J&J Life - Christmas Edition

Countdown With J&J

7 days til' 2010

31 days til' Justin's Birthday

6 months til' we move from Monterey!!!

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Family Updates

Justin - finished another quarter of grad school and is officialy 75% through... if you discount that pesky little thing known as a thesis.  Justin is never without a project and he started his 3 week Christmas break by building a Gingerbread Cathedral (pictures below)... and no, it wasn't a kit.  He designed, baked and built it from scratch!

Jen - is so ready to get all the pine needles out of the house!  The Christmas tree is likely enjoying it's last day in the house.  She's also been enjoying all the Christmas movies showing this time of year :)

Blue & Angel - have been enjoying chewing on the Christmas tree, playing with the ornaments/ribbons and playing hide and seek in the presents.  They made the cutest Santa and Reindeer (see pictures below)... although they can get a little temperamental.

News

No news to report... but we're hoping and praying that next week we'll be able to share the news that God has finally answered our prayers and Jen's pregnancy hormone levels have finally gone to zero.  We'll know come Tuesday.

What's Been Happening the Past 3 Weeks...
Justin has had the past 2 weeks off from school and our vacation started with a visit from his parents.  Their visit was fairly uneventful but we did drive down to Hearst Castle which was quite interesting.  It was great to spend time with them and we even had nice weather!

Last Christmas was spent on the road.  I think we drove close to 3,000 miles in less than 2 weeks!  We spent a week in Sacramento with my family (with 2 trips to Lake Tahoe), came home on Christmas Eve and left the day after Christmas way too early for the drive to Phoenix (about 14 hours).  All that to say, we were exhausted and decided that this year we would not be traveling.  We spent a quiet Christmas at home which was wonderful.  Our church held Christmas Eve service and afterwards we were planning on heading over to Candy Cane Lane to see the Christmas lights.  Candy Cane Lane is actually a series of streets that are all decorated for the holidays.  Some friends from church live there and offered to let us park in the driveway.  When we got to their house they hurried us in for Christmas Eve dinner!  Wow!  We were thinking the mozzarella sticks we had eaten earlier were going to be our dinner!  We enjoyed a wonderful evening of friendship and lights which was such a blessing. 

Christmas was spent at home but we did go over to our neighbor's house for lunch.  K&M are from Texas (which is probably one of the reasons we like them so much) and have become good friends this past year.  They also have 3 precious little girls and we loved getting to spend sometime around children on Christmas Day.  Justin and I were to bring desert... and when it comes to choosing a desert in our house, you would think you were listening to a UN Security Counsel meeting!!!  I love to bake and

Justin being the gourmet chef... well, you can see where the problem can come in ;)  As we were trying to decide on a desert I was thinking back to my childhood and then it came to me... a Buche de Noel!!!  These are also known as Yule Logs and are a French desert that was tradition when I was growing up in New Orleans.  For our first attempt, I was very pleased with the result! 

And so that brings us to today, the day after Christmas.  No shopping for us but I do think the Christmas tree will be served an eviction notice :)  We hope you've had a wonderful Christmas celebrating Jesus!