Random

 And finally, just a bunch of random photos...

Election

 Go Trump :-)

Boys and Girls

The boys went one way and the girls another for some father/son and mother/daughter fun. Jared and Jack headed off to Utah for some skiing and Sorenson family. Although Ellie and I miss not getting to see the Sorenson clan, the cold and the snow and the hurtling down mountainsides, not so much.

Ellie and I instead headed to the city - New York City, that is. We saw the Rockettes Christmas spectacular, did a fun bus tour/afternoon tea, went to a Christmas market, and walked up and down (and up and down) Fifth Avenue for some window shopping. Ellie even managed to score a "Louis Vitton" bag from one of the dozen guys we found selling fake purses on the street. 

Our Newest Mountaineer

Everyone, please welcome the newest West Virginia University mountaineer, Miss Ellie Sorenson! Ellie was torn as to what school she wanted to go to, so she applied to 10 of them and submitted her applications early. We've heard back from 8 of them (got in!), but it doesn't matter what they or the remaining 2 say, because Ellie has found her place. She mentioned possibly wanting to go to WVU, so we took a tour a while back, and she loved it. And to be honest, it seems like a really good fit for our Ellie. She won't be as close to us as Jack is (it's hard to beat a half-hour!), but it's actually a pretty drive over to WVU, as long as it's not wintertime.  

And to top it all off, I was able to grab a yummy West Virginia pepperoni roll for the ride home!

Thanksgiving

Both kids were home for Thanksgiving and we had a fun weekend together. We started Thanksgiving morning off with the annual neighborhood 5k walk. Then back home for some charcuterie and Thanksgiving Day parade on the television. We decided to eat out for Thanksgiving dinner which, I won't lie, turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. But we rallied the next morning to go get our Christmas tree and kick off the Christmas season.

Busy Times at Our Savior's Way

We had a pretty busy Fall in our women's ministry at Our Savior's Way Lutheran Church. We had a big Thanksgiving bag drive to support a local food bank, a lovely women's retreat, a successful Fall Bible study, and lots of other fun activities. I'm so grateful they all went off without a hitch, but glad to have a little downtime over the holidays to refuel.