The Christmas banquet took place on Saturday. It was a sold out evening. This is one of the biggest highlights of the year. This also happens to be one of the only "date" nights allowed. As a result, it becomes quite the affair. Some of the girls dorms spend the day doing a "spa day" just to get ready for it. Everyone is in formal wear...the guys in suits and ties, the girls in formal gowns. I've never seen our guys look so good! All the guys who have dates arrive at the school about a half hour early so they are ready to recieve their dates and give them their flowers. They stand outside in the cold waiting for the arrival of the girl dorm vans. They were served hot apple cider while they waited. Most of the grade 8's are servers for the evening. The evening is catered and all is by candlelight. There is a program that follows the dinner. It was such a beautiful night.




Tiera and some of her friends.





























All the guys in the picture are the seniors in our dorm.


The dorm guys...none of our middle schoolers are here.


















Tiera and her date, Roy





















Jake and his date, Christine.

Dorm Life...

Thursday, Nov 17th was our dorm Thanksgiving celebrations. All the dorms celebrated this day. The central kitchen made the main meal and we cooked the turkeys and provided dessert. Rachels family came and made hot rolls which were a huge hit with everyone. I was rather worried about cooking the turkeys as my (together with Connie) previous adventures with turkey have proven ...well...let's just say disastrous. We usually get turkeys that never cook. Literally we'll have them in the oven for 2 hours past the time that it says it should be done and we're still waiting for the bird to cook! BUT...I am pleased to say that our 4 birds turned out perfect, only they were ready 1 1/2 hours early! Couldn't believe how well the oven worked. They were golden brown and delicious. We were a little hesitant when washing out the birds as Mark discovered the lungs & something else still attatched. Rather gross, but after some disecting, the turkeys looked normal.



















Cyndy...very happy that the turkey turned out...even though I don't look very happy...I really am thrilled!


One thing that we have missed is pumpkin pie filling. There are pumpkins, but making it from scratch doesn't taste the same. We ended up getting black forest cakes and tiramissu. All of our volunteers and their families were invited to join us and so we had about 60 people.