What a Christmas!

We had a great time this Christmas with Ryan, Casey and the girls, and wish we had taken more photographs. Here is Chloe descending the staircase with her new Christmas dress. Do you get a sense of the 20-foot ceiling? This angle really dwarfs the Christmas tree in the background.

This shot shows Chloe lounging in a pool of bubbles in the master bath. I can't imagine anyone not wanting to lounge in the luxurious tub at the end of a long workday!

We had a wonderful time, and wish we could have spent time with all of you. Is it too early to start planning a big reunion Christmas for next year?

Love you all! Mom and Dad

Happy Birthday Nora!!

We hope the Birthday Bird brought you plenty of books and donuts to enjoy on your birthday! We love and miss you so much!

Mom books

Saw this article on NPR and thought of our teen-book loving mom. Need ideas for a Christmas gift for mom? I think a nice teen novel always makes her happy! :)

Miss you all so much, especially because it is Thanksgiving day! I'm so sad that I won't be eating turkey and pie with my family!

Someone was going to post this earlier, but never did. Not sure who it was...

It was fun for me because I recognized many of these processes, because I worked them or around them.

"I saw this article in the Chicago tribune and thought I would share...

General Motors invited Cars.com editor Kelsey Mays and photographer Ian Merritt to its Fort Wayne Assembly plant off Interstate 69 in Roanoke, Indiana. Here they watch a GMC Sierra pickup truck come together."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/chi-gmc-sierra-assembly-102110,0,3558724.photogallery?index=chi-gmc-sierra-assembly-d

Christmas Time!

Christmas is coming people, and we have to get on the ball! It is time to figure out the exchange!

According to the blog, this is what we did last year.

Ryan/Casey give to Margie/Brandon

Margie/Brandon give to Betsey/Richard

Betsey/Richard give to Edward/Meridth

Edward/Meridth give to Karl/Emily

Karl/Emily give to Ryan/Casey

So, I'm shifting everything up this year. So, here we go.

Ryan/Casey give to Betsey/Richard

Margie/Brandon give to Edward/Merdith

Betsey/Richard give to Karl/Emily

Edward/Meridth give to Ryan/Casey

Karl/Emily give to Margie/Brandon

How does that look? Let me know if there are any problems

Thank you for the Birthday Post Aunt Betsey!!!!

Love and miss you.

Amazing Ashley

Happy Birthday to our dear Ashley! Your birthday was great here in Hong Kong, I hope it is great for you in Utah! XOXOXOXOXO

Starting off with a little vintage Ashley.

Look at these two cute girls!

From our last visit to Utah. I like that Ryan is eating Nora's head. She does taste delicious.

We LOVE you Ashley! You are brave, smart, funny, talented and kind. Enjoy this year!

Early Birthday Wishes

Time zone differences make this only a couple of hours early, but I want to wish Richard a very happy 31st birthday. This Far East family will just be getting ready for bed when this is posted, while the rest of us will be getting up and going for the day. What will you do to celebrate Richard? I hope Betsey can find a place that has donuts for your visit from the Birthday Bird!

There may not be a home-baked birthday cake (no oven!) but I hope you can blow out some candles one way or another. We will eat some cake in your honor.

By the way, the Weather Channel is talking about Typhoon Megi that just ripped through the Philippines. I sure hope it doesn't have any impact for you this week. We'll be keeping you all in our prayers.

Love from Grandma Claudia and Grandpa Ed

Betsey's Oriental Birthday

Right now in Hong Kong it is 9:00 in the morning on October 4th, and Betsey is officially 31, even though here it is still October 3rd.

She says they celebrated Saturday by going to Disneyworld, there in Hong Kong, and when Richard gave her a card a short time ago, Nora said, "you already had your birthday". Isn't she a smart little girl.

Anyway, we are happy to celebrate with you across the miles, Betsey, and we hope your day is wonderful. (We hope Richard's first day of work is wonderful, too).

All our love,

the Decatur Gimbels

New Temple in Indianapolis!

Okay my family, this is exciting stuff! Maybe just for a few of us, but I was thrilled to hear that they are going to build a LDS temple in Indianapolis, Indiana! This is a great blessing for the people of Indiana and for our family! I love the temple and am excited to have on a little closer when I visit Indiana. Yeah!

Thirty-seven Years

At 7:00 in the evening, thirty-seven years ago, Edward and I were married in Austin, Minnesota. It's hard to believe that many years have gone by. I can remember celebrating our first anniversary. Your dad bought me an ironing board, and a big metal bowl for mixing up homemade bread. I no longer have the ironing board. It broke ages and eons ago, and I now have two--a little built-in-cupboard one that Ed uses, and a larger stand-alone board that I use (albeit less frequently!). I still have the aluminum bowl, and since I seldom make homemade bread anymore, I use it most frequently to mix up the apples for apple pie and for mixing the stuffing for Thanksgiving. Sometimes I use it for salads if I'm taking a salad to a carry-in dinner because it holds a lot, and I can feed more people.

For our second anniversary, we took our friends, Gary and Sally McDougall, out to dinner at the top of the John Hancock building in Chicago. At the time, our dinner tab was over $100. I wonder what that would be in today's dollars. Weren't we the big shots!

Please don't worry that I'm going to list our activities for all the anniversaries. I just wanted to mention the first two, and then tell you what Ed and I did after work today. We went to the Granite City restaurant in Fort Wayne with several of our dear friends, and enjoyed a lovely evening al fresco. It really was a perfect night. I wish I could have shared it with you all!

Anyway, no pictures. You'll have to imagine what Ed and I looked like in 1973, him in his cute bowtie, and me in my homemade wedding dress.

Pictures from Sammy's wedding

Some fun ones... I don't know about the jumping thing or the casually walking down the road thing, but whatever.

Testing new flip video

Mom got a flip video. What are the odds she actually uses it?

Labor Day Weekend

I am sitting around today on my day off, doing laundry / getting ready for a trip to Decatur tomorrow, and I am so excited! I always have so much fun when we drive up to visit. Honestly this time I'm more sad than excited, this will be the last Betsey&co visit before they leave for HK and that's seriously heartbreaking. I am going to miss our terrible movie nights and overindulging SO much. Anyway I was thinking what things we should do this weekend, and obviously food was the major focus. I wish Margie was coming so I could try those delicious looking pizzas she made (or stuffed shells, or breakfast casserole)... Recently Karl's been on a pancake kick at our favorite restaurant Farm because he likes the lemon syrup they serve with them and yesterday a blog I read posted THIS recipe for Lemon Ricotta Pancakes and I thought it was very serendipitous. Don't they look delicious?
So maybe we can make some of those this weekend... But even as good as those look I don't know if anyone would pick a different pancake over Claudia's homemade buttercakes.

As I'm writing this I am watching Rachel Zoe, and they're talking about Fleetwood Mac and I have to post about it because I had forgotten how good they are. It's nice to be reminded:






Another thing Karl and I are doing this Labor Day weekend is going to see Vampire Weekend in concert. I am a little more excited about the opening act Beach House:




And now that I listen to them back to back, I think Beach House's lead Singer sounds kind of like Stevie Nicks!


Well that's what we're up to this Labor Day weekend, how are the Utah & NC Gimbels spending their 3 day weekend??

Happy Birthday, Chloe!

A little belated, but we're hoping you had the best day ever, Chloe! We love you!