Thanksgiving 2011

Hope ya'll had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had our 4th annual Thanksgiving with the Yorks. It's pretty nice having your friends live two doors down from you. Although we could just walk we had to take the car to transport the food. It was sunny and near 70 here on Thanksgiving - a beautiful day! Below are numerous pictures of Jerry & Angela's cats - especially Priscilla since I so seldom can catch her out of her little cave that she likes to hide in.

Cali enjoying some turkey!

Jerry waiting for the football game.

Angela & Melinda enjoying some rounds of Banagrams - Angela's new favorite game! :-)

Happy Thanksgiving from Mark & Melinda!

Preparing for a Winter Crop

This past week the field across from our house was being tilled up and presumably prepared for a winter crop. I'm just hoping that the field won't be completely green with a crop at Christmas-time, which happened one previous year. Just kind of seemed wrong somehow. I can handle no snow but not lush, green, growing vegetation!

Autumn at The City of Light

The City of Light is the name of the campus where I work at INSP. The trees are quite beautiful in the autumn all around the campus so I quickly snapped some pictures one morning last week. The first picture is taken at ground level by the reflection pool and the other two photos are taken from the fourth floor balcony near my desk.

Bikers with Boxes

This is a neat video featuring bikers packing shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. The biker putting his vest on right towards the beginning is the husband of my coworker, Karen. Their bike is also the one where you see a quick glimpse of the face of Christ on a bike. Just thought I'd share.

Weekend with Gabriel

Our favorite little man, Gabriel, came to visit us this weekend. Here are a few pictures of his stay, with his biggest fan, Major, prominent in many of them. Molly was content on the sidelines.

The weekend ended with Gabriel's parents, Glen & Emily, coming over for a bonfire, as well as our neighbors, the Malinowskis. This is the first bonfire we have ever had and we initiated our new firepit. It was awesome! I told Mark it was the first time I had ever "managed" the making of smores. For some reason I got a real thrill out of that. :-) Enjoy the pics.

Pumpkins & Pansies

Some pictures of this year's fall decorations and plantings.

Trapped on Their Backs

South Carolina Foliage

This is a picture my friend, Jessica, took this past week while she was 4-wheeling with her husband just a little south of us. Fall is beautiful in South Carolina as well! The colors are supposed to be better than normal this year is what I've heard. Many trees have started to turn.

Below are pictures of my coworker, Ryen, with his wife Quan and baby boy, Josiah. I thought they were so beautiful that I wanted to post them so I wouldn't lose track of them. Unfortunately, from what Ryen sent me this is as big as they get without getting blurry.

Rainbow at INSP

I took this picture with my cell phone(which is why it's so tiny) as I was leaving work in early August. There was actually a double rainbow but this was my favorite picture because of the prominence of the cross. This cross was erected at the back of the INSP property.

Baby Lizard

Check out this little guy. I don't much like most reptiles but we have a lot of these lizards around in the summer and for some reason I like them. This is definitely a baby. He's small, only about two inches long in his body, and he stayed in one place long enough for me to run in for the camera and come back out. Usually the adults move so fast you would never have time to snap three pictures. Also, he's bright green whereas the adults usually change colors to fit in more with their surroundings. I think he's cute!