Somos Gratos Por ...

todos nossos amigos! We miss all of our wonderful friends! Luckily we have made many great new relationships here. I wish I had more pictures of all the wonderful friends we have made here. But I definitely couldn't let the month of gratitude go by with out giving all of our buddies a shout out.

Tricia & Chase Campbell (see their very clever Halloween costume below!) live one street away from us. Chase & I apparently went to the same junior high. It is funny to reminisce over Miss Thompson falling asleep during math class. Tricia is a cousin of my beloved BFF Tara Phelps Huish...so I knew we would be great friends fast. Callin really loves both of them and gets so excited when I tell him we are going to go on a walk to Tricia's house. He says, "T-see" the whole way over. Up next, the Low's. Clarke and Doug have just about everything in common minus the twin brother thing. As soon as I found out that Anna is a fan of natural childbirth and midwives I knew it was love at first sight! We introduced Anna and Clarke to Settlers and now they can't stop 'making' us playing it! We are keeping very close track of the winners. Results to date: Clarke -2, Doug-2, Annie-1, Chase -2. Seven games in 2 weeks can get REALLY intense! (Don't be fooled, the med boys do work really hard and we don't normally have this much down time. Most games occurred during last weeks 5 day break.)
They are very skilled at constructing tall towers out of roads, settlements, and cities.

And I officially HATE my fuzzy camera...do you hear that Santa Baby!

Cal also loves Buddy Grant. We are praying Cal grows up to be just like him.

I am grateful for

a 5 day week with Doug!

I was supposed to be home 30 minutes ago to swap Doug babysitting so he could play ward basketball tonight. As I walked in the door he said, "It is hard to love you when you are so late!" So I figure if I praise him to the mountain top he might forgive me! Here is my attempt to earn back the heart of Doug Lewis.

After passing his exams Monday and Tuesday with flying colors, I had Doug all to myself to enjoy for the rest of the week! We enjoyed taking Cal to the zoo for his first time w/ the Low's.

Cal thoroughly enjoyed brushing the goats until it ran away from him after he started hitting the goat. First merry-go-round adventure.

Doug worked for 2 days on our fences in the backyard before our neighbor came running out to tell us that her insurance said they would cover our side too!

Sorry to Clarke and Chase for their wasted service!

One of my favorite highlights of the 5 days was when Doug announced that he wanted to make Sunday dinner! He looked through my recipe books, picked a Basil Chicken in a Coconut-Curry, grocery shopped for the hard to find ingredients (and only called me 4 times from the store), and cooked up a FABULOUS meal for me. He thinks he wants to start a new fast Sunday tradition! (I happily accepted!)

This recipe called for 13 different spices. It was no easy feat.

Doug is really doing such a wonderful job balancing school and Cal and I. I am amazed at how much he gets done in 1 day. He is so happy all the time and is optimistic about everything. I love you honey! How did I do...

Trick or Treat

We had a great 1st year med student Halloween party at our house Halloween Eve. I can't say enough about the WONDERFUL friends we have made here.

Doug planned our costumes this year. I am a med student and he is my cadaver. Note the knife in my hand. (His 2 'musts' during the planning stages were face paint and spandex pants. Okay, he didn't say the spandex part, but he has proudly worn them two years in a row now...)

I think he should audition for The Blue Man Group.

We proudly announce our pumpkin (2nd from left) took the first place price!
The Low's (1st on left) took first place costume with their golfer and tee number. Love the golf ball at the top of the white wig. Nemo really got the hang of grabbing handfuls of candy and filling up his bag.

We ended the night by playing our 5th game of Settlers that week. (I won!) More details later!

The Rest of the Trip

After the short 2 days in Dallas, we were lucky enough to host Doug's family for 2 days here in Houston. We had a great time at the NASA Space Center.

A tribute to my wonderful mother-in-law:
I am going to be posting "Thankful Posts" of all the many things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving month. To start off I want to say how lucky I am for my second mom. Not only did she have the endurance and patience to 'mother' my sweet Doug for so many years, but she has the energy and drive of 10 women combined. Isn't she beautiful!She whipped these beautiful curtains up for me in a blink of an eye. I love them!!

She has taught me many things in the few 4 years I have been a member of the Lewis family. I am excited for the years to come.

The Sad Game

Boy were we decked out to win the BYU vs TCU game in Dallas! Instead it was an embarrassing loss. It was a great memory though...

Thanks for the tickets Dad!
Thanks for the the BYU apparel Grandma Lewis!
Thanks for excellent service at The Reber Inn!
Thanks to Lauren's wonderful neighbor, Shawna who babysat!

Family Fun!

The highlight of October was definitely getting to spend time with Lewis family. I'll do a couple posts of the trip.

It was so wonderful to see Doug's brother Kelvin HERE IN THE UNITED STATES! He was so cute. (His behavior is MUCH improved from the days of him running away from us in Mozambique because we were NOT having "galinha" or chicken- his favorite, for dinner!) Cal especially liked to pull his hair!

Visiting the Pumpkin Patch

Callin had eyes of adoration for Uncle Eddie!

A Love Letter

Dear Mr. Lewis,

I know you have been quite busy these days, but at least you do find time to check the blog quite regularly. I thought I would drop you a line... I took a photo shoot last night all by myself. A little dorky, yes. Here are the results. And since it has been 2 days and you still haven't noticed, I will just go ahead and tell you that I got my hair cut and colored. What yo do think?

Yours Truly,
Miss Annie
(That is what my preschool kids call me unless you are talking about Tayt who calls me 'Annie Lewis' 30 times a day, every single time!)