The Gessaman Fam at Thanksgiving

A few pics of our Thanksgiving day with my immediate family...

Yummy food!

Adam and I having fun taking pictures of each other through a pitcher. He was teaching me about Digital SLRs.

Us on Thanksgiving.

Our family on Thanksgiving! Only person missing is Jordan's girlfriend, Kylie!

A little preview...

I just want to give a little preview of our Christmas card... at least the outside. :) We are quite pleased with them... our first Shutterfly Christmas card and I am in love with their designs! Can't wait to get them and send them out.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

With Love Blue Christmas 5x7 folded card

Shop Shutterfly for elegant custom Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Thanksgiving Snowball Fight

A happy (and snowy) Thanksgiving from Chet and Brianne!

November Snow!

While our new window was getting put in, Chet and I got to enjoy a stay at home day in the snow! Thankfully, neither of us had to work because traffic ended up being a nightmare as ice and snow caused accidents and cars slipping all over the road. We just cleaned our office, took pics of the snow and watched the progress on our window. It was such a lovely day!

We had almost 4 inches of snow by that night! And then temps dipped into the teens so everything has stayed nicely frozen for the last couple days.

Yesterday, we had a beautiful sunny day in the teens and twenties. Perfect for taking pictures and enjoying the snow fall. Roads were icy but fewer people were on the roads so I even headed out for a few errands.

What a treat to get to enjoy a few snowy days at home in a warm, cozy house with my hubby!

New Window!

On Monday, we got a new window! Chet and I have decided that we are now such grownups when we get really excited over something like a window! We are both thrilled though to get rid of the one last aluminum framed windows in our house.

When we bought our house, every window in the house had been updated except for the one in the second bedroom. Also, the trim had been updated in every room except that one. Why? We have no clue.

This is the window as it was before we replaced it.

So, since eventually this will be where we put our baby/children, we wanted to get a nice new window of good quality to keep out the drafts, the noise and be very safe. So we got one Penguin window... and had them install it in the middle of a snow storm. Good timing, eh?

The window was just begging to be replaced!

Our new window from the outside!

The new window from the inside with beautiful trim done to match the rest of the trim in our house. What a difference! I feel like our house grew up a little bit too with the new window.

Not that I have to, but I'm going to put in a plug for Penguin windows... I swear these are the best designed windows every, very energy efficient and the crew did an amazing job putting them in. They were so respectful as they installed it, keeping everything clean and following our wishes exactly. We'll definitely use them again in the future if we decide to replace more windows.

Getting ready for the holidays!

As we are heading rapidly toward Thanksgiving and the end of November, I've started thinking about holiday preparations! Christmas lists, travel plans and decorating the house are hot topics between me and Chet right now. We have yet to start listening to Christmas music or start decorating (I prefer to wait till after Thanksgiving!), but some plans have to start in November... like Christmas cards!

Today as I was looking at Christmas cards online, I happened across this amazing offer on the Shutterfly blog. I have always loved all the amazing books, cards and other photo gifts that Shutterfly offers... and really want to use one of their designs this year! Here are just a few of my favorites... which one do you like best?

I love how this one sums up the sentiments of the season... peace, love and joy. And we could use two different photos of us!

This one is a bit different... I like the simplicity of the green and black. I do love the color green! :)

This design is one of the more unique ones that I've seen. I like how the photo is the main part of the card with the design overlaying it.

I think that the only thing that I wish came with the cards are the adorable children on them! Oh well... maybe in a few years we'll have our own to put on our Christmas card!

Check our the other Christmas cards on Shutterfly! Maybe you'll see something you'd like to use this season also. If you don't like Christmas cards, they also have cool calendars that you can personalize with your own photos. We've done this for grandparents in the past and they love looking at all the different photos of their family throughout the year!

Are you ready to start thinking about the holidays too? Want to try these adorable Shutteryfly cards this year? Shutterfly is offering bloggers 50 free holiday cards absolutely free!

El Salvador!

Last week, we had the great blessing of getting to head down to El Salvador to serve people on a medical mission trip through our church. Ten of us (3 nurses, 1 doctor and rest with a multitude of talents). We did 4 clinics throughout the week at different locations... saw over 500 people... and saw 69 people accept Christ. Though it was only a week long trip, it was an amazing time of caring for people medically in order to bring them in to be encouraged and drawn to Jesus. Each person on the team used their unique gifts to welcome people, care for people, and pray over people. I was impressed by how, though the team is different than the one last year, it was perfectly formed for this year. I also loved the fact that Chet and I finally had the chance to both use our skills as nurses on a trip like this... together!!! I look forward to more opportunities like this as we are both certainly drawn to doing this again in the future. I love how relationships grow when people (or spouses) serve together! Oh... and it would have been pretty hard to come home and be able to adequately explain the experience.

We went down through an Assemblies of God organization called King's Castle... quite the amazing campus where Master's Commission students (post high school age kids with a desire to learn in order to go into missions), mission teams, and other people are passionately serving the people of El Salvador. Of course, being a country with lots of gang involvement, there is a nice secure wall and guards keeping us safe... as is common in many places in El Salvador. We stayed in dormitory style rooms for the week (boys and girls separate) and enjoyed the beautiful grounds. Apparently it was a "cold spell" while we were there... it was in the upper 60s and windy at time despite the sun shining the whole time!

One of the resident monkeys.

Laura, Chet, myself and Mary down by the lake... soon after we got there.

The gate into the King's Castle compound.

View up toward the boy's dorm... and the hills.

Horses roam around... literally roam, eating garbage and chasing folks!

Myself and Leyra, one of our Master's Commission students for the week.

After a weekend of sorting pills, going to church and settling in, we took off on Monday for our first clinic. It was at a small church, up a winding road. Mira Flores seemed to be a caring community and we saw about 125 people that day. Chet quickly became the official giver of the injections (mostly vitamin B12 for the elderly) and I got to learn about seeing patients. First day I did more collaborating with Dr. Ed (since I didn't have an interpreter) and then, the rest of the week, I did get to see some patients each day. I think total Chet gave about 75 shots... all the little old ladies told him "God bless" and what a nice job he did after. I have a talented hubby!

The pharmacy... with Ed and Chet.

One sweet little boy who was sick and wouldn't wake up at first... we were a bit worried and then he started to look fine. Adorable, eh?

The next day, we did a clinic at King's Castle... to see people who live in the area. There is a weekly clinic for those with chronic health issues as well as some more acute issues, but the larger clinics are an opportunity for more people to be seen. Lots medicines we take for granted like Tylenol, Motrin, vitamins and more are in high demand as well as antibiotics and chronic medications. Emily, the 12 year old daughter of the missionaries we were working with (Tim and Pam), interpreted for me... she is a rock star!

After seeing patients, we decided to "swing" down to the lake... and fly off the trapeze into the water! I did it twice and it was great! I thought it would be much more scary than it was... and the water was actually quite warm despite how deep it was! Chet also went off once (though I was a bit paranoid since I didn't want any foreign lake water to go up his broken sinus and cause a weird infection).


The following day, we packed up the bus again and headed to the tent church... after a pit stop for a photo shoot at a view point. :)

Josh, Dr. Boris and Santos looking pretty cool...

At the tent church, a 16 year old boy with a septic hip who couldn't walk and was in intense pain received care and prayer. Pray for Kevin's healing as his family can't afford any other medical care...

I saw patients all day this day! It was great! Maybe I really can be a PNP!

The final day of clinics was in a poorer area called Las Delicias. We saw 151 people that day... including a huge amount of children! What a busy day but I know that some of the kids were very blessed by the care provided by each part of the team.

Ed drew pictures for all the kids...

I saw patients for the morning...

This was the appearance of the village as we walked to the church.

Our last day was actually a free day where we experienced a bit of culture and explored a bit.

We went to some Maya ruins where we discovered that historical site tour guides are similar in any culture or language...

Very old Mayan ruins...

Ate lunch at a little shop with a beautiful back garden... best surprise of the trip! Both our meals together cost $2.23... and it was very tasty!

Everyone decided we found the best place to eat that day...

Chet got his second $0.50 coconut of the day... he loves coconut water!

Lychee and coconut... yum...

Then we drove through the hills and the coffee plants on our way back... did you know that people only get paid $1 for 20-25 pounds of coffee? It is important to know where your coffee comes from!

Beautiful scenery....

That night at the farewell, we posed with both of our Master's Commission students... Leyra and Obed. They are both wonderful and such blessings to our whole team!

We loved our time with Tim and Pam, our missionary hosts; Dr. Boris, the most amazing doctor ever; Leyra and Obed, our Master's Commission students; and our whole team from All Saints. What amazing people of God and I know that we learned something from each and every one of them. We had great depth of conversations, fun and laughter and many memories... the only disappointment was that the trip wasn't longer!