Thanksgiving before Christmas

So I am definitely a "let's celebrate Thanksgiving before we get to Christmas" kind of girl. We had a fantastic Thanksgiving that I want to remember here. As we are doing SO MANY fun things for Christmas right now that I want to post, I thought I should first document Thanksgiving. Clearly, I neglected the blog the whole month of November :)

Ben and I traveled to New Orleans to spend the whole week of Thanksgiving with my family. It was nice because we had not seen any of them since Christmas, almost a year. I miss my family, especially my two sweet nieces who are getting too old, too quick! I think I was there for all of 30 seconds when they suckered me into to jumping on the trampoline. Life where I grew up is so different from our lives right now. Not better or worse, just completely different. So it was nice to be in wide open spaces, in a house with no internet, a yard full of trees and a kitchen full of cajun food....all with my crazy family! Here are some pictures along the way...

*After Thanksgiving, we let them open presents since we wouldn't see them for Christmas

I didn't manage to get any pictures but I also got to spend time with one of my oldest childhood friends and meet her precious baby boy. Ben and I were spoiled when some of best friends drove several hours in the rain to have dinner with us :) A week well spent with those we love.

We have SO SO much to be thankful for. We have experienced SO much this year and people in our lives have been so generous with us. We are grateful for the lives we are living and for everyone who plays a part in them. Thank you!

Now bring on Christmas!!!

Chicken that will change your life...

I LOVE to cook. I really do. It's a stress reliever for me. There is just something about making a mess in the kitchen that makes me really happy.

I rarely blog recipes - mostly because I feel like my cooking is pretty ordinary. However, I came upon this chicken recipe on Pinterest and I had to share. It has changed our lives... maybe it can change yours too :) It's good, super easy and makes meals for days!

Step #1 - Mix 1 bottle of BBQ sauce, 1TBS of garlic powder & 1 TBS of crushed red pepper

Step #2 - Put frozen (yes frozen) chicken in the crockpot. Three or Four pieces

Step #3 - Pour BBQ mixture over chicken and turn on low for 5 hours

Step #4 - It's cooked :) - You can stop here and serve with sides OR .....

Step #5 - Shred the chicken with a knife and fork

Step #6 - Makes 8 BBQ Chicken Sandwiches :)

**This is the part that changed our lives. Ben was tired of taking turkey sandwiches to work. I made these bags and put them in the fridge. Every morning for a week, we grab a bag of chicken and a bun and just heat it up at work. One of the main reasons we eat out is because we don't make time to make lunch. Now, I make this on a Sunday night and we have lunch for the entire week!!! *It freezes well also :)

Baptism

Recently, Epic held it's 3rd Baptism celebration! It was so much fun as 4 more people from our community of faith decided to be baptized.

A couple from our Epic Group were baptized that night. There is something special about seeing a husband and wife follow God together in this way. I was overjoyed to witness this defining moment with them!

Tour The 543 :)

Ben Pilgreen made this video recently of our new facility! Click on the link below to check it out.

http://www.vimeo.com/30047806

Lindsey :)

Camping Adventures :)

Recently, Ben and I kept all three of the Pilgreen boys overnight. Ben P. and Shauna were at a wedding in Sonoma for a couple from Epic. Ben performed the ceremony.

We decided to make their stay an adventure!

It was just me and Asher on Friday while Elijah and Sam were at school. We spent the morning playing baseball and reading books. I got a call from a friend who I needed to meet up with to pick up some tickets. She works at AT&T park and said we could stop by. While we were there, she gave us a private tour of the ballpark! Asher is a HUGE Giants fan so it was a ton of fun :)

*This is us down by the field behind home plate

*Asher got to see the World Series ring up close & we left with a TON of treats

It was SUCH a fun start to the day!! We headed to pick the boys up from school. It was a sunny day so we decided to go swimming for a little bit. Sun can be rare at times so I thought we would take advantage of it.

After swimming the big adventure of the weekend began - CAMPING!! ....well sort of :) We thought it would be fun to "camp" out on our patio for the night. Shauna rented a tent and I got stuff to make s'mores . Putting up the tent was tougher than it looks. And yes...that is an air mattress you see. Me, Asher and Sam started out in the tent watching movies and playing games. At 9:30, Asher asked if we could go inside so we did. Ben and Elijah came out and stayed the night in the tent with Sam. **Funny story - I didn't want to sleep with the patio door unlocked so I locked the door and told Ben to call me if they needed anything. At 5:30am, Ben texted because they needed to use the restroom. After that they decided to stay in! It was such a fun time and an adventure for sure :)