//This Week in Pictures//

  Last weekend was our church's Live Animal Christmas Play.  As I'm sure you've figured out by now, our whole family is very involved in that.  We love every minute of it, and it pretty much consumed our lives for quite a while (recordings started in November, followed by rehearsals, planning, memorizing lines, costume making, preparations for all our jobs/parts, and then six showings over the weekend).  Sunday evening it was all over, and we began several days of a slower-than-usual pace of life.  We had long been anticipating the first-ever visit of the Wilson family to Iowa, and what a marvelous time it was!  We didn't spend almost a week with these people without getting any photos, so we thought we'd share some on the blog.

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Here is the Wilson family in concert.  We so enjoyed our first time hearing them on stage.

Monday morning we had a leisurely brunch.  Our friends, the Rabers, were in the area, and we were thrilled to spend a little time with them.  We had a wonderful time reading the Word, singing together, and hearing several songs from Amos & Margaret Raber and a few by the Wilsons.

Dinnertime

The boys did some "physical feats" one afternoon.  Here are all the brothers (excluding two youngest) in a giant pyramid.

Four-man push-ups.

Chels and Lana

The Wilsons used to be involved in dairying, so some of them wanted to help milk our cows.  Lana definitely knew what she was doing.:)

It took all the guys to hold up the big suitcase.:)  Here's the deal: Mr. Wilson told his family that instead of bringing multiple bags/suitcases each, they should each just bring one big suitcase.  Well, someone (perhaps about the second daughter in the Wilson family?) took him literally, and after the story was told in elaborated details, we all laughed long and hard when "the suitcase" was finally brought up.  It wasn't even that big, but it was a huge joke all week.:)

storytime

making deer jerky

It is super fun to have one of the World's-best-cooks come to your house for the week.  Lana was constantly helping in the kitchen, and we had so much cooking together and and "talking food".:)    

We had to play "Church" (an all-time-favorite game our families created while at the Wilson's house last winter.  It's a spin-off of Mafia- super fun).

Another favorite game of the week was Take One.

We had fun teaching the Wilsons how to play Swat.  

A game of Spoons

Denver and Jonah cooked up some pigeon.:)

Allie, Chels, Lana, and I enjoyed a lovely afternoon coffee shop excursion.  

Here's Lana, blessing us with her creative genius!  

Some of the boys with their instruments.

And then there are so many good times we didn't capture in photos: encouraging discussions at the dinner table, work projects, late night talks, etc.  We were refreshed and reminded what a blessing it is to have friends who encourage and challenge us in the Lord!

"And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works"

Hebrews 10:24

{posted by Allison}

//This Week in Pictures//
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