thanksgiving with friends

My heart has much to be thankful for this year: rest in Jesus, being married to my favorite person, a healthy baby growing in my belly (and kicking... a lot), wonderful family and friends, etc. I always think it's funny how the traditional American Thanksgiving story goes with the Pilgrims and Native Americans... I've been reading some lately, and I just think it's funny. I won't go into the why, as the whole point of this post is to share part of our lives with you all. So here it goes.

For the past 3 years, approximately once each semester, we (along with our some of our church friends) host a dinner with our international friends. We usually have this dinner around different American holidays. I think we've done Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's, & Easter in the past, though we usually stick to Thanksgiving and Easter now! There are lots of international students in our Lubbock life, and they jump at the opportunity to share in life with us. We love sharing our home, friends, and resources in this way. We have had dinners from 25-80 people, though we have landed at a more comfortable 30-40 people dinner at recent dinners (which is very good). At some point, I think I jokingly suggested that we call this bi-annual event "International Love Dinner." Of course, the name stuck. So without further ado, here are a few pictures from International Love Dinner- Thanksgiving 2011!

You can click on the collage to get a better view.

P.S. That is my first turkey to cook by myself, and it was delicious. Way to go, Reynolds Oven Bags!