my new oven

Aaron gave me the best early Christmas present I could have asked for...a brand new, full-sized oven! We couldn't have had Thanksgiving turkey (or dressing, or sweet potato casserole...) without it.

Thanksgiving in the Jing

Thanksgiving at the Yips with the Crawfords :)

Thanksgiving at our house :)

We hosted 17 of our local friends for our Second Annual Thanksgiving Dinner. With the help of our friend, Priscilla, and our Ayi (our Chinese Auntie), it was a success!

aimee's bridal shower!

Two friends from our home group got married in the states in January, so before Aimee left to go home, the other girls and I threw a surprise shower for her. It was so much fun throwing a bridal shower again. We had lots of tasty treats, Aimee was surprised, and fun was had by all!

from sunny california to this?!?

Our first big snow just so happened to fall the day we landed from the US! We got in at 6:00 am that morning, and watched it snow for days after. We have had two more snow falls since then, but I think that may have been the coldest :) What a welcome back to Beijing!

My friend, Katherine, and I outside our apartment...have we lived in China just a little too long?

The view from our apartment

our anniversary

We ended our US trip in California at a conference, and since our anniversary fell on one of our last few days there, we ended up celebrating once we got back to Beijing. We had no reason to complain because we did get an afternoon at the Santa Monica Pier out of it :)