Enjoying the Season!!

It's almost Christmas!!! We've had so much fun getting ready for our first Christmas together and are so excited we can hardly stand it! We have a beautiful 8.5' tree that we bought December 1st. Even having it on a stand with a pretty angel on top, it doesn't quite touch our ceiling! It's so lovely. We feel really lucky being able to have a real tree. It smells so nice...

We got a package from Paul's mother after Halloween with some ornaments from Paul's childhood and some that she threw in for us just to round things out. It was a very thoughtful gift and we had a lot of fun putting the familiar decorations on our own tree.

Paul strung white lights all around our front window and put them on a timer so they come on every evening and go off at night. It's really fun to come home to our lights shining in our window.

Since we'll soon be losing our friends Mike and Crystal Weber to the enticements of Corporate Kohl's in Wisconsin and student teaching for Crystal, we thought it would be appropriate to have them over for an evening before they leave. We made gingerbread houses.

We had so much fun watching them creating their cozy interior, complete with Christmas tree, fireplace and stockings (it was adorable). Then watching as their roof collapsed and was reconstructed again and again. ;-) We had the advantage of finishing ours the next day, so it was a little more secure (Paul's experience in building did help some too...). We left it with my family to enjoy.

I have no words to describe the way I feel after reading the following about water from charity:water.org

Almost 1 billion people in the world suffer from the lack of clean drinking water

That's one in eight people on this planet

According to the organization's website,

"unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school. Additionally, collecting water puts them at greater risk of sexual harassment and assault. Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water. Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old" (emphasis added). Click here for link.

I am grateful for pure water.

We've started our own campaign.

You can click here to donate.

Or you can wear your donation by checking out these cool shirts!

Snow!!!

We were sooooo excited to wake up to snow the other day. What a beautiful surprise! Here are a couple of pictures we took of our view.