Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving day was a wonderful day in the Gardner household! With friends and Karen to celebrate with, we had a great feast complete with pecan pie! Not Mississippi Delta pecans....but they did just fine. Turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes and green beans filled the table and we were so grateful for the fellowship, food and something American to celebrate!

Before Thanksgiving day, we were told that there was a turkey purchased for us from the U.S. commissary, a Butterball! A family from the school, their son is on the soccer team, bought us our turkey....thank you God! Well, we had a great time and thought we'd post some pictures of the day. It is different to celebrate your holiday in another country, but fun to have the day off when no one else did.

Blessings to you all and we pray your days are filled with good gifts from Our Lord.

Fall Sports Banquet

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, the VCS fall sports banquet was held at the school to honor the students. We had a great dinner and then all the coaches were able to award their teams with certificates and say a word or two about each one. Thomas and his fellow coach Phil really love the team and had a great time hanging out and presenting the awards. Afterwards, the team gave them some fun sports t-shirts with all their signatures on the back. And so, this officially closes the chapter on soccer for the year.....but if Thomas has anything to do with it, I'm sure we'll be back with more updates on the team. :)

Having Fun with Mom!

We are having a wonderful time with my mom! Her visit has been just the pick me up we needed and so good to see a familiar face from home! Of course Thad is enjoying himself thoroughly and loves the fact that "KK" is sleeping in his room. Here are some pictures of her time here and we hope to have tons more fun and fellowship in the next two weeks. As Thanksgiving approaches, we are very aware of our blessings and we are truly thankful to have Karen here to celebrate with us!

Trying on KK's shoes!

Karen at the Naschmarkt

Getting tickled by KK

Eating out in the downtown area in an old underground restaurant

Think they're having fun?

Ein Mehr Kind

If you don't speak German, that means "One more child." Yep...Gardner child number 2 is on the way. Mollie went to the doctor last week and she is currently 12 weeks along. Mollie has had a real struggle with morning sickness so please keep her in your prayers. Now the news is official since it's on the blog!

Hollywood Nights Dance

Friday Night was the VCS Student Council Dance. This is only the third year that the kids have been able to have dances and so they really enjoyed themselves. The theme was Hollywood Nights and so Thomas and another teacher were drafted to be the paparazzi. The kids really enjoyed being treated like celebrities and I think Thomas gave them a good lesson about how annoying the paparazzi can be.


After some of the dance experiences that I had in high school as a student and teacher let me just say how refreshing it was to go to a dance where the kids were really there to have fun with each other. It was nice as a chaperone to just be able to sit back and have fun without having to police the way kids danced or look for inappropriate things they may have tried to bring with them. We are really blessed to be able to get the kids together to fellowship with each other outside of a classroom setting and have them be so eager to participate!

Our little monster!

Well, we went to a costume party on the 31st and this is the little monster we took with us! He has scars on his face to complete his little outfit. We thought he was cute and quite the life of the party.....or so he thought!

On another note, it snowed today! Just some flurries that came down real thick at one point and light at other times. But Thad just loved it and couldn't stop saying, "noh, noh" for snow. :)