holiday festivities

merry christmas and happy new year! daniel and i just experienced the most wonderful and peaceful holiday and we hope that you and your family did as well. daniel took about 10 days off and faces the "back to work blues" tomorrow. i, fortunately, still have one more week of relaxation and staying in my pj's with no make-up till noon--i promised i wouldn't rub it in his face too much.

we had a great christmas eve service at watershed, our church, and then daniel's parents, brother and aunt and uncle came over to our condo for christmas eve dinner. it was fun. and our friend, justin, joined us too! christmas morning was great as we woke up and had the morning to ourselves, our first christmas together! we then went to daniel's parents house here in town for presents, lunch....we were there pretty much all day playing games that we had gotten for christmas. daniel's niece, emma, had a wonderful first christmas as well. it was a wonderful christmas and couldn't have imagined it to be any better.

anna and daniel

anna and her "auntie"

baby bella celebrating her first christmas season

we left for virginia the next day. we had a huge dinner with my mom on wednesday night, then had a huge dinner at my dad and stepmom's house on thursday and then on friday we had a nice dinner as my mom and her fiance exchanged vows. it was so nice being with all my brothers and of course seeing the family. my nieces are getting big too! it is so fun watching the babies enjoying their presents. anna is starting to understand santa (ho ho ho as she call him). anna liked to pretend that she was reading the labels on the boxes and giving them to whomever she deemed was worthy of the present that was in her hand.

here are some of the sudanese guys as we sang "happy birthday" before blowing out the candles on the cake

our friends: jacob and james

we came back to charlotte on saturday evening. sunday we slept in and rested and baked. sunday afternoon we had a birthday party for our new sudanese friends. you might have remembered that we had the "Charlotte Torch Rally" at the beginning of the month to help raise awareness and money for the "lost boys" of sudan that have taken refuge here in charlotte. there are about 40+ "lost boys" here in charlotte, most of them are married and about 12 of them are single guys that are full-time students studying at UNC Charlotte. when they were filling out paperwork to come to the US most of them did not know their actual birthday so they use january 1st as their official birthday. so we threw them a birthday party this year at scott and taryn's house. it was so much fun and about 10 of them came. we had food and cake/ice cream. our church, watershed, provided gift cards for their gifts. we watched (and cried) the video that was made from the "Charlotte Torch Rally". we then realized that the guys LOVE to play dominos. as the game continued the slamming of the domino squares got louder and the clicks and rattle of their Dinka language got even louder!! it was by far the most intense game of dominos that we have ever seen!

the girls--getting ready to ring in the new year!

all the boys on new years eve!


kayla and jamie on new years eve!

new years eve was fun too. its always a good time when our friends are all together. 2008 promises to be a great year! i am so excited to see all that God is going to do and how He is going to use daniel and i. we thank Him for how 2007 happened....2007 will truly be a year that will never be forgotten!