She's Engaged!

It's official. Lauren and Dan are engaged. We are very excited for them. I knew from the start that they were going to get serious and I tried to prepare Greg along the way. Dan approached Greg last week about his intentions. He answered the hard questions and said all the right things. Greg gave our blessing and Saturday evening Dan proposed much to Lauren's surprise. One of her first questions was, "Did you ask my Dad?!" Dan and Lauren are both sincere about their walk with God, their commitments, and their future. Dan fits into our family as does Lauren with his. We know his family well and he comes from a great Christian heritage. What more could parents ask for their only daughter. Details will be forthcoming - we'll keep in touch.

A Week in the Life of the Trout's

Yes, Micah passed the test and got his temps on Friday. Needless to say, he was excited. We are now entering into one of the final phases of independence. In a few more months, he won't need me to be his chauffer. I'm not too sad about that part. I do spend a lot of my time in the car taking him to all of his practices and social engagements. He does more than Lauren and Nathaniel ever thought to do!

Last week, we woke up to a yard full of turkeys - I guess to celebrate the holiday! It was really cute. We have been forked, TP'd numerous times, Saran wrapped, flamingoed, but this was a first for turkeys in our yard. I know our neighbors think we have weird friends!
This post is a long one simply because I took pictures last week! Our life has always been busy but this past year takes the cake. With Greg's new position comes tons more responsibility and that translates into a lot of work. All these pictures happened in just one week. This by no means shows what all we did because I didn't take pictures of everything. Our calendars are full from morning till night and I just don't have time to update the blog as much as I would like. We love what we do but we are rarely home and when we are, we are catching up on what didn't get done because we weren't home:) This next week, for example, we have to paint our kitchen and family room, finish the cabinets, clean house, cook for 35 people on Sunday, take Micah to all of his practices (every evening this week, all day Saturday, and Sunday afternoon), decorate the church for Christmas before Sunday, go grocery shopping, and decorate our house for Christmas before company comes on Sunday! Next week is worse but I won't bore you with the details!!!! What I wouldn't give for a week at the beach right now. Someday.
This was our 2nd Annual PK Christmas party. From left to right we have Eli, Alanna, Abbi, Jenna, Kenzie, Jessica, and Robby. We had so much fun with them even though our house got a tad messy. Maybe I shouldn't make things in the kitchen with them, but they love it and they think our house is so much fun.
Greg helped Jessica make her snowman ornament. We used paint, sharpies, glass bulbs and a lot of different interpretations of what a snowman looked like! They were hilarious. Have you ever seen a snowman with red cheeks and hair?!
Eli is VERY consciencious. He is the most analytical thinker I know and he doesn't like to get messy or have things out of order. He was born on Greg's birthday.
Abbi looked so cute with her toothless smile. She started kindergarten this year and has grown up so much!
Alanna is learning to read, draw really well, and be the life of the party.
Robby is the oldest at 11 and he is very helpful with the little ones. It is hard to find activities that 6 kids ages 7 and under will want to do that an 11 year old will think is fun but Robby is a good sport. We made chocolate (brown, white, red, and green) covered pretzels decorated with all kinds of sprinkles and candy. Needless to say, some of the candy went into little mouths instead of on the pretzels and some landed on the floor. Okay, maybe more than some! But the creations were yummy.
Kim helped the girls make necklaces. We had beads EVERYWHERE but the girls looked so glamorous!
"Pastor Gweg" helped the little ones a lot while I kept the activities going and the food coming. For little kids, they sure did eat a lot of snacks.
Jessica is a budding 2nd grade artist who loves anything creative and she loves to write stories. She was my helper for the day.
This is Lauren and some co-workers on "Black Friday". They had to be at work sooo early. Alex, the one with the tie, is the owner's son who pitched in and was a big help.
This is Dan's grandfather. We went to the Hergenrather's for Thanksgiving this year since we couldn't travel. It was also Jack's 79th birthday. They have faithfully served Faircreek Church for many years. They make sure we have coffee, doughnuts, and bagels with cream cheese every Sunday morning.
Jack had to show us his one man band instrument and the other man in the picture is Dan's dad, Steve. He was the official emcee for the day. We played games all afternoon and had a blast.
This, of course, is Micah and Dan's mom, Terry. We played Catch Phrase, Trivial Pursuit and Taboo. His family is fun to be with and there was a ton of food to eat. They even fried a turkey just like Marvin!
I kind of got these pictures out of sequence. This is the Chick-fil-A crowd on Thanksgiving Day. They went in for 3 hours to get everything ready for shoppers on Friday. They snuck down to Santa's chair at the mall and took pictures. They were the only ones there so they took advantage of the photo op.
Lauren and Micah still have to break the wishbone from the turkey. Lauren won but she won't tell us what her wish was.
We had Thanksgiving with Kim and Nathaniel on Saturday. They are first time home owners now. They will be moving within the next month. I'll take pictures when we go to paint and help them move in. Nathaniel loves his job and Kim now works at Huntington Bank. Their house is halfway between both jobs and about 25 minutes from here.
The kids dragged out the Foos (not sure of the spelling?!) Ball table from the garage and played it all weekend. Lauren and Micah are the champs. It seems that no one can beat them or wants to try anymore!
Greg and Dan tried, but they lost. Well, this wraps up our latest news. Sorry it was so long, but hopefully it wasn't boring. I really will try to be more faithful with new posts. At least it hasn't been as long as Stacie's last post - hint, hint!