Festival of Lights

I was scolded for not updating my blog lately. I'm so sorry to my lady friends who just cannot live a day without knowing what is going on in the life of Brook! heehee.... so this will be the start of several blog posts that I need to do but also need to find the time to be able to do it.

The Grotto

Downtown Portland somewhere.....

The Girls

A group of our Young Women from church and the girls from the Lutheran church across the street from our church went on a combined outing to Vancouver. We stopped at at church building that had set up their gymnasium, plus several side rooms with over 800 Nativity sets. It was amazing! All different types of Nativities from around the World. They all had one thing in common however, even if you had to interpret what the pieces were (like this one made of rock formations....it was a little odd...remember that one Rene? lol) Anyway, the commonality of them all was of course Baby Jesus. There was even a Nativity carved into an Ostrich Egg. Crazy!

After the church, we went to a yummy buffet called Sweet Tomatoes. It had great salad, pasta, baked potatoes, and soup. Very clean, I'm always skeptical about buffets, but it was really good.

After we ate, we went to The Grotto. It is the Catholic Church that has a Festival of Lights every year. These pics were all taken there. I kind of forgot I had my camera with me....I know....duh!

Some more girls

(sorry I can only name Tess (in glasses) and Raelene (in green))

Brook (me) & Tate

Tate and I in front of the Nativity. We were buds for the night! I'm really hoping she will be able to come to Hawaii with us to give us a helping hand with the three little ones.....

A blurry pic of some of the lights

The Nativity

It was a really fun evening. It was a really great way for the two groups of girls who a lot of them are friends at school or play sports together, to really bond outside of those things. It was also a great way to bring to different religious groups together to just show that we are all united in at least one belief and that is the belief in our Savior, Jesus Christ.

I hope we get to go again next year.