Thanksgiving in Australia!!!

Hello Family,

Well, it is Saturday evening and our Thanksgiving Day has just ended. It was truly a wonderful and blessed day in Australia! I was worried Thanksgiving would be a bit sad this year, but my friend from America and I decided we wanted to try and celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia, even though they don't celebrate it. So, since we didn't have Thursday off of work because it is not a holiday...we celebrated today, Saturday!

The day started out crazy for me...I was a bit behind because I met with our Bishop last night, more on that bit of information on another blog entry! :) Anyway, my house was a mess, our lawn wasn't mowed and I had done NO COOKING PREPARATION. Thanks to mom, I cooked the yams, broccoli and cauliflower with cheese sauce, stuffing (they don't have stove top stuffing, it is more like bread crumbs but still tastes the same), and turkey...just kidding. They don't have many turkeys in Australia...I guess they are protected here. Anyway, I made two chickens instead! But, dinner turned out wonderful! Constance and her family brought the mashed potatoes and gravy, relish tray, drinks and homemade pumpkin pie and chocolate pie. Mom, her pumpkin pie tasted just like yours...it was great!

Anyway, we all had a wonderful day. We opened dinner with a prayer, ate and ate and ate...played the game PIT...then we all sat and watched the movie Elf to prepare for Christmas. It really was very special. And, for an added bonus, two of my neighbor girls, Gopi and Reni, joined us for the movie!! :) Our friends just left around 9 p.m. and we finished cleaning up.

I just want to thank Heavenly Father for blessing our family. Instead of this being a hard and difficult holiday, it was a blessing. We grew closer as friends and truly enjoyed our first Thanksgiving in Australia. I will forever miss not celebrating Thanksgiving with mom and dad, but this was the next best thing!

Below are some pictures from today. You know me, I must document with pictures! So, I hope you all enjoy! We love and miss you all VERY MUCH!

Love,
Kristi and the Pace Clan

The Door

Tom and Diane worked hard to install a door for Boyd and Jessica. It creates a little apartment on that side of the house. We like it so much, we may leave it even after the newly weds move out. --Dad

WEDDING!

This is Jessica typing! Well of course I would love to talk about the wedding. So this is what we have planned thus far. My colors are chocolate and rasberry and that is kind of the theme. Boyd is wearing a brown suit.. although he bought it and i think it is kind of green but whatever. THe brides maids are wearing brown a line skirts with rasberry colored tops and the grooms men are wearing chocolate brown slacks with a long sleeve button shirt and a chocolate brown tie. Annie is making my cake! three layers are going to be square and 2 are going to be circular. They are going to be covered with brown fondant with rasberry ribbon around the base. And since its christmas we are going to have a line of christmas trees with a bunch of white lights on them.. and that is what the line is going to stand in front of. We are going to serve a dessert bar with rasberry sauce and chocolate and serve hot chocolate! We are so excited. I have bought my wedding dress.. but it hasnt come in yet. Its hard to explain it but once i get a picture of it (which should be soon) ill make sure to post it. We have the major things planned and what not its just the little things we have to work on. Its to the point where i just cant wait for it to be here!! Boyd is the man of my dreams and he is going to make a wonderful husband. If anyone has any suggestions on the wedding please let me know!! we love ideas.

Jessica soon to be Bowers