Whew. Great extended weekend. Thanksgiving was wonderful. We spent the morning lounging around our home, watching the parade and spending time together. We also made some food, which, around three, we took over to a friend’s home, where we enjoyed a very big meal together. I am thankful we were able to go, because the girls weren’t feeling too hot. Wednesday night Geneva woke up around 3ish and felt very warm. I didn’t take her temperature at the time, but when she got up in the morning she still felt warm. She didn’t have a fever (according to the thermometer), but she has had a runny nose and didn’t appear to feel very well. Our friend said that they weren’t about to cancel because of a bit of a cold (which is what I suspected she had), and so we went over and Geneva (along with Ashley and the rest of us) had a splendid time. We left a bit earlier than we wanted, though, because Geneva started to feeling down again. Still, we were there well into the evening, and enjoyed the hospitality shown to us.

Friday was Ashely’s birthday. Happy Birthday to Ashley! She is now two years old. Crazy how time flies. She had a CareBear birthday. One present is what she now calls her bike. It plays a song. We all now know the song by heart. Part of me is just waiting for the batteries to die.

Saturday we got our Christmas tree, and decorated it. It is a glorious thing… very beautiful. And big! It’s funny how Christmas trees always seem to grow so much on the trip home, isn’t it? We actually had to trim off quite a bit from the top in order for the star to keep from hitting the ceiling. And we have 9′ ceilings! The girls helped us put the decorations on, and it was a deight to see them enjoying themselves by celebrating Christmas.

Yesterday, we celebrated the Lord’s Supper, which is always a great blessing, and worth noting on here. We didn’t have anyone over for dinner, but did have some friends over for dessert in the evening. We shared a nice bottle of wine, ate leftover Thanksgiving desserts, and talked – I’m just now noticing – about the future and the past. Our conversation (at least, the gentlemen’s conversation) was about eschatology and history.

After they went home, we had The First Annual Okimoto Family Advent Worship. It was pure delight. The girls behaved wonderfully… much better than I had expected. I think the candle was something that they were able to really get excited about, whereas our ‘ordinary’ worship doesn’t have a ‘fun’ element like that. We’ll have to try to encorporate something like that into ordinary time. Anyhow…

Our advent wreath is just beautiful. Megan came through big time on that. We ended up buying some of that wetfoam stuff, and using clipping from the holly bushes in front of our house, together with a few fake berries. It looks beautiful, really. I’m very happy with it… I want people to come over so I can show off my wife’s handiwork. I’ll put pictures up soon.

So, that gets you all up to speed.