Christmas with the Halvorsen Family!

Yeah! I survived hosting my first family Christmas--phew--and I'm glad it's over =). No really, it was a lot of fun and we enjoyed having everyone over. The only 'problem' was trying to cook a full chicken for the first time...which did NOT take the prescribed 1 hour and 45 minutes...but rather took almost 3 hours.....can we say late dinner? Poor McKayla was getting pretty tired but she got a second wind and made it through! It was a great time had by all. Check out the pics!!

Andrea, McKayla and Kyle


Justin & Michelle


In other news, after hosting Christmas, we went out to look at some furniture (they had a good sale that ended at 9pm). Good thing we did-because we were able to find new living room furniture! YAY! I'm pretty excited about it and can't wait for the Dec. 28th delivery. I don't think Justin is quite as excited as me...but he'll enjoy it once it arrives. When it gets here and we get everything in its place I'll be sure to post some photos! Merry Christmas to us =)!

We pray you all will have a blessed Christmas and New Year's and will look forward to seeing some of you while in NE! Check back after the holidays for pictures with the Long family and pictures of the new furniture!

Happy Birthday Justin--THE BIG 3-0!!!

Justin with Jennifer and Michael

Many Birthday wishes to my wonderful husband, who I can now call "old man" (JUST KIDDING!). We had a wonderful celebration this weekend, including the big surprise for Justin, his two close friends from Colorado, Michael and Jennifer, flew in to spend the weekend with us. The three of us had been planning their surprise visit since the end of July, so it was fun to finally have them come!!

I picked them up Thursday afternoon at the airport (while I was "working late") and took them to our house where they rang the doorbell and gave Justin quite a surprise =). We estimate it took him a good couple of hours for it all to really sink in. Of course during the weekend, he realized all the subtle clues and realized all the people who had been keeping the secret from him! It was really neat and we had a great time showing them around Austin, San Antonio, and the surrounding small towns. On Sunday, Justin's family joined us and we had a good time watching football and celebrating his birthday. They left yesterday and we're still finding it hard to believe that the time came and went so quickly, but we are so fortunate to have had the long weekend with them (and to have TWO whole days off from work!).

Justin and I all dressed up for his birthday dinner.


My niece, McKayla, and I having fun at the party!

In other news, the semester is quickly winding down and my student teacher is almost done! Only one more day left, which means I'll be back to teaching all day very soon! I'm trying to take advantage of my last few moments with her to get everything ready for the start of next semester. It's hard to believe that Christmas is only two weeks away!!! Only six and a half more school days with students =). (Not that I'm excited for a two week break from them or anything like that!). They're good kids, but I think we're all ready for some time off! We'll be hosting Christmas with Justin's family at our house this coming Saturday, so look for photos of that next week!

Hope you're all doing well and having fun making preparations for a wonderful Christmas!!