An Invitation

Hey you! Yes, you!
C'mere...


Wanna come to my house for Thanksgiving?

Lots of other cool people came!
See? Grant Kropf! He's the coolest!

Oh yeah, and his mommy.
And the Murrays!
And LeAnn Popeko! She's so nice!

Gary starts things off

You all wish you had a neighbor like our friend Gary. Why? Because he joined us for Thanksgiving dinner and supplied us with some fabulous hor devours! He cooked them all in his own kitchen and delivered them ready-to-eat. Here he is on his way to our apartment.
And here with some of the finished project. Hot crab dip, spinach dip in a sourdough bowl, crab-stuffed mushrooms, and the BEST- bacon wrapped dates. AMAZING!
Addie and Greg enjoyed their munchies.
Addie especially liked the spinach dip and bread.




Thanks Gary for the treats!

(And yes ladies, he's available)

Partners in Brine

When Greg and I were dating and even first married, I don't think I would have ever guessed that one day he would be so enthusiastic about food with me. Sure, maybe eating it, but not making it!!! Well, it is a great joy to have my husband get excited with me about the cooking method of the Thanksgiving turkey.

We decided to brine our turkey for the first time this year and we were NOT dissapointed. Now, some of you food snobs out there are scoffing at me, because you've been brining for years... but put up with me, and rejoice that I have finally discovered the joy of the brine. There are also a few of you probably saying "brine?" "what is that?" And I will fight off the temptation to sound like a food nerd and simply tell you it is a salt solution you soak the bird in that makes the meat more juicy. And that it is a goooooood thing.

Here is our bird bucket. The turkey soaked in it's deluxe container on our porch overnight.
Greg pops the raw baby into the oven.
And viola! Who looks better? The bird or my husband? I will let you draw your own conclusion.

Thanksgiving Pt.6

Our decorations, leftovers from the Fall Fellowship decorations at church
Our table, all set up pretty. I was so excited to use our china and silver!
Here's the gang- ready for feasting! Notice that Timmy the cat tried to take my seat when I got up to take the picture.
Here, Chris reads Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation after our meal. If you've never read this, it is a wonderful and God honoring statement to the nation calling for a day to thank God for all His blessings. A great reminder of the origins of Thanksgiving and the real purpose. You can find it online, but it is also printed in a great book put out by Family Life Today called "A Thanksgiving to Remember." It was a great way to end our meal, along with a time of sharing what we are thankful for.


Greg and I mentioned that this year we are expecially thankful for the adversity of Addie's health and the way God has used it to grow us and demonstrate his love for us. We are also thankful for the book we read this spring: "Money, Possessions, and Eternity" by Randy Alcorn. It changed the way we look at so many of our choices and the pull toward materialism that we face, especially in Southern California. We have been spurred on to look forward to our eternal home in heaven- one more thing we are thankful for!

Thanksgiving Pt. 8

Addie has a little after-dinner drink
Seriously, she picked an empty bottle up off the kitchen floor and decided to see if there was anything left in there. Funny girl.
This is my ideal way to spend an afternoon: eat really good food and then tell stories to a polite listening audience. Niki's story telling went on for a reaalllllyy long time...
But see? Don't they look like they're enjoying it? They kept asking questions and kept me going!

Cute Kids

A few pics of Grant and Addie from the Spangler-Kropf photo shoot this afternoon.

A sneak peak of the Christmas card to come.


Grant & Addie explore the garden at the Hyatt.

I can FLY!

Here's a shot taken this afternoon at the hotel (Greg's workplace, the Hyatt Valencia), after we got done taking our family Christmas picture.

Yes, she is THAT high.

Here to Stay

This week has, up to this point, been taken up with dealing full-time with Addie's health. Not my first choice in how to spend my week, but that's just how it goes.

We saw Addie's GI doctor on Monday for a check-up on the reflux situation. He confirmed what we already suspected, which is that Addie's reflux will probably not go away in time like we had all once hoped. To put it another way: She's not going to outgrow it. Surprisingly, this wasn't some huge dissapointing revelation, because like I'd said, we kinda had suspected this. Thankfully, Addie's dr has prepared us all along by giving us statistics instead of promises (as in, "98 percent of kids will outgrow this by a year"). So we have a kid that falls into those little leftover percentages, and we arent' surprised. Somehow, though it's hard to explain, that just fits who Addie is. She is NOT normal, but in the most fabulous ways!

The other reasons we aren't too bothered by this are:
#1- God has been with us, and promises to be with us, each step of this path. There will probably be many more times in the future of bad sleep, of a simple cold turning into a big deal, etc., but He got us through so much already, how can we doubt He will continue to give us the strength for each day?
#2- God is using this to improve Greg and I's character in some really important ways. For instance, I am not known to be the most patient person, so a long-term challenge is extra hard for me. But God has already taught me so much about patience through this, I can see the good in it! I needed it!
#3- God has a unique plan for our family, and if this is part of it, then it is GOOD. Why? Because God is good. His plans are good. His purposes for us are good. We can trust Him.
So we're just gonna keep chugging along, one bit at a time. Actually, we are going to give thanks for it, because God tells us to "Give thanks in all circumstances."

The future for Addie and reflux looks like this: we will try to wean her off the meds one more time, even though none of us (dr included) think it will work. But to be thorough, it's a good thing to do. To do this, we have to wait until she's "healthy", so we might be waiting until.... January? :)

Once we try the wean and it fails, we schedule an endoscopy, which is an out-patient procedure where they look down Addie's GI system, to check for damage to her esophogus, which can happen with long-term reflux. It shouldn't be a huge deal, but I'm not really looking forward to it. It involves Addie being knocked out, so it's not easy, but thankfully it's not a risky or scary procedure.

Now, after the doctor appointment on Monday, when we talked through all this, Addie came down with a rotten cold and only slept 3 hours that night. So Tuesday was spent trying to survive through the day (all of us) and get back into our wonderful bed as soon as possible! So far Wednesday is going nicely though, in case you're interested. I am so thankful that God didn't allow Addie to get sick before this! The last two weeks have been packed full of outside activities and commitments and things are finally quiet on the home front, so we actually have the time to be home and recover, and not ditch out on important stuff.

Whew! Didn't mean to be so wordy! Just thought I would catch you all up. Due to the cold and lack of good sleep, it may be awhile before the next post. Be patient with me! :)

OK, A Few More

I wanted to put a lighter and more close-up version of the previous picture.
And this picture from the foyer

Fall Fellowship Decorations

I know, you've all been DYING to see the decorations from the Fall Fellowship at church. I had a lot of fun and a lot of help, and here's the finished project.

The front table and flower arrangement
on the piano
stage right
stage left

Fall Fellowship Tables

So at this glorious event of fall festivity, each table is hostessed by a different woman from our church. That woman provides the plates, silverware, and DECORATIONS for the table.
I was priveledged to sit up front at this beautiful table.
Guess who hostessed it?

Brooke!

(I'm sure we had the most fun at our table- what a great group of ladies to spend time with!)
Here is my friend Ashley's table. Very nice!
And another gorgeous table hostessed by Lisa Anderson.

Greg in Action

So Greg was the "sound guy" for the ladies fall fellowship this year. Notice that it's the LADIES fall fellowship. That means Greg was the only man in a room full of a hundred women. So of course he did his sound stuff...
But he also got commissioned to change the water jug in the water cooler, and other manly duties.


Yeah Greg! Way to represent your gender!

More Lombardies before and after

Here is a picture I took when we visited before the fire...
Here is the same hillside now. You can see how the fire came right down the hill.
Here is the petting zoo area now.
And here is the strangest part to me. The entire field of sunflowers is fine except for one big area right in front (sorry it's hard to see through the fence that was put up). My best guess is that an ember flew in there and started to burn it, and they put out that spot before they all caught fire.