We had a Happy Halloween, as a farmer & a cow. We had a lot of fun at our friend's Halloween Party - Mike & Donis. We also got to bring our friends from Bangledesh to experience an American Halloween Party!
We celebrated Lynn's Grandma Grace's 88th birthday and got to see a lot of her family at the beginning of November. It was wonderful to see everyone - even Aunt Bonnie from Idaho and Cousin Bonita from New York! Here is Grandmas with a lot of her Great-Grandchildren!
Lynn had the chance to speak in our friend's Mark's junior high geography class about Turkey which was great fun!
As if we haven't traveled enough this year, we went to Florida with Dan's parents for a Dairy Conference. We attended a few of the sessions and activites but mostly sat by the pool & read. We also got to go to MGM Studios for a day which was great fun! We even got to see the country band - Heartland.
You've gotta check out these movies... the car chases at MGM were incredible. We were only there for the test run of the Christmas lights (which normally "dance" to the music), but they were still incredible & we were glad we caught them.
Before we left for Florida, we got to see Dan's brother's opening basketball game, (he's #24 in the video below) and an added bonus - our friend Tyler was there. He & Dan had a great time catching up! Since we picked Dan up from work, we got to see one of the houses that Nissen Construction is building!
When we returned we were still on the move! We headed to Iowa City for a conference with some friends, we learned a lot, met some great folks, and reconnected with friends. Saturday night we attended a Couple's Shower for Kate & Brian, who are getting married on December 30th.
After spending the night in Clarksville & having breakfast at Matt & Ashley's, we all headed to the Jensen Thanksgiving - our first of many Thanksgiving meals! Because we left North English, IA and drove to Ames to celebrate Thanksgiving with our Connection Group and some international students.
Our next meal was attempted by Lynn on Tuesday night. We invited our friends Mahbub & Luna, and Andrew & Laura over. Lynn's Turkey didn't thaw in time, so Dan picked up a pre-cooked at Hy-Vee and saved Thanksgiving! It was so wonderful to share the great tradition in America of thanking God for what He's blessed us with our friends from Bangledesh!
We decorated for Christmas before heading up to Clarksville for Thanksgiving! We had a great time in Clarksville. Ashley, Pam, and I took Noah to see Santa Claus. He was certainly uncertain about who Santa was, but it was cute & we had fun. We also went and got the traditional Bolin Christmas tree from the pasture. We celebrated Matt's birthday a week early as well. (Happy Birthday Matt!) Our last Thanksgiving meal was with our friends Jen & Jason and 5 Malaysian students. It was a lot of fun to meet them!
We got to see James play another basketball game and our friends Mahbub & Luna came along - we also got to see the rest of the Bolin family.
This past weekend we headed to MN for Lynn's brother, Nate's 21st birthday! (Happy Birthday Nate!) It was a blast! We had pizza, ice cream cake, opened presents, played "Bang" (one of his favorite games), and watched Ong-Bak Thai Warrior. We also got to be there for the first big snow storm. Dan & Nate helped Dad get the house all boarded up. On Sunday, Lynn went to another shower for Kate.
Look at that snow (and snow man!!) Wow!We're getting more and more snow here in Iowa, so we're looking forward to a WHITE CHRISTMAS, we hope!
