M-E-R-RY C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S

Wishing everyone a blessed Christmas filled with joy and peace.

We are thinking about all of you today and missing home but enjoying our first married Christmas together in California.

Many lovely gifts were opened and there were lots of surprises. Santa even remembered Marty.

Our good friend Matt will be joining us for a Christmas dinner feast consisting of some new recipes.

-Pistachio-crusted lamb chops

-Cranberry, pomegranate, & meyer lemon relish

-Gorgonzola scalloped potatoes

-Carmelized-apple & pecan pie

Joy to the world, the Lord has come!

Oh Christmas Tree

Saturday November 30th we ventured out in search of the perfect Christmas Tree. Charlie Brown was our inspiration due to the small nature of our appartment. We had hoped to purchase a living tree and plant it somewhere after the holiday, but we were unsuccessful in our search. Instead of the usual fields lined with trees ready to be cut down we found a Christmas Tree Circus Tent in "candy-cane alley".

We found a beautiful Noble Fir standing 4.5 feet tall.


Camerin has been collecting ornaments and trimmings for a few months now at local thrift stores and garage sales. We set out all of her findings and determined that the tree would kindof have a red and white theme. The theme was really realized when we found our star-topper (it glows from some of the lights below).


Although the tree is only 4.5 feet tall we had trouble determining how many lights it would need and ended up having to take a second trip to the store to buy lights.
We also found some great plaid fabric at our local craft store for our tree-skirt.

Marty was also very helpful during the tree trimming process!