A Christmas Miracle...

We found good Mexican food in North Carolina! Hallelujah! We went to a place tonight called La Paz and it was fantastic! $2 margaritas!

This is me pointing to a tamale. It is a tradition in both of our families to eat tamales at Christmas and there is NO place to find tamales here in Charlotte. We found this place that wanted to charge us $33 for a dozen! We said no thanks so I ordered one tonight...very different from Texas tamales, but still delicious.

Henry got fajitas...yum!

We had fun....we'll definitely go back when we need some decent Mexican food to tide us over until we can get back to the best Tex Mex food which can only be found in Texas!

Love to you all, Emily and Henry

Finally......a new post!

We have been VERY busy, so sorry it has been so long with no update. We made a trip to Asheville the weekend after Thanksgiving to see one of our favorite musicians....David LaMotte. He is moving to Australia so this was a farewell concert, for a while anyway. Henry wanted you all to know that someone thought this was such a great picture that they stole it off facebook and put it on their own facebook page. Or something like that. I got confused.

While we were there, we happened to run into (and meet for the first time) Henry's second cousins - Michael and Sarah Montgomery so we sat together. It was a LOT of fun!

Last weekend, we had friends come in from Colorado and Pittsburgh. The girls ran a 5K on Saturday morning and we had a good time hanging out. Caitlin stayed one extra night so we made Christmas candy. Caitlin is in seminary in Pittsburgh and was my co-chaplain last summer at camp.  It was fun and the candy turned out great. We made cherry, strawberry, wintermint, cinnamon, peppermint, buttered rum and lemon. All delicious!

We also popped some crackers after a yummy dinner.

Candy making in progress...

The final product....fun, easy and delicious!

Here is a shot of Leo. The cats have really enjoyed the cold weather and have been extra cuddly. 

And an update on the Christmas decorations... thanks for all the nice comments. We now have presents (way too many) and some beautiful stockings (thank you to our mothers!) 

Peace and love to you this Christmas! Love, Emily and Henry

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Well, we had a very relaxing Thanksgiving yesterday and I hope that all of you did as well. We decided to get a jump start on Christmas decorating so we went to the Christmas tree lot....(a first for me)... and picked out our very first tree. It was a lot of fun. I even splurged and got a wreath for the front door. Now you all have to come visit! It looks great! Peace, Emily

There are lights on the tree...it is hard to see them in the picture. Dad, they are LED lights! 

Mom, notice the manger set and Crismon tree...both from you.

The cats were very curious...

Josie kept smelling it.

So Leo decided to take a whiff himself...

The lovely wreath...

A better view of the door...dents and all....

Happy Thanksgiving!

We know...it is a day early, but we moved Thanksgiving up this year. Andrew came to visit us from Minneapolis, MN and he has to leave early tomorrow morning (Thanksgiving Day) so that he can get home to make a flight to Australia for work. While I was at the office today, the boys spent all day in the kitchen cooking a fantastic meal: turkey legs with homegrown basil-olive oil-salt and pepper, pork shoulder roast cooked in cider-stock-carrots-onions-celery, mashed potatoes with rutabaga, Orange Mash (sweet potato spoon bread), green bean casserole, dressing (with rye and pumpernickel, bacon, onion and bourbon) and for dessert....homemade pecan pie with cream and bourbon on top. DELICIOUS! The orange mash and rutabaga potatoes are Owen family traditions. The rest of the recipes came from allrecipes.com which is a great recipe site! If you are reading this, then I feel certain that we are thankful for you and wish you a very happy thanksgiving! Peace, Emily

The Owen brothers proud of their successful day of cooking!

Getting ready to share a fantastic meal together...

A close up of the table....

This is a picture of some of the leaves as they were changing in October/early November. Pictures simply can't capture how beautiful it was...

Sorry so long...

So....it has been a while. Things are REALLY picking up at church and life is busy!!!! Installation went very well and was a lot of fun. Lots of family was able to come in for the big event. Here is a picture of me with Collier at the reception. More to come soon! Peace, Emily

Ordination Photos...

Thanks to my fabulous Aunt Sherry and Uncle Tom, I have a picture from ordination to share with you all. (Thank you for sending the photo CD, Aunt Sherry and Uncle Tom!)

Enjoy! Peace, Emily

Pumkins, Garden, Compost and Meat!

We carved a pumpkin. I guess I thought it was gross...hence the face. It was fun, though!

The final product....we got a compliment from one of our TWO trick or treaters!

A garden update...it is doing well. We don't have sugar snap peas, broccoli or cabbage quite yet, but the lettuce and spinach are doing great.

If only the weeds would stop growing!

And...a compost update! Now that halloween is over, our jack-o-lantern will become compost. You can see our collection is growing and Henry has been busy collecting leaves that people bag up. We also go to Starbucks regularly to get spent coffee grounds. Tuesday he is going to a vermiculture class to learn more about worm composting. We'll keep you updated on that.

We added some good compost to our garden today after we weeded. The stuff that is closest to be "done" is on the left. The other two were just started.

I sleep a lot on my days off. Two hour nap yesterday and THREE hour nap today. The cats love it.

And finally....we bought some beef from a local farm that raises grass-fed cows. We went out to the farm to pick it up and made burgers last night. DELICIOUS! Today we bought some pork from a local pig farmer, so we should be set on meat for quite a while!

We hope you are all doing well. Keep in touch! Love, Em and Henry