We had to get ice cream after dinner. This is where we had dessert on our first date (except that time we were in Cary). Double Dark Chocolate with cookie dough and extra chocolate chips on a chocolate dipped waffle cone...MmMmM. We walked around the mall for a little while and saw a professor that we both had at State, so we stopped to talk with him. Alright, group!
We went out to eat at the Olive Garden (our favorite that we miss a lot!), and then went to Triangle Town Center for the ice cream. This elaborate tree was a perfect picture stop. It was a special date!

We followed the tradition of eating the top layer of the wedding cake. Actually, we only took a couple of bites. It was a beautiful cake!

We are a happy anniversary couple!

Peepaw, thanks for letting us stay in your home over the weekend!

As always, the table where we broke bread was beautifully decorated. At each place was a handmade angel or an electronic gadget (women and men, respectively). The meal was extravagant!

Grandma Carolyn outdid herself for this lunch. She is a great hostess. It was good to see you again!

No Elvis this time, but mom did entertain us with her Christmas carol-playing skills.

This is our group. We were glad to have everyone there...only missing an awesome uncle that we think about daily!

We had an addition to the Flores family Christmas party this year...Hannah Marie. She is the daughter of my cousin Lucas and his wife Victoria. A beautiful baby! (see Thanksgiving 2005 post for the before and after)

Cold chillin'

I saw Joey again on the side of a bus last week at Wal-Mart. Tell me that this doesn't look like him...
We saw this same bus last summer at a July 4th party on the Marine Base. I called Joey to ask if he had ever posed for something like that, because from a distance where we were sitting I knew that it was him. Here he is again!

My students made Christmas ornaments to hang on the tree in the Middle School rotunda. On the ornament they wrote how to say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy New Year" in their language. From top left to bottom right: English, Gujarati, Spanish, Urdu, Hindi, Urdu, Korean, and Spanish. We had a good time learning about American culture last week.

We are coming home today! Leaving around 1 pm...see you soon! Pray for our safety on the road, please.

Gary and Beth came to the house tonight for dinner. This is a couple that we knew from Raleigh- they work with Interstate Batteries here in Albany. We really enjoy their company. We had a great menu and it all turned out okay. Aaron took care of the meat- he grilled shish kabobs. I made this neat dessert Christmas tree. I can't take credit, though...I got the idea from a Southern Living catalog. Use a styrofoam cone and wrap saran-wrap around it. Put toothpicks in donut holes and stick them in the cone, starting at the bottom. It's prettier if you use white powered donut holes, but Wal-Mart didn't have any! After you finish the tree, drizzle heated chocolate over it (almond bark- it hardens when it cools). Very fun to make and eat!

Some Megachurches to Close on Christmas
Wednesday, December 07, 2005

WASHINGTON — This Christmas, no prayers will be said in several megachurches around the country. Even though the holiday falls this year on a Sunday, when churches normally host thousands for worship, pastors are canceling services, anticipating low attendance on what they call a family day.

Critics within the evangelical community, more accustomed to doing battle with department stores and public schools over keeping religion in Christmas, are stunned by the shutdown.
It is almost unheard of for a Christian church to cancel services on a Sunday, and opponents of the closures are accusing these congregations of bowing to secular culture.

"This is a consumer mentality at work: 'Let's not impose the church on people. Let's not make church in any way inconvenient,'" said David Wells, professor of history and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical school in Hamilton, Mass. "I think what this does is feed into the individualism that is found throughout American culture, where everyone does their own thing."

read the entire article here and see both sides of the story http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,177908,00.html

I was just moved into my own room at the Middle School. This means there is more space to make look nice! Ahhh! These are some of the interesting facts I have posted on my bulletin board.


I put up a word wall for winter words and Christmas words (winter on snowmen, Christmas on stockings). This is Ahsan, one of my 6th grade students.

Mom, I laminated the worlds that you sent me to use on the bulletin boards. It turned out great. Even though ESOL stands for English for Speakers of Other Languages, in my room they are Excellent Students of LCMS.

On top of our bookshelf in the living room. This was one of our Hawaii honeymoon Christmas trees last year.
This gorgeous serving tray was a wedding gift from my advisor at NC State, Diane Adler. I am using it for decoration in the kitchen until I'm able to use it for special holiday guests!
O, the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free! Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me, Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love; leading onward, leading homeward to my glorious rest above.
O Come All Ye Faithful, a hymn sung at our wedding last year, is the "centerpiece" of our Christmas mantle.
My husband is an artist...I gave him the wreaths and he spotlighted them! This is the extent of our exterior decorations- we like it simple and classy. It is a lot brighter in person...again, come see!

I used my new skill to make a tree-topper bow for our first Christmas tree.
How lovely are your branches! Thanks to Grandma for donating the tree to the newbie Christmas couple. It looks much more beautiful in real life, I promise. Come see it!

Yesterday Marcela showed me how to make bows (a lady at Michaels had shown her). I practiced a lot...I made about 6 bows for 6 different wreaths, and then one large bow for a tree-topper. It was fun! I was really proud of myself. Here is an example... our front door wreath. More Christmas decoration pictures to come...we are almost finished with the tree and the mantle. Aaron is working on the outside decorations right now.
Can you believe Lisa Flores Fernandez made this?

setting it all up... we went over to the Wingate in the afternoon to get it all ready. Virginia (office coordinator) had a lot of decorations to make the room look nice. We had to get this Christmas tree together at the last minute because the story is that when we moved here in April, Aaron tossed their previous tree and ornaments in the trash because it was in the way. Needless to say he was teased a little bit yesterday about that. There are about 30 gifts set up beside the tree. A lot of Aaron's vendors donated gifts, and he also went out and got some so that every driver would get something. One driver got a huge flat screen TV and another got a nice stereo.





Virginia and Mike (operations manager) came in the afternoon to help set up.
The theme was "Garbage Grammys." Each driver received a trophy for a special award...for example, cleanest truck, early bird, yes sir drill sergeant, etc. Aaron made a power point presentation to go along with the awards that had pictures of the guys as they were mentioned. It was really great- I was so proud of Aaron because he made sure to recognize each guy for their work, and I could tell he had put a lot of time into getting it together.

Aaron's boss came down from Atlanta to join us. He brought a message from the President Jim Perry to read for the employees. He has invited me and Aaron to his home in Atlanta next Saturday for the South Division party. His name is Mike Ingle.
Most of the drivers brought their wives or girlfriends as guests. There was a good turnout. Only 3 or 4 didn't show.

It was a good one! Scroll down (it's long) to see what we did for this year's Thanksgiving. I tried to get it in the order of when we did everything. Make comments at your discretion! We had a great time with everyone we hung out with, and were sorry to miss seeing some of you. We hope yours was as fun and as entertaining as ours!

Grandma treated us to a nice breakfast around 10 a.m. It was hard for me and Aaron to resist so we ate a lot despite the fact that we had to save room for the two other turkey meals that day.

Maybe Marie and I were the only ones who had had a shower by this point :)