the students were presenting the information. It was fun to watch them interact and come up with ideas. Many groups did skits to help explain the material from their chapters. The adult leaders were responsible for the meals. Our church was in charge of Saturday's lunch. About an hour before lunch was to be served I went over to the kitchen to start preparing the food. We were going to have sloppy joes, chips, veggies, and Little Debbies for dessert. Not to complicated, right? Well, I walk into the huge camp kitchen not knowing where anything was and starting browning hamburger on a gas stove that I've never used before. Time starting going by very quickly and I was alone trying to get food ready for about 50 people, which I had never done before either. Realizing that I wasn't going to have the food ready in time, I prayed that Aaron would think to come check on me. 5 minutes later...my wonderful husband walks in the door and asks what he can do! With his help everything was ready on time. 2 lessons learned...prayer works and... don't try to cook for 50 people by yourself. This is our group practicing their skit.
During free time we played 4 Square with a huge ball!

Last weekend Vincennes had their annual Christmas Stroll. They have a parade through downtown and every float has to be lit up with Christmas lights. It was a little chilly but it was lots of fun to watch the floats and see some of our youth in it. I felt like I was in a big city because we were standing on a corner with tall buildings and they were doing commentary about the floats. For a fund raiser we were in charge of taking pictures of kids with Santa after the parade and on Saturday. They do it every year because it is a realy easy money maker. We were told that last year they had like 400 kids so we made lots of cards and bought lots of supplies. We were a little discouraged Friday night when we only had about 30 people. After Saturday our total was about 100. We didn't have as many as we thought we would but we still made money and it was fun. There was one girl that was afraid to go up to Santa so he got out of his chair and tried to hide so she wouldn't see him and then sneak around and get close so I could take the picture. She saw him coming and screamed, "Don't look at me Santa!" It was pretty hilarious. And then we had a little boy that sits on Santa's lap and whips out a Walmart flyer and shows him the items he had circled. He was serious about his list. There was no way Santa could mess up his order!