Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Here's a few pictures of our Christmas holidays.  Christmas kind of snuck up on us this year, as we didn't even start thinking about Christmas plans until the week of!  Nonetheless, we had a great time not having to work for a whole week and spending time with our families.  

Kicked off the Christmas celebration with an annual tradition - dinner at

Champions Golf Club.  Thank you Grandma Dernick for inviting us!

Our fourth year taking a portrait at the entrance to dinner. 

Christmas Eve at the Kongs:
Dan and Joy spent Christmas Eve with Joy's family and had the usual Kong Christmas Eve dinner - Hot Pots.  Christmas week was super cold and gloomy this year, so the hot pots were the perfect way to warm us up.  We had too much food, as usual, and had a fun time seeing everyone.

A fun service activity - baking and decorating sugar cookies

for the Chinese Branch missionaries.  Thank you Mark Hill for 

teaching Lilian and Mama Kong how to make sugar cookies. ;) 

Dan and Mark concentrating on their cookie decorating

Giselle and Ricky showing off one of their decorated cookies

Everyone was in a cookie decorating mode

What started off as a service activity somehow evolved into a 

decorating contest.  These were the contestants:

Papa Kong was the judge, and he took his role VERY seriously, pointing out the reasons why each cookie did or did not deserve to win.  It took him over 10 minutes to declare the winners.   Can you see how nervous Ricky was?

And the winners were:  Mr and Mrs Claus in bathing suits - definitely not 

appropriate to give the missionaries.  The 2nd and 3rd runners up were:
The German (Mark) and Balding Man (Dan).  

The winners claiming their prize, right before their winning cookies

fell off their winner's plate.  

Christmas Day at the Dernicks:
After our evening with the Kongs, we drove up to the Dernicks to spend Christmas morning there.  Dan's sister and her family from Utah came down for Christmas this year, so the entire family was together.  Christmas with children is definitely a lot more exciting.  Santa did stop by, and everyone got lots of fun gifts.

First stop on Christmas morning, our stockings!

We all had fun hats to wear while opening presents.

A present for a 'Cotton Headed Ninny Mugging' from Mama and Papa Elf.

Thanks for the cool Go Pro Camera!

Grandma Dernick came over later that day for Christmas dinner - her first time meeting baby Elle.  

Preparing for Christmas dinner

The best picture we could get of everyone.

Only those who finish their dinner get a treat... looks like 'Chief' ate all his dinner!

After Christmas:

We had another family dinner (with everyone this time) at Champions.

Taking a Dernick Family picture before playing golf.  Here's Rex

getting the shot ready, and Camden watching a movie.  He wasn't 

as interested in the photography session. ;)

Off to the golf course after the photo session.  Rawson and Rex were VERY excited!  

Rawson got the hang of driving a golf cart very quickly.

Chief giving Rawson a few tips to improve his putting

Rawson showing Uncle Dan and Aunt Wiz his putting skills.

Happy Birthday Joy!

We celebrated Joy's birthday by going to her favorite restaurant - Sushi King.  Yes, the same place Dan picked for his birthday dinner.  We LOVE sushi and seem to always go there for special occasions.  We forgot to take pictures and only remembered to take one of the free dessert - fried ice-cream.  Yum!

We also celebrated Joy's birthday with the Dernicks and Kongs.  Birthday weekends are definitely not the time to count calories, as desserts are always expected and provided.  We went to another one of our favorite restaurant - Ruggles Green with the Dernicks and tried a new place - Perry's Steak House with the Kongs.  Since Joy shares the same birthday as Papa Kong, we had two birthdays to celebrate.

 Action shot of us cutting into our steaks

Kevin and Ricky also came out to celebrate with us

 

Auntie Mei-O was still here and got to celebrate Dan's, Papa Kong's

and Joy's birthdays.  She now thinks we're all gluttons in America. :)

Mama and Papa Kong 

Free desserts for the Birthday Dad and Daughter!

Isaiah or Santa Claus?

Our church bishop's family puts together a Live Nativity every year and invited Dan to participate this year.  Their Isaiah fell through last minute, and they asked Dan to fill in.  Dan took his role very seriously.  They performed the live nativity 4 times, and after every performance, Dan would discuss with me how it went and would try something different the next time.  Who would have guessed Dan would be such the actor!  

It was a great experience watching and helping out this year.  Everyone were non-professionals and yet we all felt the Christmas spirit hearing the music and watching the story of the birth of Christ.  What a great tradition to remember the TRUE meaning of Christmas.  We're so glad to have participated in it this year.  

One funny side note: Dan's Isaiah costume included a big white beard, with white hair, and a red robe - to make him look like an authentic old man.  Before the performance started, we took a quick picture by the stable and heard some little kids from afar screaming, "Dad, Is that Santa over there?  It's SANTA!"  Why of course!  Isn't that how Santa Claus ties into the Christmas story?  Kids are funny.  ;)

Action shots of Dan during the Live Nativity.

Here's when the Santa sighting occurred.  This Santa is kind of skinny, huh? :)

The entire Live Nativity cast.  Isaiah (aka Santa) is in the back inside the stable.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We decided to do Thanksgiving a little differently from last year.  Instead of splitting the day with both the Dernicks and Kongs, which is what we did last year, we thought it would be better to rotate spending Thanksgiving with our family each year.  This way, instead of barely seeing everyone and rushing to and from both families; we could actually spend time helping and enjoying our meals.  Since Dan's sister and her family weren't coming down for Thanksgiving this year, we followed her schedule and spent Thanksgiving Day with the Kongs.  Kong Thanksgivings are VERY big with LOTS of people.  We had over 70 people this year!  The more the merrier, right?  It was a lot of work, but definitely well worth it.

We had a bi-cultural Thanksgiving meal.  Dan and Joy (along with Lilian and our 'American' friends) were in charge of the American foods, while Mama and Papa Kong (along with our 'Chinese' friends) took care of the Chinese foods.  Dan had the most important job - frying two turkeys.  Nobody (other than Dan and Joy) had tasted a fried turkey before, so expectations were high.  We told everyone, and everyone in Texas agrees, it is the best kind of turkey.  We had a few hiccups that morning - mainly that our turkey fryer (which we just purchased brand new) didn't work.  Luckily, after trying multiple stores, Walmart was open and we found a turkey fryer.  Dan was able to fry the turkeys, and they were a HUGE success.  For the first time ever at a Kong Thanksgiving party, there were no leftover turkey!  Chinese people don't usually like white meat, especially turkey, so Dan was quite the hero.  It was a great start to the turkey frying tradition, but we now have very high expectations for the future!

Started off the day with family pictures for this year's Kong family Christmas cards.

After pictures were done, it was off to work!  Here is our first attempt
at preparing the turkey for frying. 

We were very proud of our accomplishment already. 

Discussing safety and strategy before frying our turkey.

Posing for a quick picture before implementing our strategy.  

Yes, we know Dan looks like a Home Depot guy in these pictures. :)

Success!  We didn't burn down the house AND the turkey is cooked.

The very crispy and very juicy fried turkeys.

Now, this is what we call a feast!

Our 'American' friends who joined us for Thanksgiving.