Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and a Merry Christmas! We celebrated our first Thanksgiving together with Lauren's Dad and with Win. Lauren's Dad drove a van from Nashville filled with our stuff, including our kitchen table! It's the table Dee's family ate at when he was growing up (which makes it special), and it's SO nice to finally have a table where we can sit down and enjoy our meals together. We all had a fabulous time watching movies, playing games, and just spending quality time together over the break. Our Thanksgiving meal was a success as well, complete with turkey, Dee's mashed potatoes, Lauren's sweet potatoes, homemade applesauce, stuffing, and more (cooking so much in such a small kitchen required some serious planning). We watched the Macy's Parade, saw the Cowboys play (they're 10-1), and ended our Thanksgiving with Love Actually. We have so much to be thankful for this year, and spending time with family was the perfect way to celebrate and kick off the Christmas season.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

On Friday, November 9th, we saw the most amazing show EVER! We only found out a few days earlier that the Trans-Siberian Orchestra was coming to Portland, and we said multiple times throughout the week, "Man, I wish we could go to that show ..." On Friday morning, I (Dee) decided that enough was enough, and after a quick visit to Ticketmaster.com, the tickets were ours!

For those of you who don't know who Trans-Siberian Orchestra is, let me explain that they are not an orchestra in the traditional sense. Comprised of about 60 musicians (touring in two separate groups), this band contains an amazing blend of vocalists, electric guitars, pianos, electric violins, and various classical stringed instruments. Best known for their Christmas albums, this group puts on the most amazing live shows imaginable. Click here to experience some of their music (we recommend listening to "Christmas Eve in Sarajevo").

The 90-minute first half of the show was a Christmas story told through music and narration. More specifically, this Christmas story was their first album, "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" played almost in its entirety. This is easily their best album and still the band's top-seller. After that was done, they played various tunes from their other albums, and ended with a rock-awesome rendition of "Carol of the Bells." We've been fans of their music for some time, but seeing them live was so much more phenomenal than we ever thought it would be. The lighting was unbelievable; complex laser lights constantly flashed to the beats of the music. During one song, it snowed ... indoors. Throughout the performance, various parts of the Civic Center auditorium burst into flames. It was a true Christmas spectacular, and we couldn't have had a more fun kick-off to our first Christmas together!

If you have any opportunity at all to see them, we highly recommend doing so. Click here for a complete list of tour dates and locations.