Youth Group Craziness and Christmas Trains

Last night we went to the church for the youth group "spy" night. Mostly, we played various games that had a spy twist to them. During the first game, which was basically capture the flag, I got elbowed in the nose. It wasn't pretty, and I spent the rest of the evening hanging out in the kitchen with an ice pack on my face. Luckily, the damage was minimal, and other than a tender face and a small bruise it wasn't too bad. Kyle and I have decided that next time we are going to wear helmets with face masks, since last time his glasses got smashed. Hopefully nothing more will happen of that nature...at least for a while.

The following are some pictures from our trip to Chicago for Thanksgiving. On Friday we went to the Chicago Botanic Gardens to see their train exhibit. The cool part is that all of the buildings are made out of organic matter (like acorns and stuff).

These are just a few of the photos that I took. The buildings were all Chicago landmarks. The little kids were fascinated by all the trains and the "snow" that was falling from the ceiling. It was a much better way to spend Black Friday in my opinion.

Today it snowed! It feels like an actual winter day, which for Virginia's mild winter was a nice change. We put our tree up and enjoyed the opportunity to feel festive. While we were putting up the ornaments, Sphinx started to chew on the nativity set (more specifically the head of a wise man). Needless to say, we had to move the nativity to a cat safe area. Anyhow, here is a picture of our tree this year. I'm hoping that the cats don't manage to knock it over this year...