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Saturday, December 28, 2013

Christmas Happenings Around These Parts...

We have had so many opportunities to celebrate and share our Savior's birth this year! First we had a party at our community center. I made little ornament crafts with the little girls, we sang carols, and read the Christmas story.




  

We also got our first package! Well, it wasn't the first one sent to us, but the first one that we successfully received. It was full of wonderful Christmas goodies like red oreos, baking mixes, puppy chow, cookie cutters, apple cider drink mix, salsa for Ronnie, Christmas cards, and even the cute nativity pictured below!




I didn't take many pictures of our decorations this year, because they were almost identical to last year, but here are a few new additions: a Murano glass ornament from Venice, and a little Hungarian ornament from a friend.


On another random note of December happenings, we hung out at the mall, had dinner in the food court, Ronnie had a festive donut, and we said goodbye to some dear friends.



I also held a Christmas tea at my home! I invited some neighbors and my language teacher, who brought a few of her friends. We drank coffee and tea, ate little cookies and pastries, listened to Christmas music, read the Christmas story, and just hung out and chatted.



ANOTHER event that we were able to attend was joining the local church to gather in a public area, sing Christmas carols, and hold banners that say things like "Celebrate Jesus' Birth"! I love these chances to meet other believers and publicly praise our Savior. There was also a little bell choir that played, and as I listened I thought to myself, "I know if Sarah were here I would have somehow gotten roped into doing this" ;).






Friday, December 27, 2013

Christmas Card 2013

Here are our two 2013 Christmas cards. Merry Christmas from the Joneses!



A Day of Thanks

This year for Thanksgiving, we had a little party at some friends' house. It had all (or most) of the normal fixings, and was delicious. We thanked the Lord for good food, great friends, and how he has worked in our lives during the past year.



Catching Up

It looks like I have quite of time to catch up on. I make it my main goal to at least consistently take pictures, so that even if I slack on blogging, I still can catch up at some point with my captured memories! Unfortunately, as a result of my broken iphone, I have really missed taking pictures of random times when I didn't have my camera with me. Hopefully that will all change in a couple of weeks when I get a replacement! I have about 1 picture from Ronnie's birthday. It is of him and his surprise tiramisu from the group of friends we were with. For his birthday, we met some friends at Fatburger (fairly new to our city), and then saw Catching Fire on the opening weekend! Good times were had. The next picture is of a meal that I made at some point in November. I don't think it was for anything special, but I was pretty proud of it.


Then, for our 7-year dating anniversary/3.5 year wedding anniversary, we went to an amazing breakfast restaurant by the sea. We followed up breakfast with a photo shoot. It is good that I like to take pictures and he likes to pose for them!








Saying goodbye to a dear friend. I will miss her so much!


 Our second attempt at Christmas pics - just in case...